Zarah Sultana MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Sept 2026 · Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies · Hansard source

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  JLR’s plan to cut 4,000 jobs is devastating for workers, families and communities in Coventry and across the west midlands. JLR is based in my constituency and its highly skilled workforce is vital to our region’s economy and industrial future. The trade union Unite is right to demand urgent answers and for every alternative to job losses to be explored. The Business Secretary has now met JLR and Unite, so can the Minister tell the House what has actually been secured from JLR, a company that has already been granted £1.5 billion of public money? Will the Department publish the company’s plans in full, rule out compulsory redundancies and make it clear that not a penny more of taxpayers’ money will support a company that is throwing thousands of workers on to the scrap heap?

• 8 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  This Government still describe Israel, an apartheid state committing genocide in Gaza, as a strategically important partner. They announce a partial arms sales ban while continuing to provide intelligence and F-35 fighter jet components via the international pool. Whether directly or indirectly, arming a genocide is still arming a genocide. They announce a settlement ban as a dead cat, hoping to distract us from wider UK complicity. The Foreign Secretary could impose full economic and diplomatic sanctions on Israel, but he refuses. He could end all arms sales and intelligence co-operation, but he refuses. He could call this what it is—a genocide—but he refuses. I will ask him directly: how many more Palestinian men, women and children must be killed by Union Jack weapons before this Government finally stop arming Israel completely?

• 1 Sept 2026 · Direction of Government · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister has reeled off a list of policies since coming into office. Interestingly, he has failed to mention one major intervention: his Government have continued his predecessor’s policy of arming Israel—an apartheid state that has committed and continues to commit genocide in Gaza. Instead of deflection and the boring nice-guy act, will he finally admit to the House that he has chosen to continue arming Israel and is therefore complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people?

• 20 Apr 2026 · Security Vetting · Hansard source

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  Mr Speaker, I have a duty to the House and my constituents to also tell the truth that the Prime Minister is a liar.

• 20 Apr 2026 · Security Vetting · Hansard source

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  I have a duty—

• 20 Apr 2026 · Security Vetting · Hansard source

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  In September, the Prime Minister stood at that Dispatch Box and told the House that he had full confidence in Peter Mandelson, a man whose relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was public knowledge. The Prime Minister knew, and backed him anyway; now, he claims he had no idea that this twice-fired Government Minister had failed MI6 vetting, despite journalists putting that directly to Downing Street that very same month. We all know that the Prime Minister appointed Mandelson because he owes his job to him. He appointed him, he defended him, and now he claims to know nothing. He is gaslighting the nation, so let us call this out for what it is: the Prime Minister is a barefaced liar, and if he had any decency left—

• 20 Apr 2026 · Security Vetting · Hansard source

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  Mr Speaker, I have a duty—

• 14 Apr 2026 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise in support of the motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) to disagree with Lords amendment 312. Today we are being asked to wave through one of the most draconian assaults on democratic freedoms in modern times, and let us be clear who is doing it: not the Tories—they are not even here—but the Labour party. This Labour Government are attacking the right to protest, attacking trial by jury, proscribing a non-violent direct action group, and handing NHS patient data to Palantir—a company that has helps US Immigration and Customs Enforcement tear migrant families apart and that generates kill lists for the Israeli military—and now they are doing this. This is a Government who are increasingly authoritarian day by day. When people take to the streets to fight back and expose this Government’s complicity in genocide, their answer is to ban them.

• 2 Mar 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  US congressional staff were told on Sunday that Iran was not planning to strike American forces or bases unless Israel attacked Iran first. In other words, there was no intelligence indicating an imminent threat. Yet we have already seen pre-emptive strikes attacking a girls’ school, killing over 100 children. This has been condemned by UNESCO as a grave violation of humanitarian law, yet the Prime Minister did not bother to mention it. Continuing such actions is unlawful, and allowing them to take place from UK bases is unlawful, so I ask the Prime Minister: is the genocide of the Palestinian people not enough for this Labour Government? Is he proud to be another Labour Prime Minister obediently following Washington into yet another illegal war in the middle east, making us all less safe? Finally, how much does he enjoy being Donald Trump’s poodle?

