Naushabah Khan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 8 Sept 2026 · Conflict in Sudan · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I urge the Government to listen to his comments and to continue to place that pressure. Egypt is the single largest host of people fleeing the conflict, with about 1.5 million refugees, which places significant pressure on communities and services already stretched thin. At a UNHCR registration centre, I heard directly from Sudanese refugees, including elderly women and young children, some of whom had travelled roughly 1,400 km from the Sudanese border just to register—the same distance as from London to Rome. Their journeys underscore the human reality of displacement. They are not just another statistic; they are families who walked away from everything they owned, because staying had become more dangerous than leaving. Egypt has played a prominent role in stabilising the region, but its ability to manage the crisis alone is reaching breaking point. The question for Britain is not just how much we spend on humanitarian assistance, but whether our support reaches people where they are and where the need is greatest. The registration centre I visited is facing immense pressure: some 4,000 refugees a day against capacity built for 4,000 a month. UNHCR’s Egypt operation has a funding requirement of $133.5 million for 2026, but was only a quarter funded by the end of April, leaving a gap of more than $99 million. That operation is currently receiving no UK funding at all, despite the UK’s own record showing what effective support can achieve. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office-funded North Africa migrant and development project, delivered through the International Organisation for Migration, has reached more than 22,000 migrants and host community members in Egypt since 2024.

• 8 Sept 2026 · Conflict in Sudan · Hansard source

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  I thank all colleagues for their approach and for contributing so powerfully to this debate. They have drawn to our attention some matters of detail to address in the crisis that we face, from the impact of gender-based violence to the role played by other actors in the region. It has been an important discussion and I thank everyone for their contributions. I welcome the Minister to her place. I thank her warmly for her response, and particularly for her commitments to addressing gender-based violence in the region and for her assurances around arms licences and the embargo. I also thank her for her commitment to proactively bringing the issue to the Floor of the House; it is incredibly important that we have space to do that. Notwithstanding the fact that colleagues in this room have done a lot of work on the issue, we need to keep up the political pressure and ensure that this humanitarian crisis is given the attention it needs. Despite the clear assurances from the Minister, there is clear consensus in this Chamber that we still need to do more. Our place on the world stage means that it is incumbent on us as a nation to go further, not just for the stability of the region but for the people of Sudan, who are at the heart of this humanitarian crisis. They are looking to the international community to facilitate an end to the suffering. I hope that we can continue to work in a constructive manner, directly with the Minister and more widely, to bring an end to this situation.

• 8 Sept 2026 · Conflict in Sudan · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the conflict in Sudan. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I am pleased to have secured this debate, because it comes at a critical moment. The war in Sudan is now entering its fourth year. It has been labelled the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, yet for some reason it still barely registers in political discourse. Last week, a humanitarian convoy delivering lifesaving aid to Kadugli, where communities are at risk of famine, was attacked. A UN report has found that sexual violence is widespread and is being used as a weapon of war in Sudan, and that at least 13 victims have died, mostly after brutal gang rapes, with the youngest victim only nine years old. For millions of Sudanese people, the war is a daily struggle for survival. I suspect that many people in this country could not explain why a paramilitary force operating in Sudan stands accused of genocide. The gap between the scale of what is happening and the attention that it receives is part of the reason why it has been allowed to go on for so long. Just now, I was listening to the Foreign Secretary’s statement on the banning of Israeli goods that come from illegal settlements. The main Chamber was packed, and rightly so, but I would argue that the crisis in Sudan requires the same attention. The United Nations puts the number of people in Sudan who need humanitarian assistance this year at 33.7 million, which is more than in any other country on earth. There are 90 million people displaced inside Sudan, and more than 4 million have left it entirely, which is equivalent to the population of Greater Manchester. More areas are in or at risk of famine than anywhere else in the world. However, the UN’s own response plan for Sudan is funded at only 40% of what is needed this year. That shortfall already has a body count: hospitals in Darfur have closed for want of money to keep them running, cutting off tens of thousands of displaced people from anything resembling care. During the summer recess, I took part in a parliamentary delegation to Egypt, where I saw at first hand the impact of Sudan’s conflict on the region. My visit brought it home to me that this is a regional crisis—one that cannot be contained within Sudan’s borders.

