International Development and Gender-based Violence

Naz Shah Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I congratulate the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) on securing this very important debate. He talks very passionately about the issues for women, in particular, in regions of unrest and war.

On that note, I would like to talk about violence against women in occupied Kashmir by the Indian armed forces. We know that the rape of women becomes the weapon of choice in areas of conflict. I consider myself a daughter of Kashmir, because I spent my teenage years in Azad Kashmir in a village in Pakistan, where I had the luxury of being able to go to school without opening the front door and finding the military there with guns. I had the benefit and the freedom of going to school and going about my business without worrying about being cornered or subjected to rape, and without worrying about the women in the village being subjected to rape by the armed forces. That was a privilege that I enjoyed—that was in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

In occupied Kashmir, however, there are some instances where women still have not received justice, and I will highlight some of them. The first UN human rights report in 2008 called for an inquiry, and I hope the Minister will support that call. Calls for inquiries have often been dismissed as propaganda by the opposite side—whichever side that is. That is not acceptable, and it should not be acceptable to us that those inquiries have not happened.

Human Rights Watch has identified two main scenarios where women are being raped by Indian forces: first, during searches and cordon ops and, secondly, during reprisal attacks by Indian forces after military ambushes.

Nowadays, 23 February is commemorated as Kashmiri Women’s Resistance Day because on that date in 1991, up to 150 women and girls were raped en masse—the biggest mass rape that has ever happened anywhere in this world. Indian soldiers were told to go on a mass raping spree in the villages of Kunan and Poshpora, and that is what happened. The women are still waiting for justice; not one perpetrator was held to account.

Recently, with the revocation of Article 370, Nivedita Menon, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, said:

“These are proclamations of conquest and plunder, and reveal the real intention behind the abrogation of 370”.

On 10 August 2019, Manohar Lal Khattar, Chief Minister of Haryana, was quoted as saying:

“Some people are now saying that as Kashmir is open, brides will be brought from there. But jokes apart, if [the gender] ratio is improved, then there will be a right balance in society”.

Earlier, the Bharatiya Janata party’s Vikram Saini, a member of a legislative assembly, said:

“Muslim party workers should rejoice in the new provisions. They can now marry the white-skinned women of Kashmir”.

I went to Pakistan, to Azad Kashmir, and met lots of Kashmiri women. Many Kashmiri women have come here to make representations to this House, to members of the all-party parliamentary Kashmir group and to others, and they have told us of the horrors that they have faced.

I wanted to talk about this today because I have lived in Kashmir; I have seen what it is like to have freedom, even in somewhere like Pakistan and even after having been subjected to a forced marriage myself. I absolutely understand what the hon. Member for Totnes was talking about, but I still had the freedom of not having someone putting a gun barrel against my back, taking me into a corner and raping me. I still had those privileges in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and I am looking forward to taking my daughter there to introduce her to those areas.

What of those women in Kashmir, who cannot leave? We struggle, as people here, with the curfews—

[Imran Ahmad Khan]

The story that the hon. Member tells about her own forced marriage is tragic. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) has mentioned in relation to the case of 14-year-old Maira Shahbaz, it is slightly hollow for Pakistan—whether in Azad Kashmir or the main part—to protest about freedoms and human rights when its own laws allow for the abuse of its citizens.

In Maira’s case, it is not just that a 14-year-old girl was gang raped and then kidnapped out of her home; she was then forcibly converted to Islam, so if she now renounces that religion, she will be sentenced to death for apostasy under Pakistani law. That really makes the points that the hon. Member made, which are all right, hollow in the case of Pakistan.

[Naz Shah]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I recognise what he is saying, and he makes a powerful point. However, I do not recognise the idea that this is hollow. That is whataboutery, and we are not here for whataboutery. We are here because every life matters, as we have heard from every single Member who has spoken in this debate. For every 14-year-old that was raped in Pakistan, I can talk about the eight-year-old child that was raped in occupied Kashmir. This is not a competition about which girl deserves more of our concern, or in which area in the world that girl should be protected. That is not what this is about.

