Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

I am delighted to hear about the good news for St John’s. I am sure that the Minister for Early Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), and I will receive lots of invitations to visit fantastic breakfast clubs across our country. We will do our best to service those invitations, but with more than 750, it might be a bit of a stretch. We will try our very best. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) is right to identify the need to develop learning and understanding about what works across the early adopters. That is why the schools taking part in this pilot cover a range of settings and serve communities with a range of different needs—both rural and urban—and of different kinds, so that we can ensure a fully representative sample ahead of full roll-out.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for her statement. As a child brought up on free milk and free school meals, I very much welcome and support the Government’s plans to set up universal breakfast clubs in all primary schools. However, concerns are reported among headteachers, unions and charities that the plans will not be properly funded and will lack the flexibility required to be successful. This weekend, the independent publication Schools Week highlighted how some headteachers in primary schools, while enthusiastic about the aims, refused to take part in the early adopters pilot scheme as volunteer schools, because only 60p was being provided by the Government per pupil. The budgets of schools in my constituency of Dewsbury and Batley, as well as those across the country, are already stretched beyond breaking point. Will the Secretary of State therefore confirm that adequate funding for healthy foods, as well as the necessary flexibilities, will be provided to all primary schools for the breakfast clubs? Will she guarantee that schools will not be left out of pocket?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I am confident that the funding being made available to schools will be sufficient to deliver on this programme. The hon. Gentleman quotes the daily per pupil funding rate, but alongside that, as I set out earlier, there will be start-up costs, as well as lump-sum payments to cover the costs of running breakfast clubs, alongside a higher daily funding rate for special schools and a higher daily funding rate based on the proportion of FSM6 pupils at the school.

Gaza: Humanitarian Situation

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

The UK has already acted to make it clear that there must be a resolution to this urgent issue. We have joined allies in expressing our deep concerns about the Knesset’s vote on UNRWA. We have urged Israel to ensure that UNRWA can continue its lifesaving work, including at the UN Security Council on 6 November, 11 December and 3 January.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

Today is the ninth day of the siege on Jenin in the west bank by Israeli forces accused of war crimes. With over 3,000 Palestinians forcibly displaced, Jenin hospital under lockdown without water or electricity, and at least 14 people killed by the Israelis since the beginning of the ceasefire in Gaza, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has said that it is deeply concerned by the use of unlawful, lethal force in Jenin, including multiple airstrikes and apparently random shooting at unarmed residents. Can the Minister tell the House what specific and concrete steps the Government are taking or will take to facilitate an end to Israel’s siege and ethnic cleansing in the west bank?

[Anneliese Dodds]

The hon. Gentleman asks about the UK Government’s representations in relation to the west bank, and we have been very clear that the risk of instability is serious and the need for de-escalation is urgent. We continue to call on Israeli authorities to exercise restraint, to adhere to international law and to clamp down on the actions of those who seek to inflame tensions.

Occupied Palestinian Territories: Humanitarian Situation

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) for securing this crucial debate.

As the Member outlined, the humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is beyond dire, and I will not repeat the details of how awful the situation is. Suffice it to say that all we have to do is look at our phones to see Palestinian refugees being bombed, murdered and repeatedly displaced on a daily basis. I want to use my time to concentrate on what this Government are going to do. Their record to date has been abysmal. From the Prime Minister legitimising the right of Israel to impose a siege on the entire population to the Foreign Secretary appearing to be ignorant of the meaning of the word “genocide” and the Government refusing to impose any meaningful sanctions on either arms sales or illegal settlements, this Government’s failure to take action against ethnic cleansing and genocide has made them complicit in those acts.

I draw our Government’s attention to the actions of the Irish Government, and suggest they take a leaf out of their book. At the moment, the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill is making its way through the Irish parliamentary system, where it has received Government and cross-party support. The Bill is not new: it was first introduced in 2018, and there were concerns at the time that its measures might be in breach of EU law. However, the Irish Attorney General has updated his legal advice to refer the Bill to the next stage of the Irish parliamentary process, following the ICJ’s ruling in its advisory opinion in July. As discussed previously in Parliament, the ruling found that Israeli settlements in the west bank and East Jerusalem were in breach of international law. It found that occupation of those territories amounts to long-term annexation, which has undermined the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, and that the occupation must be brought to an immediate end. Therefore, countries can no longer lawfully trade with those settlements.

When the Bill is passed, Ireland will become the first EU country to ban trade with those illegal settlements, which are the main impediment to Palestinian rights to self-determination. The response of successive UK Governments to the issue of illegal settlements is to say that the UK does not recognise them, and that goods originating from the settlements are not entitled to tariff or trade preferences, while at the same time refusing to actually suspend trade in goods and services between the UK and companies operating in the illegal settlements. While I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s introduction of new sanctions on three illegal settler outposts, and four organisations that have supported and sponsored violence against communities, his actions are ineffective and ambiguous. Why just impose sanctions on a handful of settlements? There are at least 144 settlements sanctioned by the Israeli Government, and another 196 outposts.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. I must ask hon. Members to keep an eye on the clock.

Oral Answers to Questions

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Conservative Members do not like it, but it is absolutely true. I would add that, when it comes to the concerns my hon. Friend raises, we see stark attainment gaps in the difference between what our poorest and more affluent children are able to achieve. That blights the life chances of children in his constituency of Gateshead. We are determined to make progress on that, unlike the previous Government.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State and her team, and welcome them to their places.

In my constituency, children are being unenrolled after 20 days of absence, even when there is a valid and compassionate reason for their leave. Will the Secretary of State commit herself to reviewing this harmful and punitive rule, which is leaving children in my constituency without a school for many months, and will she take steps to make the necessary changes to protect those children and their right to an education?

[Stephen Morgan]

I am happy to meet the hon. Member to discuss the points that he has raised. Attendance and off-rolling are issues that the Government take very seriously, and we will set out more policies on them in due course.