• 8 Sept 2026 · Conflict in Sudan · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The medical challenge that people were facing came across strongly in our conversations. We must ensure that aid reaches the right people in the right place in the right way. That point cut through; I hope others will listen to it. Alongside our humanitarian duty, this matters to Britain because the consequences of Sudan’s war are already being felt across the region and beyond. With little prospect of peace or self-reliance in Sudan or the countries hosting its refugees, more people are being forced into dangerous onward journeys towards Europe. Between 2024 and 2025, the number of Sudanese refugees arriving in Europe rose by 232%. In 2025, Sudanese nationals made up 11% of small boat arrivals to the United Kingdom. Funding refugee protection, registration and support for host communities is the right thing to do. It is also how we prevent further displacement and exploitation and stop people being forced to make these journeys later. But funding is only part of the answer. Aid can mitigate the consequences of the conflict, but it cannot end it. However well the registration centre I visited with colleagues is funded, it will still be processing the consequences of decisions made by armed men many hundreds of miles away. Only a political solution can resolve that. The war did not begin as, and has never really been, a contest between two equally matched armies with equally clean records. The Rapid Support Forces are the direct descendants of the Janjaweed militia responsible for the Darfur genocide of the early 2000s, absorbed into the Sudanese state rather than disbanded. When fighting broke out between the force and the regular army in April 2023, it inherited the old militia’s methods along with its personnel. The United Nations fact-finding mission concluded in February this year that the killing of civilians in El Fasher after the city fell to the Rapid Support Forces last October met the legal definition of genocide. Tonight, in a city called El Obeid, the same force is massing outside the walls in very much the configuration that it used in El Fasher. The United States Department of State has already warned that mass atrocities may follow if El Obeid falls too. I want to be clear that the responsibility is not one-sided. Sudan’s regular army has bombed populated areas indiscriminately, and militias fighting alongside it have carried out abuses of their own territory that they have retaken, but there is a difference between that record and what happened at El Fasher. That difference is exactly why the two sides cannot simply be told to agree a ceasefire and be trusted to keep it I raise that history because it explains why calls for a ceasefire keep failing. It is not a dispute that ends with both sides simply agreeing to stop. It also explains why the international effort to end this war has gone almost nowhere. The Quad—the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates—published a peace road map almost a year ago. It has achieved almost nothing, because Saudi Arabia and Egypt want the Sudanese army preserved as the backbone of the state, while the UAE wants its political role dismantled. Those positions were never reconciled, only written around, and Sudan’s own Government formally rejected the road map at the Security Council in February. That rejection barely registered here. Nor is the damage confined to Sudan and Egypt. Chad has closed its borders, after cross-border drone attacks killed its own soldiers. Fighting has spread into Ethiopian territory around the Blue Nile. While the world’s attention is elsewhere, Russia has been negotiating a 25-year naval facility at Port Sudan in exchange for weapons—a foothold on one of the most consequential trade corridors on earth, secured while the country hosting it burns. A war that we are content to fund our way around rather than to resolve is a war that keeps generating problems that Britain will eventually have to deal with on someone else’s terms. As the penholder for Sudan at the UN Security Council, the UK has significant diplomatic leverage. The Government must use it, maintaining pressure for humanitarian troops, for civilian protection, for unimpeded humanitarian access and for a civilian-led political process, including through the Berlin principles agreed earlier this year. That leverage will carry more weight if we are not undercut by our own arms licensing decisions. Evidence from United Nations experts and from Amnesty International has repeatedly linked the United Arab Emirates to weapons reaching the Rapid Support Forces. Hundreds of millions of pounds of UK arms licences to the UAE have been approved during this war. I would welcome the Minister’s assurance that those licences are being tested properly against the risk that British-made equipment will end up fuelling, however indirectly, the same conflict that we are asking the Security Council to end. I also urge the Government to reaffirm the commitment they made earlier this year to the UK’s £146 million of humanitarian funding for Sudan, while extending meaningful funding to organisations on the ground, including for the UNHCR’s work with refugees in neighbouring countries, rather than focusing solely on Sudan itself. Britain has both the means and the diplomatic standing to act. We can help to ensure that people displaced by this war receive the protection and support that they need, while using our influence to address the conflict that forced them from their homes in the first place. Many of them want to return to their home: I heard that loud and clear. I think of the women I met at the registration centre who had walked 1,400 km simply to queue in the baking heat, just to be counted. The least this House can do is make sure that they are not forgotten, and the least that our Government can do is recognise the scale and impact of this humanitarian crisis.

