Oral Answers to Questions

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Member for his question. I also particularly thank him and all leaders in Northern Ireland who have urged calm, particularly before what happened last night. Standing together with that common message was very powerful. I am very happy to meet the right hon. Member and other MPs from Northern Ireland, as he requests, and I think that a slot has been identified after Prime Minister’s questions. It is important that we meet at the first opportunity.

We are all sickened by this attack, but we need to be clear that the scenes of violence and disorder have no justification. Of course there are questions that need to be answered, but destroying communities, destroying homes and driving people out of their homes is not, and will never be, the right way to respond to such an attack. I look forward to working with the right hon. Member and others to ensure a calm response and that the police are given the space that they need to deliver justice.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Stepney) (Lab)]

Q4. I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s remarks about the horrific situation in Northern Ireland.The Mildmay hospital in my constituency, established in 1877, has been a pioneer for HIV and AIDs care since the 1980s. Diana, Princess of Wales made 17 visits to this unique charitable hospital, breaking through the stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS. Today, Mildmay also provides care for patients with other complex needs, relieving pressure on the NHS, yet it is at risk of closure because of commissioning issues in the NHS. Ahead of the 30th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death next year, will the Prime Minister lend his support to this iconic hospital, which was so close to her heart, so that it can survive and thrive?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the Mildmay hospital, which is synonymous with extraordinary care and compassion as she describes. I will ensure that she meets the relevant Health Minister to discuss the concerns I know she has in relation to it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am proud of what this Labour Government have achieved and I am proud of what we will achieve. If this is the right hon. Gentleman’s last session here, let us reflect on his great achievements in Westminster. He kicked out his predecessor and then lost 39 MPs at the next election. I hope he can keep up that record in Holyrood next week.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Stepney) (Lab)]

Q4. This Labour Government’s £29 billion of investment in the NHS and £2 billion in life sciences is critical to fixing our NHS and tackling health inequalities. The Barts life sciences cluster in Whitechapel will become one of Europe’s leading NHS-centred clusters, and we have already secured £800 million in private investment. Will the Prime Minister direct the Office for Investment to co-sponsor this initiative and ensure that the National Wealth Fund co-invests, so that we can turn east London’s health inequalities into a driver for UK life sciences growth, transforming the future of healthcare in London, the UK and globally?

[The Prime Minister]

I am proud that Labour is investing in life sciences. I thank my hon. Friend for championing that project for over a decade. The national wealth fund is designed to co-invest, alongside private investors, and Ministers are happy to discuss those proposals with her.

Today I can announce a significant new investment by AstraZeneca, which is investing £300 million in UK life sciences, made possible by the pharmaceutical arrangement that we have struck with the United States to future-proof thousands of jobs in Macclesfield and Cambridge. That is a major vote of confidence in the UK and Labour’s plans to strengthen our economy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising this case; I will make sure that is looked at again in the light of what she has said, and that the families get the relevant meeting.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Stepney) (Lab)]

Q13. Between 2010 and 2024, the number of children living in poverty increased by 700,000, with Tower Hamlets having one of the highest rates in the country. This Labour Government’s child poverty strategy will lift over half a million children out of poverty. Given the economic pressures caused by external shocks and their impact on the cost of living, there is a long way to go. Does the Prime Minister agree that the Government should also look at setting a clear target to end child poverty for good?

[The Prime Minister]

May I start by thanking my hon. Friend for her long record of campaigning against child poverty? Child poverty stifles opportunity, it makes it harder for kids to get on in life and we in this Government will not stand by. This is a moral mission for this Government. We will make sure that no child or family is left behind, through lifting the two-child cap, expanding free school meals and free breakfast clubs, and extending free childcare. More than 6,000 children in my hon. Friend’s constituency alone will benefit from the action that we are taking. And what would the Tories and Reform do? They would plunge those children straight back into poverty. That is a disgrace.

Middle East

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Member is right to raise this, and we have already raised defence spending, as he knows, in the most significant way since the cold war. I was clear in the Munich security conference speech that I gave a few weeks ago that we need to go further and faster, and we will. In addition to the funding itself, it is really important that we take this opportunity to collaborate and co-operate with our partners, particularly in Europe, because if all European countries simply increase their spending without regard to the capability that they are using that spending on, we will not make the best of what we have got. Therefore, I am making a dual argument—first, in relation to the actual money we have spent, and secondly in relation to the way we need to collaborate on this with our allies, particularly in Europe, in a way that we have not done, frankly, in decades.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Stepney) (Lab)]

I welcome the Prime Minister’s call for Lebanon to be included in the ceasefire—1,700 people have already been killed by Israeli attacks and 1.1 million people have been displaced. At a time when aid budgets have been cut, including by our own Government, will the Prime Minister commit to playing that international leadership role, as he is doing, on getting a ceasefire, working with our European partners and others, and to supporting the humanitarian effort and increasing support to those being displaced in the region? Will he also think about how we support countries in the global south that will now be hit hard because of this crisis? The impact of that will affect us all if we do not take action at the international level.

