Legacy of Jo Cox

Debate between Zubir Ahmed and Kim Leadbeater

Thursday 11th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Kim Leadbeater]

I wholeheartedly agree and thank the hon. Lady for her intervention—and also for calling me a young lady. [Laughter.] Having just turned 50, I will take that! She is absolutely right: we need to do so much to support our young people who are growing up in a world with so many challenges that most of us in this place just did not face.

We have to encourage curiosity, evidence-based discussion and thoughtful engagement, rather than knee-jerk reactions to things. We have to remember that politics should serve people, not consume them. Politics matters enormously because it shapes lives, but when political identity becomes the sole measure of a person’s worth, society becomes tribal and unstable.

Finally, we must choose empathy. Empathy is not weakness. Compassion is not naiveté. Understanding another person’s fears does not mean abandoning our principles, and Jo understood that.

[Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)]

I did not know Jo, but I acutely remember the day when Jo was murdered. I was working as a doctor across the river in Guy’s hospital. I remember being unable to sleep that night, and seeing my right hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips) on television mourning their friend.

I have subsequently had the pleasure of getting to know my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater). She is a credit to her sister and to this place, and in the way she has taken forward the assisted dying debate, on which we have differing views. Does she agree that the space and the toxicity she talks about is a social media landscape now, much more than it was even 10 years ago? We have a responsibility not to leave the next generation alone as they navigate that space, and we must be compelled, as a Government, to regulate that space and protect young children’s impressionable minds there.

Lastly, as a teetotal doctor, I encourage everyone who is not bound by religious obligation—perhaps even the hon. Member for Gorton and Denton (Hannah Spencer), who is absent today—to go and partake in Jo’s beer.

[Kim Leadbeater]

I thank my hon. Friend for his most marvellous intervention, and for wearing a beautiful coloured tie, which perfectly co-ordinates with the Jo Cox Foundation logo. He is absolutely right, and he is such a valuable addition to this place. I thank him for his friendship.