Khan al Ahmar

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

I think that there will be a lot of sympathy with the sentiments expressed by my noble friend. No one can view these events with anything but a very heavy heart and profound concern about what the implications will be—as the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, correctly pointed out—for the negotiation of a peace process. We expect people to be treated humanely, we expect them to be treated with compassion and, above all, we expect law to be observed and human rights to be respected.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

Does the noble Baroness agree that the Khan al Ahmar school represents an amazing example of community self-help and shows how the Bedouin community values education? Will the Government consider, and act urgently towards, a supranational court to decide legal issues of this kind that occur in long-occupied territories?

[Baroness Goldie]

The noble Lord raises an interesting suggestion. As he is aware, there is already a global framework of legal fora for determining issues where there are either transgressions of human rights or breaches of acceptable state activity. I am not aware of any recent discussions by the United Kingdom Government on the point that he raises, but I will certainly undertake to make further inquiry and, if there is information that I can share with him, I will do so.