Category: My work

I am extremely concerned about the situation affecting the Sumarin family, and their ongoing eviction from their home in East Jerusalem.

I have been following this ongoing case closely and was extremely disappointed to learn that the Israeli Attorney General ruled that the eviction can go ahead.

This is an important case because the Jewish National Fund (JNF) applied for the home to be declared an “absentee’s property” first in 1987, despite the family being in residence – and eviction claims have been brought repeatedly against the Sumarin family since 1991 on this basis.

I signed a parliamentary motion (#EDM529) opposing the use of the Absentee Property Law to dispossess the Sumarins and other Palestinians. This also called on the UK Government to raise the case of the Sumarin family with Israel and asks the Charity Commission to review the charitable status of the JNF in the UK due to its involvement in the eviction.

I was elected on a manifesto that recognised that “there can be no military solution” to this “conflict, which must be settled on the basis of justice and international law” and committed to “reform the international rules-based order to secure justice and accountability for breaches of human rights and international law”. I stand by those commitments.

The UK Government must put pressure on the Government of Israel to end these evictions, end the oppression of the Palestinian people, and take steps towards a lasting peace.

I speak out on this subject very often and there are so very many families in Israel suffering in this way;  I will continue to do what I can to raise their profile.

I am very surprised that the Government is considering the exclusion of cats and kittens from the Kept Animals Bill.  There doesn’t seem to be any logical reason why cats should be treated any differently to dogs.

In 2019 I stood on a manifesto setting out a vision to lead the world with high animal welfare standards in the wild, in farming and for domestic animals. I pledged to setup an independent Animal Welfare Commissioner.

I am glad that the Government is finally bringing forward legislation, through the Kept Animals Bill, to end some of these cruel practices that have damaged animal welfare in this country for so long.  But why leave cats of the agenda here?

I very much support the new Kept Animals Bill and want to see it improved, and it must not exclude cats and kittens.

I will provide updates on any substantive action I’m able to take on this contradictory Government proposal, and I thank my constituents for bringing this to my attention.

Many of my constituents have written in about the very important business of bringing Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe home.

Human rights abuses cannot go unchallenged, and it is important to take a stand in support of those facing persecution, detention, and torture.

I am very concerned that it is well over five years since Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was imprisoned by the Iranian Government.  Furthermore, in April 2021, Nazanin was sentenced to a further year in prison and a year’s travel ban.

I am alarmed at reports that Nazanin is being held because of the failure of the UK to pay a longstanding debt.  That is why Nazanin’s husband, Richard Ratcliff, undertook a 21-day hunger strike and demonstration outside the Foreign Office last December.  Many colleagues and I visited and spoke with him there.

Amnesty International UK argues that “it’s long past time that the UK finally brought this deeply distressing episode to an end”.  I share this concern and am worried that, so far, the Government does not appear to have done anything to resolve this and urge them to do so now.

On the outstanding debt to Iran of £400m, I made my position clear in parliament when Nazanin’s situation was last debated in November: 
“… the debt is owed and must be paid. If this country wants respect for behaving in the proper manner, the debt should be paid. It is not a negotiation; it is saying “This money is owed. Let’s pay it.” I believe that would help to unlock a lot of things and help to open up a serious human rights dialogue with Iran in the future, which is necessary. …”

I continued: 
“I want to see decent human rights everywhere around the world, and that obviously includes Iran. The people of Iran deserve that. We should do everything we can to ensure that happens. I hope the Minister can unlock this—maybe not completely today but I hope it can be unlocked—and that he will have got the message of the strength of feeling, from everybody across our House, for her release.”

I believe strongly in upholding fundamental human rights, as laid out by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and will continue to make a great deal of noise about this, in Parliament and elsewhere.

Many Islington North constituents have written to me about the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (PCSC Bill).

I have very deep concerns about this bill, and its purpose is plain for all to see.

The PCSC Bill will curtail so many of our freedoms that it’s hard to know where to start if one were to list them:  freedom of expression, freedom of action, freedom of movement and freedom of speech, especially when people want to protest the exploitative nature of our unfair economic and social structures and are suffering from it so badly.

The bill also fails to address BAME racial bias within policing, unfairly impacts on traveller communities and fails to make harassment of women specifically illegal.  

The bill is inhumane and it is clear that it is a strategic move by the Government to protect itself and our exploitative economic system as it continues to make more draconian laws while it still has the chance.

At every opportunity I’ve voted against this bill, and in support of any wise amendments to it.

If you have written to me about the bill you can be sure I’ll continue to make a stand against it.

For almost 30 years I have championed the fight against animal cruelty and have signed countless Early Day Motions opposing practices and actions involving cruelty to animals in the UK and world-wide.

I was elected on a manifesto with a vision “where no animal is made to suffer unnecessary pain and degradation”, and that committed to recognising animals as sentient.

There is a pressing need to have a proper and serious scientific hearing into animal experimentation including all the practices that support it such as breeding dogs for use in those experiments.

I have signed EDM 175 and fully support its objectives:

“That this House applauds the new Animal Sentience Bill, enshrining in law the ability of animals to experience joy and feel suffering and pain; notes the science-based campaign For Life On Earth with its Beagle Ambassador, rescued laboratory dog Scarlett; is shocked to see the harrowing exposé showing thousands of laboratory dogs intensively bred in the UK and underlines the consequences of the Animal Sentience Bill regarding this; notes that scientists in the wider scientific community, outside the animal-based research sector, openly acknowledge the failure of animal testing in the search for human treatments and cures, and that those experts include scientists in the pharmaceutical industry, the Editor in Chief of the British Medical Journal, the US-based National Cancer Institute which says cures for cancer have been lost because studies in rodents were believed, and the Food and Drug Administration which states that 9 out of 10 new medicines fail to pass human trials because animals cannot predict responses in humans; notes Doctors Greek and Shanks’ Trans-Species Modelling Theory, founded upon the theory of evolution, explaining why animals fail as predictive models of humans; and urgently calls on the Government to mandate a rigorous public scientific hearing, judged by independent experts from the relevant science fields, to stop the funding of the now proven failed practice of animal experimentation and increase funding for state-of-the-art human-based research, such as human-on-a-chip and gene-based medicine, to prioritise treatments and cures for human patients and stop the suffering of laboratory dogs and other animals.”

I have campaigned for years for more funding for the NHS to ensure we have a service that works and that frontline workers like nurses get decent pay.  And I have continuously opposed the creeping privatisation we have seen over recent years.

NHS staff are absolutely brilliant, but they’ve suffered a pay freeze, underfunding and under-staffing, as have our care workers for far too long.

I agree with you that was wholly unacceptable. In the October budget, the government did not include any new funds for training, no plans for recruitment or staffing and no plans to reinstate the bursary.

I challenged the Government directly in Parliament on scrapping NHS Bursaries which resulted in Nursing degree applications falling every year since the bursary was dropped. This has contributed to the huge number of vacancies and the NHS is now short of at least 40,000 nurses.

The Health and Care Bill ignores the key and pressing issues affecting the NHS and its staff – particularly the impact of the pandemic on staff and patients, waiting lists for non-covid treatment, wider reform of adult social care, and workforce pressures. According to the Health Foundation NHS services have 100,000 vacancies overall, and adult social care is understaffed by a further 110,000.

So, I voted for the workforce amendment (number 34) to the Health and Care Bill, but sadly it was defeated by the Government.

I will continue to raise these issues in and out of Parliament.