Let us get this right: our laws in this country do not give us equal pay, and we are the biggest democracy in the world. I will not take lessons on hollowness from the hon. Member when his Government have not implemented equal pay for women, and when they are even worse when it comes to black and minority ethnic women. Let us not belittle this debate and bring it down to whataboutery. This debate is about women.

The hon. Member for Totnes was spot on. As he highlighted, this debate is about looking at the 16 days of activism to stop violence across the world. Whether that is in Pakistan, India or Uganda, and whether it involves Boko Haram or any other terrorist organisation, women are being used as a weapon of war. They are being raped, and they are being violated. That is what the House needs to understand. We must work together, regardless of whether that is happening in Pakistan or India. I wanted to focus on the issue of women in occupied Kashmir being gang-raped by Indian forces, and I will not have that diminished. That is what must be highlighted, and that is the note on which I will end my contribution to this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (James Cleverly)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Rees. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) for securing the debate, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke), who is not here, and the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), for bringing this important issue to Westminster Hall. I thank the other Members who have spoken for their contributions. I pay tribute to the work that Members present in the Chamber have contributed in various ways on this most important of issues, whether through the all-party parliamentary group on the preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative, as a member of the International Development Committee, or as a member of the all-party parliamentary group on domestic abuse.

As Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, I also lead on the women, peace and security portfolio. One thing that has come up during the debate is how the various strands of Government work—on supporting education for women and girls, on preventing sexual violence in conflict, and on ensuring that women peace builders have a meaningful voice in conflict resolution—are not separate; they are all interwoven. It is important that in Government we address the full spectrum of policies. Work to end all forms of gender-based violence, to tackle gender equality, and to ensure that women are empowered and are part of the decision-making process internationally is, and will remain, a priority for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

I will try to address as many of the points that were raised in the debate as I can. I know that there will be frustrations about this, but hon. Members will understand that I will not be in a position to give as much clarity or assurance as they might wish, but I assure them that all the points raised and ideas put forward, and all the requests made of the Government, will be recorded and considered.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes made clear, gender-based violence is not just about violence directed at women and girls, but the sad truth is that they do bear the brunt of it. If he will forgive me, I will focus most of my comments today on the impact on women and girls, because violence affects women and girls everywhere. As has been mentioned, one in three women worldwide will experience physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime, making violence against women and girls one of the most systemic and widespread human rights violations of our time.

This year, the 16 days of activism to end violence against women are more important than ever. As a number of hon. Members have said in the debate, covid-19 has intensified the shadow pandemic of gender-based violence, and lockdown measures around the world have reminded us that homes, rather than being a place of safety and refuge, for many women and girls are in fact a place of danger and abuse—sadly, including here in the UK.

In east and west Africa, increased rates of female genital mutilation have been reported. In some countries, there have been reports of sexual exploitation by those Government officials tasked with enforcing lockdown requirements. A bigger global response is more urgent now than ever, but we should remember that gender-based violence was endemic before covid-19 and that it will not go away when, hopefully, we are able to get control of this disease. Therefore we need additional action to address it; it will continue beyond covid-19 unless we take that action.

However, there is hope. The UK-funded What Works to Prevent Violence programme has proved that violence against women and girls is preventable, and more than half our rigorously evaluated pilots showed significant reductions in violence of around 50% in less than three years. For example, in the DRC—a place that was mentioned during the debate—the project with faith leaders and community action groups halved women’s experience of intimate partner violence. We need to use and adapt that evidence to build back better after covid and learn from those successes. The Member for Putney raised the distressing situation in Tigray and asked what engagement my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has had. I am pleased to say that he met Ethiopian Foreign Minister Mekonnen yesterday and specifically raised the protection of civilians from violence during their bilateral discussion.