• 7 Sept 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source

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  My constituents in Gillingham and Rainham want local government that works for them and delivers the services that they need. Could the Secretary of State provide some reassurance that while the review is taking place she will continue to look at local government funding and finances, and particularly at how councils such as mine—Medway council, which is in a non-mayoral area— are able to access investment and growth opportunities in the way that other devolved authorities are able to do?

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  I will not, in the interests of time, thank you. Nor is it only Israel’s sovereignty over occupied land that we risk legitimising; it is also the violent means by which these territories are being occupied. The United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs documented over 1,700 settler attacks on Palestinian communities across the west bank just last year. Not taking action now is to underwrite, however indirectly, the conditions in which violence is inflicted on Palestinian men, women and children by Israeli settlers, and the military force that stands behind it. I therefore urge the Minister not to delay any further, and to take action today.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  For over half a century, successive Governments of every political persuasion have affirmed to this House that Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are unlawful. This is not a matter of personal interpretation, but a consistent and well-established legal consensus—consensus that is shared by the Foreign Office, codified in resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and, since July 2024, articulated with exceptional clarity by the International Court of Justice. Yet the stain on our moral fabric is that despite recognition of that, those same settlement goods are sold in British shops, and just last month, settler properties were marketed at a fair in London. When settlement expansion threatens to extinguish the very two-state solution that this Government are committed to, we must ask ourselves what purpose is served by delaying the upholding of moral and legal obligations that some of our European allies have already begun to uphold. Put simply, when Spain has banned all settlement trade, why cannot we? Across the House, there is consensus among Members on our position that this expansion is illegal under international law, yet through our continued delay in banning trade with these settlements, we risk in practice, if not in principle, giving legitimacy to Israel’s claim to sovereignty over occupied territory. If we are not prepared to match our rhetoric with action, our condemnation of settlement expansion amounts to lip service. In January, many of us took to these Benches to stress the importance of the rules-based order when the President of the United States threatened to take Greenland. We have time and again championed that same order in condemning Putin and rightly standing with Ukraine. We risk losing credibility for having made those correct calls the moment we permit commerce with what we, and everyone around us, deem an illegal enterprise.

• 8 Jul 2026 · NHS Corridor Care · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) for bringing this important matter to the House, and for talking so eloquently about her experiences on the frontline. Few issues speak to the state of our national health service more than this one. Since being elected, my inbox and advice surgeries have been inundated with heartbreaking and, frankly, harrowing stories from constituents who have either experienced care in a hospital corridor themselves or have witnessed the experiences of loved ones. May alone saw more than 90,000 instances of patients receiving care in clinically inappropriate settings, which is almost 3,000 people every day across our nation. In their most vulnerable hour, patients are being stripped of privacy and dignity, and left without a call bell or even sometimes access to a toilet. I will give Members some examples of the cases that have been raised with me. One constituent wrote to say that their mother, who was on end-of-life care, was treated in a corridor. I cannot even begin to imagine how distressing that must have been. Another reported on how she was treated in a single patient cubicle that had been stripped of its bed and fitted with six chairs, and hearing other people’s medical history, watching their cannulas being inserted and, harrowingly, witnessing a confused elderly man beg for his daughter. I look to Conservative Members—unfortunately, not many of them are here—when talking about this and about exactly how we got here, because the normalisation of these practices over 14 years of Conservative Government has brought us to this point. Indeed, it was under their watch that 12-hour waits in A&E rose twentyfold. Lord Darzi’s report laid it all bare. We inherited a health service in a critical condition and broken by over a decade of under-investment.

• 8 Jul 2026 · NHS Corridor Care · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member makes a very powerful point. I will come to adult social care in a moment. We simply cannot end corridor care at the front door of the hospital when the back door remains jammed shut. I welcome the steps taken to reform adult social care—a £3.7 billion funding boost for local authorities—but it is clear that we must go further. I eagerly await Baroness Casey’s independent commission on adult social care. However, I am concerned that the review’s terms of reference call for recommendations to be implemented in a phased way over a decade. That is simply not fast enough. Social care reform must work in lockstep with NHS reform. A commission reporting in 2026 and 2028, with implementation stretched over a decade and beyond, will not be able to enact the scale of change needed to meet our targets. I urge the Government to move at pace.

• 8 Jul 2026 · NHS Corridor Care · Hansard source

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  No, I will not take any further interventions, thank you. Lastly, I would like to pay tribute to the nurses, doctors and staff who keep Medway hospital in my constituency of Gillingham and Rainham running. In this House, we all receive correspondence from frustrated members of the public regarding the state of our NHS. However, it is the staff who carry the moral injury of apologising, shift after shift, for conditions that they did not create.