[The Prime Minister]

Can I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important issue, and be clear that Lebanon must be included in the ceasefire? It is very important that we are clear about the principle behind that. I also accept that there must be more support on the humanitarian front. We have just put more money into the humanitarian support, but it is clearly a cause of concern in Lebanon and in the wider area, as she rightly points out.

Middle East

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The deal secures the islands so that they can be used for the important purposes that they are used for. It was vital that we got the deal; otherwise, we would not be able to carry out the operations in the same way.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Stepney) (Lab)]

This conflict has already cost lives. Civilians are caught in the crossfire, and hundreds of thousands of UK nationals are stranded in the region. If it continues for weeks, that will only make it more difficult to evacuate our nationals, and it will cause a humanitarian catastrophe and damage to the world economy. Can the Prime Minister say more about what he will do in the coming days to work with our allies in the EU and the middle east to try to bring an end to this conflict, and to return to diplomatic negotiations, so that we can secure peace and security and protect civilian lives?

[The Prime Minister]

I reassure my hon. Friend that we are talking to our allies in the region and to allies in Europe—we talked to France and Germany, in particular, over the weekend—to be clear about the principles we are applying, and to ensure that we are doing everything we can to de-escalate the situation.

Chinese Embassy

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Stepney) (Lab)]

Many of my constituents will continue to have serious concerns about the proposed new embassy in my constituency. These include concerns about China’s human rights record, espionage and, in particular, local disruption. A development of this scale would cause significant disruption for local residents, especially those in Royal Mint Court, who now face considerable uncertainty, including privacy concerns and the fear of losing their homes. What assurances can the Government provide to my constituents, particularly those residents, regarding their concerns? Can the Minister also say more about the national security concerns and how they will be satisfactorily mitigated?

[Dan Jarvis]

My hon. Friend is an assiduous Member of the House and represents her constituents incredibly seriously. She will understand that, for obvious reasons, there are limits to what I can say about the specific measures and mitigations that will be put in place, but I am grateful to her for entirely understandably raising the concerns that some of her constituents have expressed. I assure her that we will want to work closely with her to minimise any disruption to local residents, and of course I would be happy to discuss these matters with her further.

Iran-Israel Update

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As my right hon. and learned Friend knows, we do not comment on any potential proscription decisions, but of course we recognise the threat from Iran and have taken measures to counter it at home and around the world. I obviously refer her to my previous answer, but I am confident that the police, security services and courts all have the tools they need to sanction, prosecute and mitigate the threats from Iran. We strengthened our sanctions regime recently, including sanctioning the IRGC in its entirety.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Despite the calls for a ceasefire here in our Parliament and from across the international community, the war in Gaza has raged, costing 33,000 lives as well as the 1,200 killed by the Hamas attacks and a humanitarian catastrophe that is now turning into a famine. For months many have raised concern around the spectre of regional escalation; precisely what conversations is the Prime Minister having with leading figures in the Israeli Government, as well as through various parties to influence the Iranian regime to de-escalate as quickly as possible given the seriousness of the crisis?

[The Prime Minister]

Both the Defence Secretary and the Foreign Secretary have spoken to their counterparts over the weekend, and the Foreign Secretary has spoken to the Iranian Foreign Minister specifically to urge de-escalation and condemn what happened over the weekend. I will be speaking to Prime Minister Netanyahu shortly, and I can reassure the hon. Lady and all Members of the House that we will continue, together with our allies, to urge calm heads to prevail and de-escalation. That is the right course forward, and across all levels of Government that is the message we are taking to everyone.

Draft Reporting on Payment Practices and Performance (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 General Committees

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.

Late payments are a scourge on small businesses. At any time, UK small businesses are waiting for over £20 billion worth of overdue invoices. As the Minister has pointed out, that is a huge challenge. Research by Smart Data Foundry using Sage accounting data found that in 2021 a typical small business was owed approximately £22,000 in late payments. Larger firms failing to pay on time denies businesses in their supply chains the valuable cash that they need to pay staff, buy materials and deliver on future orders. As the Minister said, 50,000 businesses go under every year in the UK because of hold-ups in their cash flow.