We need to do more, to reach more people and to distribute the learnings of what works to prevent sexual violence. That is why we continue to invest in the successor programme, What Works to Prevent Violence: Impact at Scale. That is a programme to scale up our programming and research to prevent sexual violence against women and girls globally. We are delighted to have been selected to co-lead the new Generation Equality action coalition on gender-based violence. The Generation Equality action coalition is a global multi-stakeholder partnership intended to spur collective action to deliver concrete, game-changing results on gender-based violence over the next five years.

We are using this opportunity to increase international action to tackle gender-based violence in the context of covid-19. We are calling on donors to channel funding to women’s rights organisations and movements that are on the frontline of delivering change. The UK recently announced an additional £1 million of funding to the United Nations trust fund to end violence against women, increasing our total contribution to £22 million. The additional funds will support women’s rights organisations tackling the surge of gender-based violence due to covid-19.

[Naz Shah]

Is the money that the Minister is talking about affected by the recent announcement on development funding being cut?

[James Cleverly]

That money has already been allocated. As I said, I cannot give clarity as to what future funding streams will be like, but this agenda remains a priority for the Government.

We will continue to take a leading role to tackle gender-based violence in conflict and crisis, including through the preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative. Last week, my noble friend Lord Ahmad launched the declaration of humanity. Crucially, that declaration commits leaders of faith and belief groups to do all in their power to prevent sexual violence in conflict, to support victims and to dismantle harmful cultural norms and misinterpretations of faith. I hope that will go some way to addressing the concerns raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and for Wakefield (Imran Ahmad Khan), because sadly, that is too often used to justify and condone acts of sexual violence.

Through the call to action on protection from gender-based violence in emergencies, the UK works with our partners to drive system change to better protect women and girls in a humanitarian context. We are pushing for increased funding and greater accountability on gender-based violence as part of humanitarian responses. My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield made an important point, however, that although ODA is important, it is not the only means to drive change in this agenda.

Several hon. Members have criticised the merger of the FCO and DFID to form the new FCDO, and I recognise the points about yesterday’s announcement and the statement from my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary today. Using the UK’s economic power, however, we will still be one of the most generous ODA-donating countries in the world, and we can also use our diplomatic power as a force multiplier.

We will put women and girls at the top of the UK’s agenda for our term as president of the G7. We will use our position as co-leaders on the GBV action coalition to tackle the root causes of violence. As COP26 president, we will promote clean and inclusive resilience from covid and natural disasters, because, of course, we know well that those economic and environmental pressures are drivers of conflict, and that conflict is often a driver for sexual violence against women and girls. We will continue to push the agenda through our diplomatic network.

I reiterate that violence against women and girls is not only completely and wholly unacceptable, but preventable. The key message for today is that we should not, and must not, accept it as a reality. I return to the praise that I gave to hon. Members on both sides of the House who have done so much work to drive this issue and to ensure that the appropriate attention is paid to it globally.

We must challenge the idea that there is inevitability or inertia, or indeed that change takes decades or generations. It does not. It should not. That is why we have prioritised this important work. We are working to stop any reversal of our hard-won progress on gender equality, perhaps driven by the covid-19 pandemic, and we are using the spotlight the pandemic has shone on the violence women and girls have to endure to tackle the root causes and accelerate progress to meet the sustainable development goals on this issue.

Official Development Assistance

Naz Shah Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the enormous expertise and experience she brings to the House from the development sphere. I can confirm that it will be temporary and, as I have already said, it is done as a matter of necessity and with regret. She asks what steps we will take. The most important thing is that we will need to see the impact of the virus on the economy and then on the public finances. We have come through what is effectively a second wave. We need to shore up against that. The measures the Government have announced aim to do that.

