Oral Answers to Questions

Khalid Mahmood Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I say to the Father of the House that I understand that the report is largely finished, but with every report such as this there is a process: we have to write to the people who are criticised and give them an opportunity to respond. This is now the process for all these reports, irrespective of which Government they are launched under. It is known as the Salmondisation process—although I am not quite sure why, as I do not think it has anything to do with the former First Minister of Scotland. It is not within my power to grant the publication of this report. It is independent and under Sir John Chilcot, and the process has to be finished—then the report will be published.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

Q15. I ask the Prime Minister once again: will he apologise to all those who have suffered and continue to suffer in A and E departments across the country, due to his mismanagement of the national health service?

[The Prime Minister]

I could not have been clearer. I regret it when every single person who goes to hospital does not get the treatment they deserve, but our responsibility is to put in the money, which we are doing; to provide the extra staff, which is happening; to have a proper plan for joining up health and social care, which we are doing; and then to fund the Simon Stevens plan, which is the right long-term answer for our health service. People around the country will have been able to see that there is one part of this House of Commons working to improve our NHS for all its users, but that another part wants to “weaponise” the NHS—the most disgusting phrase I think I have heard in politics—and treat it like a political football. I know that they will reach the right conclusion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Khalid Mahmood Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What we have seen under this Government, of whom until recently the hon. Gentleman was a part, is consistent levels of investment in green energy, which is producing jobs in our country. Obviously what is happening in Newhaven is welcome, but so too is what is happening on the Humber estuary and in Hull, with the large Siemens investment, which is not just about making wind turbines, but will involve a huge supply industry around it.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

On Saturday, I attended the service at Birmingham cathedral along with the families of those who lost loved ones in the 1974 pub bombings. They are all agreed, after a 40-year-long wait, that there is still no action to bring to justice the perpetrators of that action. Will the Prime Minister confirm what action he is going to take?

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, our sympathies and condolences should still go to those people who lost their relatives 40 years ago. When you lose a relative, that stays with you, and the grief and the pain stays with you, for ever. It is important that we continue to work to try to make sure that we address all the issues that happened in the past, find those who are responsible, and try to help people to come to terms with what has happened. That needs to happen in Northern Ireland as well as on the mainland.

Iraq: Coalition Against ISIL

Khalid Mahmood Excerpts

Friday 26th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Richard Ottaway]

I will not, if my hon. Friend does not mind.

We have long encouraged the Arab states to get involved. Now they are, and the irony is that we are pulling our punches as they do. This is the first time that there has been an international coalition in Syria, and we should be a part of it. The Leader of the Opposition said that it would be better if a resolution was tabled at the United Nations before intervening. Given that Russia has already said it will veto such a resolution, it is incumbent on him to say what his position would then be. Why the hesitation over Syria? We will never end this conflict by turning back at the border. Perhaps when the Deputy Prime Minister winds up the debate, he could say what is the role for the Free Syrian Army, which has just been given half a billion dollars by the US Congress to equip its fight. It has been fighting ISIS for months, and, like the peshmerga in northern Iraq, it is fighting for its homeland.

We are all agreed that air attacks alone are not going to bring this war to an end. ISIS will clearly go underground, and we will need forces on the ground to ram home the advantage that air cover provides. We all accept that there are not going to be British or American boots on the ground, but the peshmerga and the Free Syrian Army are willing. They have strong contacts with each other and stand shoulder to shoulder in their exchanges.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Richard Ottaway]

I will not, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.

Strategically, it makes sense to bolster moderate forces to take the fight to ISIL. This means supplying funds and equipment to the Free Syrian Army, which has shown itself to be a reliable partner over a sustained period. In the longer term, this will strengthen its anti-Assad capability and bring him to the negotiating table—something that we have been talking about for over three years. No one should be under any illusion that the attacks on innocent citizens in Syria remain 99% the work of the Syrian regime, which has now killed an estimated 170,000 of its own people, as against just a few hundred killed by ISIL.

Mr. Speaker, war is a terrifying business, particularly for those who have experienced it. On occasions it is a necessary evil, but no matter how necessary, it is always ghastly and horrendous. It is with a feeling of depression and trepidation that I will be supporting the Government tonight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rehman Chishti]

rose—

[Mr Khalid Mahmood]

rose—

[Hazel Blears]

I usually give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood), but I am afraid I do not have time now.

