The Speaker of the House of Commons has apologised for announcing Labour MP Imran Hussain’s name as “Mohammad Hussain” during a parliamentary debate on racism in cricket.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle said he made an “honest mistake” and phoned the Bradford East MP as soon as he could to apologise.
As Hussain rose to speak, Sir Lindsay called him “Mohammad Hussain” – with parliament’s official livestream, parliamentlive.tv, recording his name as Mohammad Yasin, the Labour MP for Bedford.
Shouts of “Imran Hussain” could be heard from Labour MPs calling on the Speaker to correct the mistake, as Hussain stood to speak in the urgent question about racism experienced by Yorkshire cricketer Azeem Rafiq.
In a statement, Sir Lindsay said: “This was an honest mistake. I called Imran as soon as I could to apologise – and he accepted.”
In his speech, Hussain condemned the “violent language” faced by the cricketer in his time at Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
The Labour MP also criticised the cricket club for not having shared a “full copy” of the report into what happened to Rafiq with the public, instead having only sent a redacted version of the report to its former player.
“It is shocking that even after all this that the House has requested a full copy of the report and has been denied it,” said Hussain.
Culture minister Chris Philp later made similar calls for the report to be released publicly, as did the Conservative chairman of the culture and sport select committee, Julian Knight.
Hussain added that the language experienced by Rafiq was “not friendly banter”, but was “racism plain and simple” and was the “tip of the iceberg” of the “normalisation of racism” in sport.