We are hopeful about a vaccine for next year, but we have to be cautious because we are not there yet. I am afraid there is an inherent degree of uncertainty about the situation, which is why we are in the position of not being able to rely just on the limited derogation written into the legislation which allows an ex post facto, if you like, derogation, having inadvertently missed the target. That is not the position we are in. We will, as I said, do it as soon as the fiscal conditions allow.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

From actively breaking international law in a “very specific and limited” way to breaking commitments on international aid, does the Foreign Secretary not realise how his Government are slowly weaning Britain from its role as a world leader, day by day making us more irrelevant on the world stage? Every former living Prime Minister can see why this move is morally wrong and politically unwise. Why can the current Prime Minister and his Government not see it?

[Dominic Raab]

I think the current Prime Minister, and certainly this Foreign Secretary, gets a little fed up with hearing Britain being done down. I have to say to the hon. Lady that, despite the coronavirus pandemic and the fiscal conditions we face, we are none the less putting in £10 billion, which, on 2019 figures, has us as the second-largest overseas development aid contributor. When I speak to our interlocutors abroad, from Asia to Africa, and when I speak to our multilateral partners, from Dr Tedros to António Guterres, they do not share this self-flagellating defeatism or this will to do Britain down. They understand that we make an unparalleled contribution in the world as a force for good. We shall continue to do so.

Refugee Communities: Covid-19

Naz Shah Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), who speaks passionately and eloquently about this issue. I echo her request for clarification on the ability of asylum seekers and refugees to work. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) for securing this much-needed debate and the Backbench Business Committee for granting us the time to speak on this vital issue.

The world is undergoing a global pandemic, and although the measures are often not perfect and support does not always go far enough, for those with a roof over their head, support from covid economic packages sometimes means that there is a lifeline. We must remember that at the end of 2019, there were almost 80 million people displaced from their homes, of whom 40% were children, many fleeing bombs, bullets and persecution. For them, the pandemic is much more severe.

No mother or father ever dreams of fleeing bombs with their children, trying their utmost to ensure that their children can see another day, but that is the reality for so many refugee families. In recent times, we have seen the direct results of this from the Syrian crisis and those fleeing Burma, Sudan, Palestine and many other countries. I mention that because, when speaking about refugees, some have deliberately or ignorantly ignored the tragic reality of their background. Tragically, many have perpetuated rhetoric towards refugees that is not only misleading but hugely dangerous. It is important that we not only stand up to the hatred that is unfairly directed towards refugees but ensure that we provide them with clarity, support and kindness.

I hope that those who have been misled by racist stereotypes suggesting that refugees are some kind of uncivilised invaders of the west, coming here to steal their railway jobs, will take their time and listen to this debate. The reality is that 90% of refugees are not hosted in Europe or the United Kingdom. Nearly 90% of the world’s refugees live in developing countries, which often struggle to provide basic services. The UK does not even come in the top 10 countries that host refugees. Additionally, according to the United Nations, there are more than 25 million refugees in camps around the world who are currently facing particularly acute obstacles in the fight against covid-19.

Refugees are not travelling on expensive airlines for a new role as expats in a new land. They are fleeing war. They are making perilous journeys across dangerous land and sea, often dying on the way. Just a few weeks ago, Rasoul Iran-Nejad, his wife Shiva Mohammad Panahi, and their two children Anita, nine years old, and Armin, six, drowned as they tried to reach Britain by boat—an entire family gone. Can we even begin to imagine the trauma, stress and fear for parents fleeing and taking such a dangerous journey? If we cannot extend to them the support they desperately need, the very least we can do is show some compassion and kindness and stop the dangerous anti-migrant rhetoric.

I am sorry to say that that goes for the Government too. In recent years, the Government have stepped up their anti-migrant rhetoric. This summer, the Home Secretary suggested that Navy warships should be deployed to tackle the rise in people crossing the English channel. Just over a month ago, news broke that Home Office officials had debated whether wave machines should be used to push back dinghies to France, and that the Home Secretary had considered relocating refugees to Ascension Island or St Helena—remote islands in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Those plans were condemned by the UK’s representative to the UN.