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  This situation stinks. Peter Mandelson maintained a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein after he had been convicted. It was not before anyone knew about his grotesque crimes, not when it was being whispered about, but after his conviction, when the world knew exactly who and what Jeffrey Epstein was. Yet before Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the United States, senior Labour MPs—Members sitting on the Government Benches today—went on television and social media to praise him. They knew the facts, because by that point it was public knowledge that Mandelson had stayed in Epstein’s New York home while Epstein was serving time as a convicted paedophile. When asked about this last September, the Prime Minister told the House he had “full confidence” in Peter Mandelson, despite knowing about his close relationship with Epstein. That’s right: the leader of the Labour party and Prime Minister had full confidence in a man who was besties with a convicted nonce. What a disgrace! What we are witnessing is not accountability but the Westminster club protecting its own. This is not just about this Labour Government; large sections of the media also played their part. Mandelson did not simply drift back into public life. He was rehabilitated, rebranded and presented as respectable. He was welcomed on the BBC’s flagship programmes as a wise elder statesman. He was given deferential treatment by T he Spectator, The Guardian and The Sunday Times. Those are the same outlets that lecture relentlessly about standards and morality when it is a trade unionist, a protestor or a working-class person who puts a foot wrong. But when it is one of their own, the tone changes. Suddenly it is about experience, pragmatism and “getting things done”. This is how power protects itself. What about the victims—the girls and young women abused by Epstein? They received an apology from Mandelson only after sustained pressure. It was not freely given, not offered because it was the right thing to do. Until recently, he still enjoyed the zone 2 dinner party treatment, with magazine-style PR photos of Mandelson being published only this week. Then there is the money. At least $75,000 was transferred from Epstein to Mandelson. He says that he cannot remember the transactions. If £75,000 landed in the bank account of almost anyone else in the country, they definitely would remember. To claim otherwise is contemptuous and goes to the heart of why trust in politics is collapsing. If those in power cannot remember vast sums of money flowing into their accounts, why should the public believe that they are acting in the public interest? This only came to light because the American authorities released the Epstein files. We are told that the UK has no record of Mandelson’s emails. If those files had not been released, he would have settled back into public life, shielded by friendly journalists and wealthy backers. That is how broken our political culture has become. And now further emails have emerged, raising serious questions about whether market-sensitive information was leaked while he was at the heart of Government. When ordinary people make mistakes, they pay the price. Nurses are disciplined, teachers are suspended and care workers lose their jobs, but if you belong to the Westminster club, you can be linked to one of the most notorious predators of our time and still reach the top.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree. This is a systemic issue, and that is why I support the calls for an independent, judge-led public inquiry. Yes, Peter Mandelson was eventually removed as ambassador to the US, but he remained in the House of Lords and as a Labour party member until three days ago. The Labour party cannot pretend that this was some distant mistake, quietly corrected a long time ago. This was a decision it defended until it was forced to abandon it, and he should never have been appointed in the first place. If this Labour Government believe that the appointment was proper, they should stop stonewalling and prove it by publishing all the documents: the vetting, the advice, the risk assessments, the correspondence and the contracts—including with Palantir. Instead, the Prime Minister tabled an amendment to withhold any papers deemed “prejudicial to UK national security or international relations.” We know that when Governments fear scrutiny, they wrap themselves up in the flag and hope that the public will look away. If there is nothing to hide, why carve out broad exemptions in advance? The Government’s last-minute manuscript amendment is a desperate attempt to control dissent on the Labour Back Benches. This is not accountability. It