Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

Q1. If she will list her official engagements for Wednesday 22 February.

[The Prime Minister (Mrs Theresa May)]

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Yesterday, the campaign group fighting cuts at West Cumberland hospital was due to deliver a 30,000-strong petition to Downing Street. Despite having a slot booked, they were turned away at the gates and told, “Today isn’t a good day. Come back after Thursday.” How can the Prime Minister justify this disgraceful dismissal of the people of Copeland?

[The Prime Minister]

A petition was indeed delivered to No. 10. The petition was accepted by No. 10 Downing Street yesterday, so I suggest to the hon. Lady that she considers what she said in her question. I am aware of the issues that have been raised around West Cumberland hospital. I am aware of them because the very good Conservative candidate in Copeland, Trudy Harrison, has raised them with me. She has made it very clear that she wants to see no downgrading of services at West Cumberland hospital. She has made that clear to me and to Health Ministers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank the hon. Lady for her welcome and look forward to working with her on many such global challenges and crises. She is right to highlight the extent of humanitarian suffering in Aleppo we are comprehending. I was in Brussels on Monday meeting my development counterparts, and I speak on a near-daily basis to my opposite numbers around the world. The focus for us is the humanitarian crisis, and on getting aid into the besieged areas, and to the people who desperately need aid but who have not been receiving it. I will continue the work we are undertaking and continue to update the House.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

3. What support her Department has provided to victims of the earthquake in Dolakha, Nepal of May 2015.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Rory Stewart)]

On behalf of the Department, I express our great condolences on the impact of the earthquake. Some 700,000 people lost their homes and 9,000 people were killed. Specifically in relation to Dolakha, we have provided a great deal of support, including housing grants for 40,000 houses, and cooking equipment, blankets and tarpaulins for 7,000 people.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I warmly welcome the Minister to his place. A Must for Dolakha is a charity based in Farnworth in my constituency. Mr Heslop, who represents the charity, visited the region recently and found that a number of people did not have any food or shelter. There was a feeling that aid had not reached a number of people in need. Will the Minister meet me and representatives of the charity to discuss how we can best help the people affected in those areas?

[Rory Stewart]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady and to her constituent for the work he does. We need to understand the scale of this catastrophe. DFID is spending £100 million this year. Even so, with 700,000 people having lost their homes, the situation is extremely challenging. The response in Dolakha is led by USAID and the World Bank. I am very happy to sit down with the hon. Lady and her constituent to discuss our forthcoming work on roads, police stations and health clinics in Dolakha itself.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Stephen was an absolutely inspiring individual, and his zest for life, even as he was suffering from a very difficult and progressive cancer, was completely extraordinary and very inspiring. He raised a huge amount of money for teenage cancer services, and he raised it from right around the world as well as the UK. I think it is right that our honours system properly rewards people who give to charity, and who give of their time, from the very bottom to the very top. There is probably more we can do to make sure that our honours system really reflects what the British public want, which is to see giving, generosity and compassion rewarded.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister may recollect that a few months ago at Prime Minister’s questions I asked him to meet the victims of the drug Primodos. More than 50 of them are coming to Parliament today, and I ask the Prime Minister if he would see them; look at the documents that we have produced, which show that the then medical community knew that the drug was causing deformities in babies and nothing was done about it; and consider a public inquiry.

[The Prime Minister]

I do not think I will be able, I am afraid, today to see her constituents and the people she is bringing to the House of Commons. I am very happy to have another conversation with her about what can be done and to understand what more can be communicated to those people, so perhaps we can fix that up.

Gaza (Humanitarian Situation)

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Clappison]

I went back to the founding of the state of Israel, but it is worth putting that on the record.

I do not believe, and will not be persuaded, that the state of Israel has any interest in imposing the present conditions on the people of Gaza for the sake of it.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

Come off it!

[Mr Clappison]

Hon. Members need to contain themselves. Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in 2005 under the leadership of Ariel Sharon, and it was hoped that that would bring about a solution to Israel’s immediate problems. It did not. Since then—and my right hon. Friend touched on the point—there have been about 8,000 rocket attacks on Israel. There have been many thousands, certainly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I associate myself completely with the comments of the right hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), who secured today’s debate, and with everything said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman); and I dissociate myself from virtually all the comments of the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison), the chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel. His remarks showed why there is a problem in getting a resolution for Palestine.

The hon. Gentleman was talking about a small nation that is being persecuted, millions of whose people are refugees, and whose citizens on the west bank have been living with Israeli occupation. In Palestine people are suffering collective punishment. Millions of people do not have decent housing, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) mentioned, 90% of the water is contaminated. I do not know how the hon. Member for Hertsmere can say that that is justifiable, whatever may be happening.