Added to this, the Home Secretary lashed out at “activist lawyers” giving legal support to those seeking asylum and refugee status in the UK, and attacked “do-gooders” advocating reform of the asylum process. Lord Dubs has already been mentioned today, as he came to the UK as a six-year-old refugee fleeing Nazi Germany. He has said that the comments made by the Home Secretary were

“so hostile and quite unworthy of a British home secretary.”

If we are going to be sincere in truly helping refugees, we have to challenge the hate-filled rhetoric about refugees that is unfortunately peddled. Sadly, this Government need to take a real, hard look at how they are adding fuel to the fire. As human beings, we should consider how we would like to be treated if we were one of the families desperately fleeing death.

At the height of this pandemic, the effects on refugees have been exacerbated. In my constituency of Bradford West and across the country, we have experienced refugees and asylum seekers in crisis over the covid-19 pandemic. The reality is that pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing destitution and poverty among the refugee and asylum seeker community. Internationally, conditions are much worse, so morally, the UK should play its part.

On 22 July, the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs tried to avoid parliamentary scrutiny by quietly announcing up to £2.9 billion of cuts to the aid budget as Parliament headed into recess. Given the scale of need for refugees, will the Minister confirm that the UK will not turn its back on people fleeing persecution, and outline whether his Department plans to cut funding for refugees in the 2020-2021 financial year?

I am very proud to come from Bradford, the city of sanctuary. I thank those who work hard to support asylum seekers and refugees across Bradford. Of course, the reality of the situation is not always tragic. From bringing fish and chips to the UK, to the chairman of my local synagogue in Bradford, Rudi Leavor—who published the memoirs of his own journey to the UK only a few weeks ago—the cultural contributions made by refugees here in the UK and around the world enhance our lives, and are to be remembered, celebrated and welcomed.

China’s Policy on its Uyghur Population

Naz Shah Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

In debates such as this, it is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who rightly quoted a newspaper on what the Jewish community has said. My speech is about genocide and why the Government are not calling it what it is.

We often stand in Westminster Hall or the other Chamber and say, “Never again”, but the truth is we continue to have to say it. We have seen many other genocides, but, with reference specifically to the Uyghurs, mounting evidence has shifted international attention on to Xinjiang. The Chinese Government admitted to the existence of the camp only when it was discovered. They sought to justify it under the pretext of national security, vocational training and re-education. The reality of those so-called vocational training and education centres is far more sinister. The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China has stated:

“A body of mounting evidence now exists, alleging mass incarceration, indoctrination, extrajudicial detention, invasive surveillance, forced labor”.

The testimony of witnesses and survivors is even more disturbing. We have learned that Uyghur women have been subjected to forced contraception, abortion and sterilisation, including forced removal of their wombs. There are also reports detailing that horrific abuses have been uncovered, such as Muslims being forced to drink alcohol, eat pork and convert from the religion of their choice, yet despite the intelligence and testimonies, and the fact that China is hiding its actions in plain sight, our Government fall short of acknowledging that acts of genocide are taking place.

Recent reports and analysis of satellite images reveal that the Chinese Government continue to construct new internment camps, displaying an unwavering desire to continue their campaign of genocide against the Uyghur people. It is clear that the Government’s stance is not working. The co-founder of the Coalition for Genocide Response points out that if a state does not make a formal determination of genocide, it will be less likely to fulfil its duty to prevent or stop the genocide. The Government must, in the interim, be able to make the determination to respond accordingly to atrocities. Much has been said about the Magnitsky amendments and I will push the Minister to respond. What is stopping us applying those measures, which should be imposed on those involved in human rights abuses in Xinjiang?

Alarmingly, as China asserts its dominance among global economies, it has been accused of benefiting from the fruits of the forced labour of the Uyghur people. A coalition of up to 180 human rights organisations has said:

“Virtually the entire apparel industry is tainted by forced Uighur…labour”.

Alongside imposing sanctions, the Government must go further and seek out brands based here in the UK that are profiteering from the exploitation of the Uyghur people. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) referred to medical equipment in that context. The Government should remind brands of their ethical responsibility and impose corporate accountability on them. Their supply chains are propping up China’s genocide against the Uyghur.