is not transparency. It is delay and damage control. The Government are kicking the can down the road in the hope that the outrage will fade and the questions will go away, but they will not. That is why I am supporting calls for an independent, judge-led public inquiry. This is not just about Peter Mandelson; it is about a system that protects the powerful and disregards the public. The victims deserve better and the British public deserve better, so the Government must publish all the documents, end the corruption and the cover-up, and stop insulting the public with empty words when what we need is transparency. The Prime Minister said he had full confidence in Peter Mandelson, but the public have no confidence in the Prime Minister. He should do the honourable thing and resign.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  Labour MPs are lining up today to congratulate themselves on ending the two-child limit. I welcome that decision; I fought for it and I voted for it, and I was suspended and punished by my former party for doing so. While that punishment was being handed out by the Labour Whips Office on behalf of the Prime Minister, children in Coventry South and across the country paid the price. Facts matter: the two-child limit pushes an estimated 109 children into poverty every single day. From the moment I was suspended for voting to scrap the limit to today, when we are debating the Second Reading of this Bill, 19 months have passed—19 months of delay and excuses. During that time, while this Labour Government delayed, argued and disciplined their own MPs for doing the right thing, over 63,000 children were pushed into poverty. Those children will not get that time back. They will carry the consequences for the rest of their lives. There are now 4.5 million children living in poverty in Britain. That is not a statistic; in the sixth largest economy in the world, that is a national disgrace. Without further action, that number will rise to 4.7 million during this Parliament. Scrapping the two-child limit matters because the limit is the single biggest driver of rising child poverty.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  I agree completely with the right hon. Gentleman. [ Interruption. ] If I could continue without the heckling from those on the Labour Benches who have now decided that child poverty is a priority they want to pursue—as I was saying, scrapping the two-child limit matters because the limit is the single biggest driver of rising child poverty. Scrapping it will lift hundreds of thousands of children closer to dignity and security. But this Labour Government have decided to stop halfway, because although the two-child limit goes, the benefit cap remains. That means that tens of thousands of families will feel no benefit at all from this change. According to the Government’s own analysis, 50,000 families will gain nothing, another 10,000 will gain only part of what they are owed, and some parents will be left with just £3 a week after rent—£3 to feed, clothe and raise a child. Let us be clear: the Government cannot claim to have ended a policy that punishes children while keeping another that traps them in deep poverty. The benefit cap does not drive employment or create opportunity; it simply takes money from the poorest families—many of them single parents with very young children—and pushes them deeper into despair and hardship. If this Labour Government are serious about tackling child poverty, they have to finish the job. That means scrapping the benefit cap, ending the two-child limit in full, increasing child-related benefits and making free school meals universal so that no child is excluded simply because their parents earn a pound too much. It means introducing an essentials guarantee into our social security system so that everyone can afford the basics, and ending the four-year freeze on local housing allowance so that families can keep a roof over their heads in the middle of a cost of living crisis. Every single day of delay causes real harm to the most vulnerable in our society; every day of half measures by this Labour Government means that children will continue growing up cold, hungry and anxious about what comes tomorrow. Reducing child poverty is not radical; it is responsible, it is the right thing to do, it improves health, it improves education and it improves long-term economic outcomes. Last July, alongside six other colleagues, I voted to scrap the two-child benefit cap not for applause; I voted for it because poverty is a political choice, and it was the right thing to do. If this House truly believes that all children are equal, it must act on that belief and abolish the two-child benefit cap in full, without delay.

