Middle East

Shockat Adam Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have clearly set out the basis for the decisions I have taken, and my view that we should all do all we can to de-escalate the situation.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his measured statement and restraint. The illegal action by Israel and the USA over the weekend, taking out admittedly a very repressive and brutal regime leader, has left the region and the world in turmoil, which is creating real fear, especially for our children. In fact, my 14-year-old asked me over the weekend, “Dad, are we all going to be okay?” I ask the Prime Minister this, as a father: what assurance he can give my son, and all the children in this country and the middle east, that he will do everything in his power to prevent the outbreak of world war three, which Donald Trump and Netanyahu are driving us towards?

[The Prime Minister]

The protection and security of British nationals is my foremost duty. I take it very seriously—that is why I took the decisions that I did over the weekend—and will continue to do so.

Labour Together and APCO Worldwide: Cabinet Office Review

Shockat Adam Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

When in opposition, the Prime Minister said that Boris Johnson

“always looked the other way”

over standards in government, and that he was “corrupt”. Yet Labour Together has been led by key advisers to the Prime Minister, including my constituency predecessor, and some remain in his Cabinet to this day. Given the £730,000 in undeclared donations from millionaire venture capitalists, and a payment of almost £36,000 to a public relations firm to smear investigative journalists, does the Minister agree that the public were promised real change but all they are getting is much of the same, and that the great British people expect a lot better?

[Darren Jones]

When coming into office, the Prime Minister was committed to improving the systems that we inherited. That was established with the ethics adviser being made independent—being able to conduct his investigations independently and to advise the Prime Minister, irrespective of whether the Prime Minister asks him to do so. It was done by our establishment of the Ethics and Integrity Commission. It was done by our introduction of the Hillsborough law to bring a duty of candour into statute, to ensure that officials and politicians tell the truth, where in the past they have been shown not to do so. Those are a number of examples of how the Government are bolstering ethics and standards in public life—the hon. Gentleman is right that the public expect that from us. On this particular matter, as I have said, the independent adviser will consider the issues as they relate to the Minister in question, and advise the Prime Minister in the normal way.

Standards in Public Life

Shockat Adam Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

As I have said, the Foreign Office will update the House in due course.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

I thank the Minister for his statement, and I definitely agree that Epstein’s crimes were disgusting and Mandelson’s behaviour despicable. I remind the Chief Secretary that, under the last Conservative Government, the now Prime Minister said,

“a fish rots from the head”

and that real change had to be

“led and modelled from the top”.

Yet here we are, and the issue is back. Despite the colour of the rosette changing, the Prime Minister’s closest circle must now take the fall for his poor decision making in appointing a man who was best friends with a paedophile. Given that there is now a criminal investigation into his closet advisers, should he not do the honourable thing and take his own advice?

Oral Answers to Questions

Shockat Adam Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Ward]

I personally think all businesses should recognise and work with trade unions. Our social value model, which we are reforming and will shortly strengthen, allows contracting authorities to consider the economic and social impact and reputation of bidders. Of course, the Employment Rights Bill—the biggest upgrade in workers’ rights in a generation—will end the scandal of fire and rehire.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

On determining awards for public contracts, what steps are being taken to prioritise UK firms in public procurement, especially for the provision of vital equipment, like personal protective equipment, in our NHS?

[Chris Ward]

We are going to bring forward plans, hopefully in the next Session, to reform procurement rules. A big part of that, as the Chancellor has said many times, is to help people to buy British more, and to support local jobs and economies around the country. Despite all their other failings, the previous Government did make some progress on this matter through the Procurement Act 2023, and we will build on that in the next Session.

Oral Answers to Questions

Shockat Adam Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for fighting hard for her constituents who are facing awful uncertainty, which is bad enough at any time of the year but really bad at this time of the year. Our thoughts are with the workers and their families who are facing the uncertainty that she has flagged. Our landmark Employment Rights Bill will strengthen workers’ rights and put them in a better position, including by ending unscrupulous fire and rehire practices. I thank her for fighting for her constituents.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

No religion, theology or philosophy is beyond critique or scrutiny, and we must protect freedom of speech at all costs. But Islamophobia is real, at least for Zainab Hussain in my city, who was run over not just once but twice, simply for being a Muslim. She survived. Not so lucky was Makram Ali, who was killed outside Finsbury Park mosque simply for being a Muslim, or Mohammed Saleem, who was stabbed to death simply for being a Muslim. When the Prime Minister was in opposition, a definition of Islamophobia was adopted, but in government it has been dropped. What has changed?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising those examples of hatred in his constituency. He is right to raise them and we should all condemn them. Hatred in all its forms should be condemned by all of us in this House, and that includes anti-Muslim hatred as well. We intend to act on it.

Middle East

Shockat Adam Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can give my hon. Friend our assurance on both those issues.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

I welcome the ceasefire and the release of the hostages, and I take solace in the knowledge—or at least in the hope—that unlike other debates of this nature, at the end of this one countless Palestinian children will not have been killed by the IDF. However, does the Prime Minister agree that the people of Gaza do not need a colonial viceroy, Tony Blair, anywhere near determining their future? The former Prime Minister, who has been in meetings with the Trump Administration, is proposing a US-administered Gaza, rebuilding Gaza as a resort on top of the mass graves of men, women and children. Will the Prime Minister condemn this plan and Tony Blair’s involvement in rebuilding?

