Rushanara Ali MP called on the government to ensure that young people who receive help from the National Citizens Service will be able to continue their progress in ambitious plans for a new mentoring scheme, during the second reading of the National Citizens Service Bill.

Rushanara Ali MP has warned that the Conservative-led Government’s Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill will increase child poverty across London, as she spoke in the House of Commons debate on the legislation.

Rushanara Ali MP has called the publication of funding figures for mental health services of children and young people a ‘disgrace’ after the Royal College of Psychiatrists revealed that only £4.45 per head had been allocated in Tower Hamlets for the whole of the 2016/17 financial year.

Rushanara Ali MP today vowed to continue fighting for childcare for single parents to enable them to get back into work, after an amendment tabled by her and Labour colleagues was defeated at Committee stage of the Government’s Welfare Reform and Work Bill.

Rushanara Ali MP questioned Government Ministers on local authorities and mental health trusts freezing or cutting funding for mental health treatment for children and young adults.

Rushanara Ali MP campaigned for Labour to renew its commitment to the future of Bengali teaching in schools, in response to Government plans to cut Bengali language qualifications from the school curriculum alongside other foreign languages including Guajarati, Punjabi, Turkish and Polish.

In light of the reports that the three young women who left their homes in Bethnal Green have now been smuggled across the Syrian border, Rushanara Ali MP called upon the Prime Minister to ensure the Government continues to make every effort to find the three young women and encourage their return.

Metropolitan Police are investigating reports of three teenage girls – two aged 15 and one aged 16 – missing from home and believed to be travelling to Syria. The three girls are feared to have left the country via Gatwick Airport on Tuesday 17 February on a flight to Istanbul. Two of the girls were reported missing that day and the third girl the following morning. 

Rushanara Ali MP urged the Government to take urgent action in redoubling its efforts to reduce youth unemployment and the numbers of young people in neither education nor training (NEET).

Rushanara Ali MP for Bethnal Green and Bow and Jim Fitzpatrick MP for Poplar and Limehouse, have written a joint letter to the Corporate Director of Education, Social Care and Wellbeing at Tower Hamlets Council, Robert McCulloch Graham, calling on the council to reverse the decision to cut essential funds for four nurseries in Tower Hamlets.