• 8 Jul 2026 · NHS Corridor Care · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for raising that very important issue. Yet while corridor care was rising in our hospitals, the previous Government did not count the numbers. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), who as Health Secretary chose to publish the official data, because how can we fix what we cannot measure? I also welcome the steps taken by the Government to turn the tide on the mess we inherited, such as the millions of extra appointments delivered, bringing waiting lists down from record highs, and the commitment to end corridor care by 2029. However, corridor care does not begin in the corridor itself, as many Members have noted. It begins with the hospital bed that cannot be freed, as well as the lack of investment in the wider landscape and the lack of support in our communities. This January, the data suggested that one in 10 NHS beds were occupied by people who were medically fit to leave but had no safe place to go—a failure that costs the state £2.7 billion a year, and that costs some of our constituents their lives.

• 30 Jun 2026 · High Streets · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is making a powerful speech. With reference to the change in the nature of our high street, he is absolutely right that online retail has taken over. Does that not mean that we need to look at a mixed-use offer that takes into account things like housing, the impact of health in the area more broadly and general disadvantage, which have an impact on how high streets look and feel for communities?

• 30 Jun 2026 · High Streets · Hansard source

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  The Minister is making a powerful point about community partnerships and how we work together. Does she agree that involving the community in decisions about the future of the high street, as we are doing in Gillingham, is really important? It will secure the future of high streets.

• 8 Jun 2026 · Unite the Kingdom Rally: Policing · Hansard source

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  Last week, I met one of my constituents who had faced horrible racist abuse on the train home from people who had been on the Unite the Kingdom rally. As someone of mixed white and middle eastern heritage, she told me that for the first time she felt scared in her own country. Does the Minister agree with me that we have a responsibility to tackle racial division across our country and not to ignite the situation, and that when the leader of Reform UK takes to the airwaves in the aftermath of heightened racial tensions to tell the public that they must react with “pure cold rage”, it is people such as my constituent who pay the price?

• 8 Jun 2026 · Digital Safety: Children · Hansard source

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  Unfortunately, I do not believe that the tech giants will do as they say and act in the right way on this issue. What consideration is the Minister giving to legislation, particularly to ensure that all platforms can meet the same standards, but also so that we can future-proof against new platforms?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Social Media: Children and Young People · Hansard source

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  Parents in Gillingham and Rainham strongly back this Government’s efforts to keep children safe online. Does the Secretary of State agree that repealing the Online Safety Act, as Reform has pledged to do, would recklessly expose our children to online predators and leave them without the protections they deserve, and that any party serious about families must have a credible plan for children’s online safety, not simply tear one up?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Social Media: Children and Young People · Hansard source

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  4. What steps her Department is taking to engage with children and young people on social media use.

• 17 Mar 2026 · Meningitis Outbreak · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, and I particularly welcome his announcement that he is reviewing the ongoing use of the vaccine and considering expanding it to a wider cohort. Given that the University of Kent also has campuses in Medway, could he inform me what work he is doing with the university to ensure that the spread across other campuses is monitored on a regular basis, and that if there is any potential for this outbreak to spread further, it is being reviewed regularly?

• 3 Feb 2026 · Town and City Centre Safety · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure, Mr Dowd, to speak under your chairship. Our town centres are the heart of our communities. They give our towns identity and define how we interact with where we live. However, it is that very interaction that means people also need to feel safe, secure and welcome in town centres. That is certainly true in my constituency and in my home town of Gillingham, where the high street has become a visible sign of decline. Unfortunately, we are plagued by antisocial behaviour, graffiti, drug activity and knife crime. Our brilliant local police officers—Marcus, Matt and Issy—do a fantastic job in visibly patrolling our town centre, which shows the difference that community policing can make, but the fact remains that Gillingham town centre is in the top national decile for crime and residents just do not feel safe. That did not just happen overnight. It comes after chronic underinvestment by the former Conservative council and the damaging impacts of austerity under the former Government, which left Gillingham forgotten. My town centre is a reflection of how reduced civic investment has changed the character and feel of town centres. Despite that, I have hope for the future, because there are opportunities for change. The announcement of the Pride in Place scheme by the Government is a significant step in the right direction. Additionally, in partnership with Medway Council I have established a taskforce that adopts a multi-agency approach, working with the police, local councillors and other stakeholders to address the challenges that we face. Off the back of that work, we have launched the Love Gillingham initiative, convening a community panel of residents, stakeholders and businesses who have the same passion and vision for their town centre. I would argue such a holistic community-centred approach, which is also tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, is needed, alongside national Government interventions, to truly ensure that our town centres across the country are safer and more vibrant.