I want to give two examples of why this work is so important. Members will probably have seen in today’s newspapers the case of Samira Salih al-Nuaimi, who was a human rights lawyer in Mosul. She was taken and brought before a sharia law court and tortured for five days. She was sentenced to public execution and murdered on Monday. She was a brave human rights lawyer. That is what a caliphate does and that is what this ideology is: it is mediaeval and it is about human trafficking and exploitation.

Secondly, there are people in this country like the young man from Brighton whose mum said he was brainwashed. She had no idea and does not want other people to follow him. Those are the reasons I want to see the Prime Minister back here with a proper counter-narrative ideology plan, and I will support him in that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

We are here again to discuss the issue of stability and conflict in the middle east. It appears that we have not learned the lessons of a decade ago. I made one of my first speeches in this House, soon after my maiden speech, after 9/11. It is clear that we have not taken forward those lessons to provide stability for the region over the last 14 years or so.

Instead, what we and the US—using its influence in the Gulf countries—have done is to start to pump more money and weapons into Syria, which has further destabilised that region. Money has been given to people whom we may think would be our supporters and to those whom we thought were on our side. They were, we were told, moderate. We speak about the moderate Syrian people and about the freedom fighters, but the vast majority of them are affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood, an organisation that the Prime Minister banned in this country. Yet we think that they will be our ally in resolving the issue in Syria.

A number of hon. Members today have said that the issue can be resolved only if we put more money and resources into the freedom fighters. Which of those freedom fighters will we support? The Muslim Brotherhood? Al Nusra? Will we support other extremist organisations that already exist? Will we support the unIslamic state in the region? I deliberately call it not ISIL, not ISIS nor IS; I call it, and Brummies predominantly tend to call it, the unIslamic state. That is what it is. It has no place in the religion of Islam of which I am a part. It has no place in any teachings of Islam. Those people who rape, murder and torture are carrying out things that are banned in Islam. They kill people because they might be Sunni; they kill people who are Shi’a, Christian, Yazidi and Kurds. They kill anybody who does not submit to their warped ideology. We have to be aware of what we are trying to do.

The previous Foreign Secretary went to Europe and said that we needed to lift the arms embargo against the Assad Government so we could supply those so-called moderate fighters. When he came back having made the great achievement of lifting the arms embargo, he sat down with the security people and they said, “Secretary of State ,who are you going to supply these weapons to?” Very soon he decided that there was no option of supplying weapons and decided that we would provide communication aid to those people. We create these types of vacuum. Senator McCain has been an advocate of a neo-Con policy in Syria, which is to make sure that we put in as much money and arms as we can. What we have not realised is that, as part of that effort over the past three years or so, we have created the vacuum that has allowed the unIslamic state to be formed in those regions, taking people from all the various extremist organisations there and making them even more extreme, more grotesque and more violent than any other organisation—

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I am anxious to give the hon. Gentleman an extra minute, because I want to hear what he thinks we should and should not do in the situation we face today. He is in danger of getting to the end of his speech without telling us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mahmood]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for doing that. I am very keen to get on to the question of the situation today. I will vote later today in favour of providing support to the Iraqi Government, because they have rightly asked us to do so. I will go further: there will be a need for us to provide support on the ground in order to finish the job. The job needs to be finished off properly; if it is not—if we allow significant groupings to remain in Iraq—there will be greater problems for us to go back to resolve. In order to do that, we need not only air strikes but the surrounding Arab countries to put their money where their mouth is, by and large, and to get people on the ground to deal with the situation. The support of our people will be needed, so it is important that we do that and get the issue sorted out. To do that, we need to move on.

A huge number of Muslim academics and scholars have condemned what is happening, as have organisations such as Inspire, led by Sara Khan, which works for women—

[Steve McCabe]

Will it be possible to defeat these evil terrorists while simultaneously turning a blind eye to the evils that exist among some of our allies? Surely Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and some of our other allies have to sort their act out, as well.

[Mr Mahmood]

My hon. Friend is right. Unless we play with a straight bat across the piece and condemn such actions, we will not be able to deal with the situation. It is very important that we do that.