The eye-watering increases in rent, energy bills and suppliers’ costs make the need to take strong action on late payments more urgent than ever. Late payments are crippling businesses and therefore limiting crucial growth in our economy. They impact on businesses of all sizes, but particularly on small businesses and microbusinesses; such businesses are especially exposed to liquidity problems when they do not receive payments on time, which then limits their ability to invest in future growth. Research from Barclays shows that businesses in the UK are more concerned about the impact of late payments on their business growth than businesses in any other economy in Europe. Two in every five SME owners say that their mental wellbeing has suffered as a result of late payments, and over a third have had sleepless nights.

I welcome these amendments to the 2017 regulations, as they are a positive step in the right direction. We will not stand in the way of measures that will help businesses to grow, scale up and invest. However, it has taken a very long time for the Government to tackle this deep-seated problem, so I hope this is the beginning of the rapid action that is needed to ensure that we prevent small and medium-sized businesses from suffering from the scourge of late payment.

There are stark power imbalances between small and big businesses. These reforms and the increased transparency will go some way to tackling that gap, but as the impact assessment shows, the risk remains that power imbalances will continue to limit suppliers’ capacity to negotiate fairer terms. Transparency is only one element of the negotiation, and wider issues will remain in certain sectors. I would be grateful if the Minister clarified what steps will be taken to protect and empower small businesses in the negotiation of fairer terms with big businesses. I know that the Minister for small business is looking into those issues.

Ministers are still waiting for the outcome of the ongoing Financial Reporting Council review on non-financial reporting to see if payment performance data should be a requirement in businesses’ annual reports. I urge the Government to ensure that that requirement is included to increase transparency in the business community, to ensure that businesses prioritise prompt payments and consistently focus on good performance, and to achieve a culture change in the business community to tackle late payment. I would be grateful if the Minister clarified the timeline for that report and when we can expect an announcement on the requirement to include payment performance data in annual reports.

Defending the UK and Allies

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Since the outbreak of war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, as well as the crisis in shipping security, which has now led to the UK military response to protect British interests, fighting between Hezbollah and Israel has been intensifying, risking a wider escalation engulfing Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and other countries. Can the Prime Minister be more specific and tell the House exactly what he is doing, working with the US and regional partners, to bring an end to the war in Gaza and to stop a full-blown regional conflict, which we are all very concerned about?

[The Prime Minister]

We are calling on Hamas and using our influence with their partners in the region to release hostages, and we are making sure we get as much aid into Gaza in the interim, because we know there is a need for it. We are concerned by the impact being caused, and the UK is playing a leading role in alleviating the suffering.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I start by saying that my thoughts are with all those affected by the devastating impact of Storm Henk and the flooding that we have seen over the past week or two, including those in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Action is already being undertaken under our six-year, £5.2 billion investment programme to better protect land across the River Severn catchment area and elsewhere, but I know the Minister responsible for flooding met my hon. Friend, along with the Environment Agency, in his constituency just before Christmas to discuss the specific plans he mentions. I know the Chancellor has received and started reviewing them. I assure my hon. Friend that the Environment Agency is working closely with other partners to explore his plans in more detail.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Q3. Since the outbreak of war in Gaza, over 23,000 Palestinians have been killed, including 10,000 children, and forced displacement is causing a humanitarian catastrophe. There is intensifying fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, a crisis in shipping security in the Red sea, and the engulfing of neighbouring countries into a regional conflict. De-escalation will occur only when hostilities cease in Gaza. The Foreign Secretary said yesterday that he was “worried” Israel may have broken international law, and the International Court of Justice is opening hearings in The Hague this week in relation to suspected breaches of obligations under the Geneva convention. Will the Prime Minister make public the legal advice that our Government requested and received on suspected breaches of international law by Israel and the implications for UK policy, including relevant arms exports?

[The Prime Minister]

We continue to call for international humanitarian law to be respected and for civilians to be protected. That is what our current legal assessment says is happening: that, as the Foreign Secretary outlined yesterday, Israel plans to act within international humanitarian law and has the ability to do so. But we are deeply concerned about the impact on the civilian population in Gaza. That is why we have trebled the amount of aid that we provide to the region, and just recently we sent our first maritime shipment of aid to Egypt. A UK military ship delivered over 80 tonnes of new blankets and life-saving medical equipment for Gaza, and we are working with Jordan to find more land routes. We will continue to do everything we can to support the vulnerable people who are being impacted by what is happening on the ground.