• 2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Does he agree that the change to this rule could also have an impact on children? We have to make sure that, whatever the changes are, they take into account those children who are growing up in this country and could be adversely impacted if we do not look at the proposal carefully.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  No, I will continue. Let us not forget the damage that the Conservatives caused by cutting youth services by 70% in real terms since 2010. A Government who presided over the rise in NEET numbers year after year cannot claim surprise at the consequences of hollowing out the skills system that once gave young people a route into meaningful work while more and more young people are falling out of the labour market due to ill health. The Leader of the Opposition said in a speech today, when referring to the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), that Britain needed an engineer, not a used car salesman. That is quite funny, because 14 years of Conservative government have left a generation of young people who might not have the opportunity to be either. When the last Labour Government left office, they left a strong foundation of support for young people: a national careers guidance service, robust apprenticeships and a clear vocational pathway. Fourteen years later, those foundations lie in ruins. Connexions advisers are gone, opportunities for training have been slashed and, as I have said, nearly a million young people were left economically inactive.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  I completely agree that those routes offer young people an alternative. They offer them a space where they have an opportunity to thrive in a way they might not have been able to thrive in a traditional academic setting. I recognise the need for us to ensure that all those opportunities are protected in whichever way possible, and I recognise the work that the hon. Member is doing in her constituency to promote that. I know that many of my young constituents in Gillingham and Rainham will welcome this Government’s approach. Jack, a 19-year-old constituent of mine, wrote to me to say: “I am trying hard to build a future for myself, but without anyone giving me a chance it feels impossible to get started. I want to work, to contribute and become independent, but at the moment, I feel stuck and unsupported.” My heart broke when I read that. I know that we have a lot of work to do as a Government to get this right, but Conservative Members should recognise their part in creating a legacy that has left thousands of young people living with despair or hopelessness. We cannot have a generation stuck in limbo, truly struggling not because of their lack of talent or drive, but because the system has been deliberately dismantled. When I was 19, and living a few streets away from where Jack lives today, my future did not feel to me as his does to him. We must recreate a sense of hope and opportunity in this country. I am glad that, through my office and the actions of this Government, we may be able to give Jack the help that he needs, but is a moral stain on our country that we have allowed young people to reach the point of putting those words to paper because that feels like a reality to them. I hope that we get to the heart of this issue. I will back the Government in what they are doing to tackle youth unemployment as a matter of urgency.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  I will not give way at this point. We are now left to rebuild what should never have been dismantled. It is promising to see that that is exactly what this Labour Government are doing. I welcome our youth guarantee that will create 350,000 new training and workplace opportunities, supported by 360 youth hubs across the country, and the investment of £750 million in apprenticeships that will equip 50,000 more young people with skills for the future. We also recognise that the traditional path that allowed me to succeed—going to university—is not necessarily the right path for everyone. With a growing skills shortage, particularly in sectors such as house building that we need for building the infrastructure of the future, it is vital that we go further in encouraging young people to use their talents and feel confident that such career paths are valued and given the respect they deserve. I have made many visits to MidKent College—which serves my constituency—where young people are learning trades and are really passionate about what they do. They have skills in bricklaying, carpentry, welding, hairdressing and woodwork. Those are skills that my university degree could never have given me, and we must ensure that these avenues are fully supported so that young people can contribute meaningfully to our country’s future.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  This debate lays bare the sheer hypocrisy of the Conservative party. Although I certainly do not welcome the numbers we are seeing on youth unemployment and recognise the challenge, this is not an issue that was created today. It was overseen by 14 years of their Government, as young people were steadily pushed into the margins. After leaving nearly a million young people not in education, employment or training on their watch, it is convenient for them to come to the House to point fingers at those who are tasked with fixing the damage they caused.

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  After 14 years, the Tories should be ashamed of their legacy in local government. I know that my council, Medway, will welcome the Minister’s announcement about linking deprivation to funding, but we still face other challenges. Will she set out what the changes mean for my local area, and will she agree to come to Medway to meet us and discuss how we can take on some of those other issues?