EU Council, Security and Middle East

Khalid Mahmood Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me reassure my hon. Friend, who makes a very good point—I am glad that he was able to travel to Kiev to listen to the views of people there—that we are supplying non-lethal equipment. Body armour and things like that will help the Ukrainian army, and I think it is right to give those things, but as I said and for the reasons I gave, I do not think we should supply it with arms.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

Instead of having an intimate weekend meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister, who I see is not in his place, would it not have been more productive for the Prime Minister to see the Home Secretary and speak to her about replacing the lost passport control officers’ jobs and to work with the security services to ensure that they have control over those leaving and returning, which would enable us to gather real intelligence about what is going on and how we can stop some of the radicalisation that is taking place?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me first reassure the hon. Gentleman that I had a very good meeting with the Home Secretary on Friday, when we discussed these issues. On checks for those applying for passports, there has not been a reduction in the level of scrutiny. In all these organisations, of course, we have to seek efficiency and make sure that we use all the modern technology to get the job done.

Ukraine (Flight MH17) and Gaza

Khalid Mahmood Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend speaks clearly and sensibly about this. We must recognise the scale of the threat that Russia’s actions in Ukraine represent. When one sits in the European Council and listens to the testimony of the Baltic states or countries such as Romania, with their concerns about what is happening in Transnistria, one can see that if we do not act on this occasion firmly, clearly and consistently, while totally changing the approach we have taken, there will be other such problems to come.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

What is the Government’s assessment of the reports that the Israelis are using illegal white phosphorus as part of their illegal campaign in Gaza? Will he condemn the use of any chemical weapons in Gaza, as he has been so quick to do on other occasions?

[The Prime Minister]

I would certainly condemn the use of chemical weapons, whoever is using them. I have not seen reports or any evidence of the use of the weapons to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but I shall look very closely at the points that he makes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Khalid Mahmood Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, may I say to my hon. Friend how welcome it is that unemployment in Watford in the past year has fallen by 30%? We are getting the people of Watford back to work and cutting unemployment. He mentioned important investments such as the Croxley rail link, with the two new stations, and rebuilding schools and building new ones. They are absolutely vital. The long-term plan is not just about jobs and cutting taxes, important as those are. It is also about supporting business, and small business in particular, by building the infrastructure we need. Because we have taken difficult, long-term decisions, we are able to put that extra investment into our roads and railways to build a modern infrastructure for the 21st century.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

Q11. In 2011 the Government stated that the ability to see a general practitioner within 48 hours was not a priority. Does the Prime Minister regret that?

[The Prime Minister]

The Royal College of General Practitioners says that there are something like 40 million more GP appointments since 2010. The patient survey, which was always quoted by Labour Ministers, states that 93% of people say that appointments in the GP system are convenient. Frankly, I want more. As the father of three young children, I know how important it is to get timely GP appointments. That is why we are training 5,000 more GPs, why we now have named GPs for frail and elderly people, and why 1,000 GP centres are now open from 8 am to 8 pm and at weekends.

I will tell the hon. Gentleman what I regret. I regret the fact that the last Labour Government signed a contract with the GPs that meant that they did not have to offer a service out of hours or at the weekend. Because of the investment we are putting into the NHS, we are providing better services. If he is wondering about a 48-hour target, he might want to ask why Labour scrapped one in Wales.

Oral Answers to Questions

Khalid Mahmood Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and may I, on behalf of everyone in the House, congratulate him on his richly deserved knighthood? He has served in this House for many decades and also in the vital role of overseeing the Public Accounts Committee, which does such important work in our parliamentary system. I am grateful for what he says about the referendum and I would urge all colleagues to come to the House on 5 July and vote for this Bill.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

Q2. Is the Prime Minister proud of the fact that, on his watch, 300,000 more children have been pushed into absolute poverty?

[The Prime Minister]

I am proud that we have protected the poorest in our country by increasing the child tax credit, but the most important thing we can do to tackle poverty is to get more people into work. There are now more people in work in our country than at any time in our history. In the hon. Gentleman’s own area, in the west midlands, the number of people employed is up 66,000 since the election. It is worth remembering the last Government’s record, because even during the boom years, private sector employment in the west midlands went down.