• 5 Jan 2026 · Venezuela · Hansard source

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  Two days ago, the United States carried out an illegal and unprovoked military attack on Venezuela, killing at least 40 people. During that attack, the Venezuelan President and his wife were abducted from their home and taken to the US on bogus drug-related charges. The Labour Government are now refusing to assess whether that is legal, so let me ask the Foreign Secretary this question. If a foreign power accused the British Prime Minister of breaking its domestic law, bombed targets in the UK, killed dozens of British citizens and abducted the Prime Minister and his wife in the middle of the night, would the Government be able to say that that was legal, or is international law something that applies only when Donald Trump says it can? If so, are the Prime Minister and this Labour Government anything more than Donald Trump’s poodle?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  The cost of living crisis is not a natural disaster. My constituents are not struggling because of so-called global pressures; they are struggling because an economic system built by the powerful and for the powerful is bleeding them dry. Yet this Labour Budget refuses to confront that truth. Instead, it protects profiteers while punishing those who keep this country running. Water companies siphon off billions in dividends while pumping sewage into our rivers, energy giants rake in record profits while families in Coventry South are terrified to turn on the heating, and rail and bus companies charge extortionate fares for failing services. This is extraction. It is privatisation functioning as intended, with wealth flowing up and misery pushed down. And extraction does not stop at corporations. The people who run this country want us to believe that every refugee is a rapist, while they grab £12 million of taxpayers’ money to protect a parasite called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. He has never seen the inside of a cell or a courtroom, because what matters to the ruling class is not the safety of women and children; it is the peace and pleasure of the powerful. What a sick society we live in when the political and media class bends over backwards to defend the royal family, including Andrew, who was close friends with the notorious paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. That is our money that provided him with housing, our money that defended him in court, and our money that put food on his table. We should not just abolish Andrew’s titles; we should abolish the monarchy itself. It is an absolute scandal that the wealthy glide through this Budget untouched. Everyone except the richest 10% will feel the brunt. This is happening in a country where billionaire wealth has exploded beyond imagination. In 1990, Britain had 15 billionaires; today we have 156. The richest 350 families now hold more wealth than the entire economic output of Belgium. Make no mistake: this is not an accident; it is the direct result of political decisions by political parties that are too captured to challenge the super-rich. Now this Labour Government expect applause for ending the two-child benefit cap, but let us be clear: it will take effect in April 2026, not immediately. They have knowingly left hundreds of thousands of children in preventable poverty for over a year and a half, and I am proud to have lost the Labour Whip for standing up and voting to scrap this cruel policy last July. Some of us do not need focus groups to know that punishing children is wrong. Under this Labour Government, disabled people have seen their benefits slashed, and pensioners have been stripped of winter fuel payments. Food bank use has hit record levels, and this Government plan to funnel an extra £11 billion a year to arms companies. That is money flowing into the pockets of shareholders for the merchants of death, after two years in which our money has funded daily spy flights over the ruins of Gaza, aiding and abetting a genocide. This Labour Government are just as happy to oppress at home as they are abroad. We cannot ignore the political damage of this extreme inequality. History teaches us a stark lesson: when inequality runs rampant and the super-rich hoard more wealth, the doors open to something dangerous. We have seen the poison of fascism return to our streets and screens, and what do we hear from this Government? Well, when the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) says, “Kick an immigrant,” the Prime Minister asks, “How hard?” and shamefully uses the same fascistic language as Enoch Powell by calling us an “island of strangers.” We are not an island of strangers; we are an island that is suffering from a Government who protect the privileged and punish the vulnerable.

• 17 Nov 2025 · Asylum Policy · Hansard source

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  Sivanandan warned: “What Enoch Powell says today, the Conservative Party says tomorrow, and the Labour Party legislates on the day after.” Seizing valuables belonging to asylum seekers, making refugees wait 20 years before they can apply to settle permanently, and deporting entire families, including children who have built new lives here, because their country of origin is deemed safe—these measures are straight out of the fascist playbook. The Home Secretary has described herself as a child of immigrants, so I ask her: is she proud to introduce measures that punish and persecute desperate and vulnerable people seeking sanctuary? How does it feel to kick away the ladder and be praised by fascist Tommy Robinson? I must add—

• 3 Nov 2025 · “Soldier F” Trial Verdict · Hansard source

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  My thoughts today are with the families of the Bloody Sunday victims and with the people of Derry, who have carried the burden of grief, truth and justice for more than five decades. What happened on Bloody Sunday is not up for debate; the Saville inquiry established in painstaking detail what the Parachute Regiment did to peaceful civil rights demonstrators on the Bogside. Can the Secretary of State explain how it was determined and who determined that Soldier F qualified for Ministry of Defence funding, and what precedent this decision was based on, particularly given reports that he received double the financial support typically afforded to a single defendant? If he was eligible for legal aid, that avenue was open for him. Instead, £4.3 million of public money was spent defending a man who, in his own evidence to the Saville inquiry, admitted his lethal role in the state-sanctioned murders on Bloody Sunday. Does the Secretary of State believe that this represents an equal and impartial application of justice, or a two-tiered system designed to shield the British state from accountability?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban · Hansard source

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  indicated assent.

• 20 Oct 2025 · Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban · Hansard source

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  Yes.

• 20 Oct 2025 · Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 20 Oct 2025 · Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban · Hansard source

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  Maccabi Tel Aviv’s racist fan hooliganism cannot be separated from Israeli militarism. Many of these fans— [ Interruption. ] Many of these fans are active or former soldiers who have taken part in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. They should be investigated for war crimes the moment they set foot on British soil, not welcomed into our stadiums. Let us be clear: this Labour Government are no innocent bystander. They have armed Israel’s genocide, they have provided diplomatic cover and they have shamefully denied that genocide is even taking place. So I ask the Minister: is there anything this Labour Government will not do to defend the genocidal apartheid state of Israel?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In my question to the Secretary of State, I clearly stated that the Maccabi Tel Aviv football team is inextricably linked to the Israeli state, which is an apartheid state. The boycott of apartheid regimes, such as apartheid South Africa, is a legitimate political stance. To label such a position as antisemitic, as the Secretary of State did, is entirely false and dangerous, and the way the Secretary of State has referred to me and my colleagues is also laced with Islamophobia—

