Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On 20 March the Foreign Secretary said in relation to the conflict in Gaza:
“There are atrocities on both sides”.—[Official Report, 20 March 2025; Vol. 764, c. 529.]
On 24 March, I wrote to the Attorney General asking how and when His Majesty’s Government arrived at that determination. I further asked the Attorney General about the legal implications of the UK selling weapons to Israel directly or indirectly, and whether he believed it legal to supply those weapons when the Government had decreed that Israel was guilty of atrocity crime. On 8 April I received a letter from the Attorney General’s Office saying that he did not consider this to be his responsibility and that my letter had been passed to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. It is now 13 May, seven weeks after I first wrote to the Attorney General, and I still have had no reply.
This is not new, Madam Deputy Speaker. The record will show that I had to raise a similar point of order in November, when neither the FCDO nor the Attorney General’s Office responded to my letter about the Foreign Secretary’s interpretation of the genocide convention. Can you advise me on how I can get a reply to my questions, and how we as Back Benchers can have confidence that the Government will answer Members’ questions, even those that they wish had not been asked?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Due to the hon. Member’s experience, I think he will know that the matter is not down to the Chair. He will appreciate that Mr Speaker respects timely responses to correspondence and requests for answers to questions from Back Benchers. There is no doubt that not only has the hon. Member put his point on the record, but those on the Treasury Front Bench will relay that swiftly to the appropriate Department.