Unless China is forced to act by unflinching political, commercial and legal action from the Government, nothing will change. Indeed, China is a signatory to the 1948 universal declaration of human rights, and it must be reminded of its obligations. We have witnessed time and again the direction that the road of religious and ethnic hatred takes us in. Our inaction also means that we all know how it ends—with the deaths of countless innocent men, women and children.

How many more times are we going to have debates where right hon. and hon. Members pledge “never again”? In my lifetime, we have witnessed genocide in Rwanda and said, “Never again.” We left UN peacekeepers unsupported, despite their concerns that there would be war crimes in Srebrenica, and afterwards we again said, “Never again.” We saw acts of genocide against the Yazidis in Syria, we debated that genocide in its aftermath, and we said again, “Never again.” In Myanmar, we have seen acts of genocide against the Rohingya population, leaving the survivors stateless, and once more we said, “Never again.” At some point, we need to stop saying, “Never again.” We need to learn from history, identify these things when we see them happening and—crucially—we must act.

Occupied Palestinian Territories

Naz Shah Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an important speech, but would he be kind enough to outline whether the settlements are illegal or not?

[Damien Moore]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, and I will get to my beliefs on that later in my speech.

Between 1948 and 1967, Jordan refused Jews access to territory including the old city of Jerusalem and Judaism’s holiest sites. It is also important to note that the Palestine Liberation Organisation was formed three years before the Israeli occupation began, in 1967, with the goal of liberating Palestine—meaning modern-day Israel.

What is more, Israel has a history of removing settlements in the interests of peace. Had settlements been the main cause of violence, one would have expected it to decrease following Israel’s unilateral withdrawal of settlers from all settlements in Gaza in 2005. On the contrary, Palestinian violence has intensified and tens of thousands of rockets and missiles have been fired into Israeli communities in the last 15 years. Had continuing settlement construction been the main motivation behind the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to engage in direct peace talks with Israel, why did they fail to talk with Israel after Prime Minister Netanyahu unilaterally imposed a 10-month moratorium on settlement building in 2010?

It is my view that settlements are just one of several core issues that can be ultimately resolved in final status negotiations between the parties. Moreover, the blueprint for resolving the issue of settlements has been long accepted between the parties, including the Palestinians themselves. The principle of land swaps, under which Israel compensates Palestinians with territory equivalent to that of the settlements, has been agreed for decades and offered by Israel in successive peace proposals. Instead, it is the end of claims and recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state that perhaps best explains their justification and refusal to accept peace. Yet in recent weeks, as has been mentioned by hon. Members on both sides of the House, we have seen the beginnings of significant change and the formalisation of that is important. The trilateral Abraham accords, signed by the UAE and Bahrain, explicitly acknowledge the Jewish people and the importance of co-existence, mutual understanding and mutual respect between Jews, Muslims and Christians in the region.

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s recent call on the Palestinian Authority to engage with the peace process. I hope that the Palestinians seize this moment to work with their Arab neighbours and use their new-found commonality with Israel to broker a deal and have a long-lasting two-state peaceful solution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

Some 103 years ago, the Palestinians were abandoned when our then Foreign Secretary decided unilaterally to facilitate the establishment of a new state for one people in another people’s homeland. In 1948 the Palestinians were abandoned when that state was established, and in 1967 they were abandoned again when much of their remaining homeland was lost, leading to the occupation that continues today.

But this year they have not just been abandoned; they have also been ignored. On the back of ignoring them, Israel’s ignoring of international law has been rewarded, not punished, by political normalisation with two states in the region. We all want peace in the Holy Land, but when we are told that there are peace deals being announced without the Palestinians even being part of those deals, we should get real about whether peace is what we are really getting.

Peace is too important to be mis-sold. While Israel, understandably, pursues normalisation, we should remind all concerned that there is nothing normal about occupation. We found the lockdown due to covid-19 incredibly difficult, with curfews, lack of freedom to travel and being cut off from family, but Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation have been under their own lockdown for so many decades.