People cannot fish in the sea or get proper produce to provide food. They cannot build houses, so their economy cannot regenerate. The United Nations has an organisation that builds homes. It is not a private organisation, but because of the blockade it cannot get the equipment and materials to build those homes and create jobs. What is happening in Gaza is intolerable, and if any other country were inflicting that level of punishment on people, the whole United Nations, the Security Council and the whole international community would be up in arms. Yet, what do we have? Yes, there are some good people in this country and even in Israel who campaign against the actions of the Israeli state in not only Gaza but the west bank, but guess what? The leaders of most countries in the world are saying nothing and turning a blind eye.

The situation has been going on for nine years. Everyone, from all parties—this is not a party political issue—and every one of our Foreign Secretaries have said, “Yes, we think this is wrong, and we all believe in the two-state solution. Yes, we are friends of Israel, and we have told Israel that it should not be doing this.” But guess what? Nothing has happened.

[Mr Winnick]

What would be the position if 90% of the water in Israel proper was undrinkable? Would there not be an outburst, and rightly so, of indignation and anger, as there should be over the situation in Gaza?

My hon. Friend touched on an issue raised by our right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman). There are people in Israel—a minority, unfortunately—who take the same views as most of us on human rights and share our anger over the denial of justice to the Palestinian people. We should not forget those brave people in Israel who stand up for human rights—

[Mr Jim Hood (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is not making an intervention, but a speech. That is not fair on hon. Members who put their name on the list to speak.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I agree with everything my hon. Friend said. I want to praise the people in Israel and the Jewish people in this country who campaign actively for the rights of Palestinians. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton, I am sure that they are criticised by other Jewish people perhaps for trying to betray the state of Israel. However, the issue is not about a state of Israel, of Jews or of religion; it is about the millions of people who used to live in the state of Israel, who have been made homeless and who have sought refuge in various parts of the world and have not been able to return to their country. Particularly inhumane actions are being carried out in Gaza, causing the suffering that we see.

It is all very well for the Prime Minister to say that Gaza is a prison; others have said that it is like an open prison. Actually, there is a difference: in open prisons, people get clean water, food, medical treatment, and even books or television to watch at times, so even the comparison with open prisons is not accurate. If Palestinians were in that situation, they might think that that was a bit of a rejoicement. Gaza is a real prison in the worst sense of the word.

What has struck me in all this is that the state of Israel was founded because of what happened to the millions and millions of Jews who suffered genocide. Their properties, homes and land—everything—were taken away, and they were deprived of rights. Of course, many millions perished. It is quite strange that some of the people who are running the state of Israel seem to be quite complacent and happy to allow the same to happen in Gaza.

The issue is not just about Gaza; let us think about the west bank and Jerusalem as well. Many Palestinians are being turfed out of their homes in Jerusalem. The Israelis are the occupying power in the west bank, where they have got rid of Palestinian homes and replaced them with hundreds of thousands of settlements, recognised by the United Nations as illegal.

Whether we are talking about the west bank or Gaza, the policy pursued by the state of Israel is not helping to lead to a two-state solution. All it is doing is making Palestinians even more depressed and anxious. They think, “What hope is there for us?”, and they rightly ask, “What is the international community doing about this?” Let us face it: if what is happening to Gaza, done by Israel, were happening to any other nation, the whole world would be up in arms, and rightly so. So why are we not getting the same in Palestine?

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan]

The hon. Gentleman hits on a most important point. At the moment, there is constitutional and governmental deadlock in Nepal. When I was there, we were doing our utmost as an influential friend of Nepal—as I hope the UK can continue to be—to help to break the deadlock and ensure either that a new constituent assembly is formed or that there are elections, and each can facilitate and assist the other.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

8. What plans he has for future development assistance to Burma.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Andrew Mitchell)]

On 1 March we announced a doubling of British aid to Burma. We are supporting the World Bank in conducting an assessment of the development opportunities there following the remarkable changes which Aung San Suu Kyi underlined in her historic visit to Westminster last month.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

For the first time in decades, positive changes in Burma offer hope to refugees to return home. What is the Secretary of State’s Department doing to encourage them to return to Burma?

[Mr Mitchell]

We are engaged in Kachin and Rakhine states, both of which are receiving British humanitarian support. I can also announce today that a team of Members of this House, under the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, will be visiting the Burmese Parliament in Naypyidaw later this month.