Speeches by Adam.

“Parents whose children have special educational needs and disabilities do not wish to send their children to far-away schools, but they have to, because of a lack of local provision. If the children are over the age of 16, however, it is at the discretion of the local authority to decide whether to meet the cost of tra…”

“The blockade of aid is just the last line in a long list of activities that Israelis have committed against the Palestinian people. Now that we have cut our overseas aid to a mere 0.3% of GDP—the lowest in real terms in 20 years—does the Minister still agree with the Labour party manifesto that international aid makes …”

“It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I want to say a special thank you to the Father of the House, the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), for his compassionate and humane speech. It was extremely touching. I want to speak about a certain aspect of this conflict. Last Monday, 24 F…”

“I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for securing the debate, although I do not know about the image I will have forever of him baking pizzas in the snow. I rise today in support of the people of Ukraine. They have seen their nation invaded and devastated by bombing, th…”

“I thank the Secretary of State for her statement. We all agree that the BBC’s impartiality is imperative and that antisemitism is abhorrent, but is it not enough that we have stood by as 48,900 Gazans have been killed, including 17,400 Gazan children? Is it not enough that we have stood by as 320 aid workers and 162 jo…”

“I think it has been comprehensively covered.”

“I think it has been comprehensively covered.”

“Likewise. I was aware of it prior to that but, thankfully, have not had the need to use it. But if there is, now we are part of the alliance, we would be able to navigate that quite comfortably, I think.”

“Procedurally, all I can see is advantages to it.”

“In terms of procedural, no. In terms of the mechanisms that go behind being part of a political party, then obviously that opens up a whole different can of worms.”

“It is not something that I have spent too much time thinking about. I am not advocating for it. It is not something that has really crossed my mind. Obviously, not being part of a political party means that we are at a disadvantage with what we could spend our resources on in terms of assistance, and so on. There are p…”

“I think it was a bit of both. I suspect that outside it gave people something, “There is a unity among the independents”, so they were pleased that we were working together. Procedurally, we would hope that with our numbers there would be certain changes as well going forward.”

“Sorry?”

“I think similarly, prior to being elected, with due respect—I am sure Iqbal will say the same—we had not even heard of each other, Iqbal, Ayoub and Adnan. I think I had heard of Adnan, but I did not know him. We had come into this completely independently. We campaigned on a lot of similar things, on NHS and so on, but…”

“It is very difficult to say because before the alliance there was only about four weeks, and I was still getting lost getting to the Chamber at that stage. We had the recess and then we formed the alliance. I honestly cannot compare and contrast. I would not be able to say whether I have noticed any difference in the p…”

“I will just emphasise one point: the word that Iqbal used is co-ordinate. We can co-ordinate a lot better now as an alliance, because we are an informal loose alliance. We can discuss things and co-ordinate certain projects and statements and so on. The other thing is that we do not have a Whip. We can vote as we will.…”

“No.”

“I was not aware of that.”

“It is still very important, because Select Committees are one aspect of a huge fraternity here. Therefore, it was so many other things you see before a Select Committee when you wish to be elected. I am sure somebody does get elected primarily just to be on a Select Committee, but there are a lot of other representatio…”

“I knew that, but I still stood.”