• 8 Sept 2025 · Palestine Action: Proscription and Protests · Hansard source

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  It is a shame that the Home Secretary could not come here today to defend her Government. Over 1,600 people have been arrested since this Labour Government proscribed a non-violent direct action group for the first time in British history, including elderly people, disabled people, priests, NHS workers and the children of Holocaust survivors. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has condemned this proscription as “disproportionate and unnecessary”, warning that it risks creating a “further chilling effect”. Will the Minister finally admit that his Government got it wrong and that they have threatened and undermined our free speech and right to protest, and will they review and immediately lift this ban?

• 16 Jul 2025 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance regarding the accuracy of the official report in Hansard. In my speech on Wednesday 2 July 2025 during the debate on the prevention and suppression of terrorism, I said the words, “We are all Palestine Action.” The video and audio recordings clearly confirm that the full sentence was spoken before the Chair intervened. However, Hansard has omitted the final word of that sentence. I have been advised that this is due to a long-standing convention not to report words spoken after the Chair intervenes, but in this case the record omits words spoken before the Chair’s intervention. I am also aware of precedents, which I can provide, where Members’ final words immediately preceding or overlapping an intervention have been included to preserve the accuracy of the record. Despite that, Hansard has not only refused to amend the entry, but has since removed the sentence entirely. That blatant attempt of censorship and rewriting the record is deeply concerning and undermines the integrity of the Official Report . Can you therefore advise me and the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, on whether there are formal mechanisms to challenge omissions of this kind, reinstate the accurate record and ensure that Hansard fulfils its duty to provide a full and accurate record of proceedings in this House?

• 9 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak in support of amendment 2(a) tabled by the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), amendment 38 in the name of the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), amendment 39 in the name of the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry), and new clause 8 tabled by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). Errol Graham was a 57-year-old grandad and former amateur footballer. When bailiffs came to evict him, they found his emaciated body in a freezing flat—no gas, no electricity and no food. Only two tins of fish four years out of date remained. He weighed just four and a half stone. A coroner ruled that he had suffered death by starvation. Errol suffered from severe social anxiety. The Department for Work and Pensions knew that, and still cut off his only source of income. As his daughter-in-law said, “He would still be alive. He’d be ill, but he’d still be alive.” His death was not a tragic exception; it was a political consequence. In 2017, Jodey Whiting took her own life after missing a fit-for-work test while she was hospitalised. Stephen Smith was denied benefits despite being gravely ill. He died in 2019. These are not just names; they are the human cost of decisions made in this place—decisions that, according to Sir Michael Marmot’s research, contributed to over 1 million premature deaths in England between 2011 and the pandemic, driven by poverty and austerity. Today the Government press ahead with more of the same. Clause 2 of the Bill will slash the universal credit health element—the limited capability for work and work-related activity component—from £97 to just £50 a week. By 2030, that is an annual cut of £3,000 for over 750,000 disabled people. These are not people waiting for an assessment; they are people who the DWP has already found too ill to work—people who cannot feed themselves, who live with degenerative illnesses and who experience daily pain, confusion and incontinence—and we are supposed to believe that this is about helping them into employment. Even the Government’s own figures show that fewer than one in 10 new claimants will be protected by the so-called severe conditions criteria, and charities such as Scope, Z2K, the MS Society and Inclusion London have made that clear. The clause will exclude “huge swathes” of severely disabled people, especially those with fluctuating or progressive conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, bipolar disorder and Parkinson’s. Why? Because to qualify, their condition—according to the Bill—must affect them not severely or overwhelmingly, but constantly. As Scope put it, “It feels like it’s been designed to cut support—not to support people.” Let us not forget the requirement for an NHS diagnosis in the middle of an NHS backlog crisis. That excludes people with neurodivergent conditions and others who rely on private or social care support. This is a deliberate narrowing of the safety net. The result? A two-tier system that punishes people for trying to work, having variable symptoms or falling through the cracks of bureaucracy.