Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington
@hackneyabbott.bsky.social @HackneyAbbott Facebook UK Parliament Profile
Opposition Members seem to need reminding that the early release programme was devised by a Conservative Government. We have been debating at great length, in the media and among politicians, keeping people in prison for longer. I support Government policy on this issue, but I remind the House that the only things, ultimately, that make people safer are: giving more support to prison...
I listened with great care to the Home Secretary’s speech, and one of the things she said—she said it more than once, in different phraseology—was that her legislation is designed to remove the burden of asylum seekers from the shoulders of British people. I live in a part of the world that has as many asylum seekers and immigrants as anywhere else. Over the centuries, we have had...
Will the Home Secretary give way?
The Home Secretary referred earlier to immigrants coming here to live off the taxpayer. I put it to her that not only do a disproportionate number of immigrants find themselves in work, whether legal or illegal work, but the children of immigrants pay tax. She should remember that.
The Home Secretary will be aware of how important it is to make sure that Members of this House get the protection and defence that they need. At one point, I got as much abuse and as many threats of violence as all the other women MPs put together, so it is important that we take this issue seriously. We should recognise—I can speak to this, because of my years in the House—that the...
The Secretary of State will know that many women are never more vulnerable than in childbirth. It is about not just the vulnerability, but the horror of what women and their babies are exposed to in childbirth. We see inquiry after inquiry, and nothing seems to improve. Very many of those who suffer during childbirth are black women and their babies. The Secretary of State said himself that...
The Prime Minister has gone on at considerable length about process and procedure, but ordinary people do not really care about process and procedure; they want transparency, and they want to know that they can have confidence in the words of elected politicians like all of us in this Chamber. It was in the ’90s that Peter Mandelson had to resign from the Cabinet for the first time, because...
The Iranian regime is a threat to us all, not least to its own population. I implore Ministers to remember the importance of a debate in Parliament, just as we had on Iraq, if we move further in our involvement with Trump’s war.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the use of terrorist connection provisions under section 69 of the Sentencing Act 2020 in cases where no terrorism offence has been (a) charged and (b) proven before a jury on due process and public confidence in the criminal justice system.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department holds information on the gender and ethnicity of applicants and shortlisted candidates for appointments to the board of the Independent Football Regulator.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many people have been appointed to the board of the Independent Football Regulator; and how many of those appointees are a) Black men and b) Black women.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that the Independent Football Regulator can credibly enforce equality and diversity standards in professional football, in the context of the absence of Black representation on its board.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many public appointments her Department made between 1 January 2020 and 29 April 2026; and how many of those appointees were a) Black men and b) Black women, broken down by ethnic group.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many public appointments her Department made in the periods a) 1 January 2020 to 3 July 2024 and b) 4 July 2024 to 29 April 2026; and how many appointees in each period were i) Black men and ii) Black women.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many non-executive appointments were made to public bodies sponsored by her Department between 1 January 2020 and 29 April 2026; and how many of those appointees were a) Black men and b) Black women.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department holds data on the gender and ethnicity of a) applicants, b) shortlisted candidates and c) successful candidates for public appointments; and if she will publish the number of i) Black men and ii) Black women in each category for appointments made between 1 January 2020 and 29 April 2026.