[The Prime Minister]

I am not going to condemn a plan that I welcomed yesterday. I think it is a really important step forward—it is a step that almost everybody in this House has welcomed, including the hon. Member. What is important now is that we build on that plan. It will be for others to decide the particular representation, but of course there is the committee, which will be really important in relation to the day-to-day matters in Gaza and on which there must of course be proper Palestinian representation. These matters are still to be determined, but I really think it would be better if we did not try to unpick where we got to yesterday before we have even started to implement it and try to move forward. That would inevitably take us backwards.

Arms and Military Cargo Export Controls: Israel

Shockat Adam Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alexander]

Let me make a little progress, and then I will be open to interventions.

I turn next to the actions taken by this Government in support of those statements. We have supported the restoration of funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency; we have suspended arms licences; we provided £129 million in humanitarian assistance to the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the last financial year; and we have decided to suspend negotiations on the upgraded free trade agreement with this Israeli Government.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

In the week before last, the Foreign Secretary said that we were suspending arms negotiations with the Israeli Government, yet just last week, we had a trade envoy—Lord Austin—visiting Israel and saying how wonderful it was to be there. Can the Minister please explain how those two matters do not contradict each other?

[Mr Alexander]

There are long-standing relationships of trade and economics with Israel—for instance, as I understand it, one in eight of the prescribed drugs available through the national health service is provided by an Israeli company. We have taken a clear position of not upgrading the free trade agreement but recognising, for example, that those supplies are important. The trade envoy roles are accountable to the Secretary of State in the Department for Business and Trade, and we were clear that Lord Austin would not directly deal with the Israeli Government when he was there and has no responsibility for the free trade agreement negotiations that otherwise would have been taking place in the coming months.

Oral Answers to Questions

Shockat Adam Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

Q8.   This week, the Israeli Government approved a plan to officially conquer Gaza. Just yesterday, Minister Smotrich vowed that Gaza will be “entirely destroyed” and that the Palestinians will have to “leave in great numbers to third countries.” This follows the extermination of over 50,000 Palestinian men, women and children, and the simultaneous expansion of illegal settlements in the west bank—something I witnessed with my own eyes last week. Will the Prime Minister now finally acknowledge that ethnic cleansing is under way and end all UK military co-operation with Israel, especially the illegal provision of F-35 fighter jet parts, or will he risk making Britain complicit in war crimes and be the Prime Minister to see Britain answer at The Hague for its role in this atrocity?

[The Prime Minister]

Most of what the hon. Gentleman says is simply not right, but I want to address the position in Gaza and the west bank, because it is increasingly intolerable. I am deeply concerned, particularly with the lack of aid getting in and the impact that that is having on hundreds of thousands of individuals. That concern is something I recently reaffirmed to the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, where I asserted again that a two-state solution is the only viable approach for peace. Our focus is on delivering peace for Palestinians and Israelis, returning to the ceasefire, getting the hostages out, and getting in the humanitarian aid that is desperately needed in greater number and more quickly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Shockat Adam Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra]

Islamophobia, sexism and racism have no place in our society, and my hon. Friend will be aware that we have committed to strengthening protections against dual discrimination. The Minister for safeguarding, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), is working on addressing hate crime against Muslim women. I am also pleased that my hon. Friend’s Committee will be undertaking work on the specific challenges facing Muslim women in the UK today, and I look forward to following that work.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

I recently met a group of women from Bangladeshi origins in my constituency who are desperately trying to find work, which is not easy, especially after the decimation of the textile industry in Leicester South. As English is not their first language, and as not all potential employers have the capacity or time to meet the Department for Work and Pensions’ demands for written proof of job applications and interviews, they are finding it extremely stressful and it is affecting their mental health, especially when they are threatened with sanctions. Does the Minister agree that more empathy needs to be built into the system?

[Seema Malhotra]

The hon. Gentleman has raised an important point, and I will ensure that he has a meeting with the relevant Minister to discuss it.

G20 and COP29 Summits

Shockat Adam Excerpts

Thursday 21st November 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I repeatedly pressed that matter not only at the G20 but elsewhere. That aid into Gaza is desperately and urgently needed, and in much greater volumes than are currently making their way through. I have argued consistently for the release of the hostages— that has to be the starting point—for that aid to get into Gaza and for all of us to work for a long-term solution here. It has to be a peaceful way to the two-state solution.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his statement. Like the rest of the House, I agree that we must be a leading voice on the global stage. However, I would like to ask the Prime Minister why it was necessary to travel with 470 officials to the G20. Notwithstanding the carbon footprint, there is the cost to the public purse, especially as I will have a lot of cold pensioners this winter.

[The Prime Minister]

The contingent this year was actually fewer than the contingent last year. It involved a wide number of individuals because a lot of negotiation, as the hon. Member probably well knows, goes on at COP, and it is vital that we are there doing that important work.