Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Uma Kumaran and Keir Starmer

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have spent the week protecting British lives and our national interest. Moments like this define a Leader of the Opposition. They can either step up, act in the national interest and show that they are fit to be Prime Minister, or they can expose their utter irrelevance. The Leader of the Opposition has chosen the second.

[Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)]

Q2. May I thank the Prime Minister for his leadership and his cool head on the situation in Iran?The leasehold system is legalised extortion. Last week I met dozens of my constituents who are leaseholders, and their tenants’ and residents’ associations. They are all telling me the same story: every single month they are paying hundreds of pounds while their service charges keep skyrocketing. They are trapped between bad managing agents and a system that is broken. Can the Prime Minister tell me what this Labour Government are doing to right this wrong once and for all?

[The Prime Minister]

I know that my hon. Friend has been fighting for her constituents and holding management companies to account. Our reform Bill will end the broken, outdated leasehold system and make the dream of home ownership real. We are capping ground rents, delivering transparency on service charges and scrapping the presumption that leaseholders pay landlords’ legal costs. Our focus is on saving people money, giving them more control of their homes and creating a fairer housing system.

Middle East

Debate between Uma Kumaran and Keir Starmer

Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Nobody is making the comparison with Iraq; there is a question of drawing lessons from Iraq. The lesson I draw is that there must be a lawful basis for the action we take, and there must be a viable plan. On the right hon. Gentleman’s question about operational matters, I will not go into that from the Dispatch Box.

As for the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the Foreign Secretary, we have at all levels—including the Foreign Secretary—been talking intensively to our allies over the past few days. They have been extremely grateful for what we have done and the way in which we have engaged. I have spoken personally to all the leaders in the region, so I am not sure what point the right hon. Gentleman is making about our not being involved—they are very grateful for the way we have been involved. The Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary have worked around the clock over the past few days to ensure that all the necessary conversations are had, as the right hon. Gentleman would expect and as he probably knows has been happening.

[Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for setting out clearly the reasons Britain did not join the US and Israeli attacks on Iran. I also thank him for ensuring the defence of Britain’s Gulf partners and for protecting the 300,000 Britons in the region. I agree with him that diplomacy and a negotiated settlement are the best path to peace. Will he outline the role that Britain is playing to ensure that the Iranian people are listened to and have peace and security ahead, not more war and chaos, not another murderous Iranian regime, and not another US-imposed regime change?

[The Prime Minister]

We have been very clear: the future of Iran must be for the Iranian people, and in the end the question of nuclear weapons will have to be negotiated. We will always ultimately have to get to that point.

G20 and Ukraine

Debate between Uma Kumaran and Keir Starmer

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for raising this. That is why it is really important that we make the case for, and ensure that it is, a just and lasting peace—because we have seen this before. We have seen agreements brokered before without security guarantees, with the inevitable result that Putin will go again. That is why, in relation to all the principles I have been operating on, in setting up the coalition of the willing and in all my discussions, it has got to be a just and lasting peace. It has got to be one that actually deters Putin from doing this again, because we know that without that deterrence and those consequences, he has the ambition to go again, and he will go again, and we must guard against that.

[Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his steadfast leadership on Ukraine. My constituent Roksolana is one of tens of thousands of Ukrainian people with a loved one “missing under special circumstances”. These families do not know whether their loved ones are detained, a prisoner of war or even alive. It is likely that Russia has not notified the International Committee of the Red Cross on the status of thousands more prisoners of war. On behalf of Roksolana and all the Ukrainian families I met this weekend at St Mary’s Ukrainian school who are seeking answers about their loved ones, can the Prime Minister assure this House that the UK will support every effort to ensure that Russia complies with international humanitarian law regarding the treatment and identification of prisoners of war?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this and for her work bearing down on this, in particular the meeting she had at the weekend. This is a really serious issue. We are raising it with our allies. It is further evidence of the total disregard that Russia has for any of the principles of war, even in an unjust war, and we will continue to bear down on it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Uma Kumaran and Keir Starmer

Wednesday 19th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, but the Opposition did leave a bit of a mess that we are clearing up, having hollowed out our armed forces and having not made the investment that we needed in our defence. We have announced the largest sustained increase since the cold war to 2.5% by 2027 and 3% in the next Parliament, subject to economic circumstances. We are getting on with the job and clearing up the mess that they left.

[Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)]

Q13. My constituency has the greatest number of high-rise buildings with dangerous cladding in the country. On Friday, I visited Stratford fire station. Our brilliant local firefighters told me that 77 high-rise buildings in Newham and 165 in Tower Hamlets are covered in hazardous materials, with many of them deemed unsafe. Thousands of my constituents have been calling for justice for years. What are the Government doing to ensure that private developers are held to account for the dangerous cladding on high-rise buildings that they have built?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right that remediation has been far too slow, and everybody deserves a safe and secure home. We have signed a contract with 54 major developers who will pay for or fix over 1,700 buildings, and we are accelerating that progress. We will take tough action against those who evade their responsibilities. We will recover taxpayers’ funds and make sure that those responsible pay up and fix unsafe buildings quickly.