The argument being proposed is that the normalisation agreements with Bahrain and the UAE have halted annexation of even more Palestinian territory, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who I thank for securing this debate, pointed out, they are continuing behind the scenes. The Israeli Prime Minister has made no such guarantee in any case to his own Knesset, and he has been indicted already more than once for breach of trust as well as for fraud. Why should we take anything he says at face value?

Closer to home, we know from our experiences with the Good Friday agreement that peace can come only when sworn enemies are seated around the table, not when only one side of the table has the chairs out. It is that experience we should be sharing with the world in Britain’s commitment to a safer, fairer world for all—including Israelis and Palestinians.

The recent announcements coming from the UAE and Bahrain are significant to those states’ relations with Israel but detrimental to peace between Israelis and Palestinians and righting the wrongs committed during the military occupation. No normalisation effort with Israel will be real and genuine—let alone accepted by the people of the region more widely—without addressing the reasons why normalisation has escaped Israelis for so long: the occupation and the wrongs emanating from it.

[Rushanara Ali]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, despite what has recently happened, the Israeli Government have not ruled out normalisation of annexation for the long term, that it is a temporary thing, and that our Government need to ensure that the Israeli Government do not continue to pursue that as an agenda?

[Naz Shah]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Indeed, she and I were in Palestine last year, visiting the Palestinians, and we saw at first hand what happens. I agree and would go further: as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon said earlier, it is not even paused; the truth is, it continues.

In Northern Ireland, we would not have declared peace with the Irish just because Britain normalised full political relations with Dublin. Nor can the Israelis claim peace with the Arabs just because of deals struck in the UAE and Bahrain. Trade deals and PR stunts are one thing; peace is completely different. Both Israelis and Palestinians deserve better than the status quo. Both the oppressor and the oppressed and their populations suffer through injustice.

As Dr H. A. Hellyer of the Royal United Services Institute and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote last week,

“full normalization for Israel does not require its government to set up diplomatic outposts in cities far away from Tel Aviv, but rather, to come to an equitable and just settlement with the people of Palestine, from Gaza to Jerusalem to Ramallah.”

In the end, the normalisation of Israel in the region can come only through acceptance on the ground by the wider Arab public, including the people of Palestine, irrespective of the fanfare from the Trump Administration.

As we continue to pursue peace, we must ask, who is peace for? It is not for the Emiratis and it is not for the Bahrainis. It is not even for us. It is for the Israelis and Palestinians. Anything that excludes one side is nothing to do with peace. This is not about the art of a deal—especially when the artwork is counterfeit—it is about the rights of the oppressed, the occupied and the erased.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Naz Shah Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

This has been raised already in this House, and it is critically important. I totally agree with my hon. Friend on the imminent need for getting the PPE to the places that need it most. Since the start of the outbreak, we have delivered 1 billion items of personal protective equipment, and we have ensured that we have distributed it via the devolved Administrations so that all four nations get the equipment they need. We are also working through the local resilience forums, with our local authorities and with the support of the military, to ensure that everyone who needs it, whether it is NHS key workers on the frontline or care home workers, is getting the PPE they need. With the help of my noble friend Lord Deighton, who ran the Olympics, we are going to ramp up even further our capacity not just to procure and produce PPE but to get it to where it is needed most.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

At a time of national crisis, it is critical that the Government keep their word. Local councils are ensuring that communities get the support they need. I know this from the work that has taken place in Bradford: they are the government on the frontline. Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the Government will meet their promise to fund whatever is necessary and fully compensate local councils for all the costs and loss of income related to the covid-19 crisis, and not just provide the funding already announced, which only partially covers what the councils have already spent?

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and I pay tribute to the councils up and down the country who, whether it is through social care or the services that they need to provide to their residents, are doing an incredible job. I can reassure her that we have already announced an additional £1.6 billion of funding just this weekend to support councils delivering those essential services on the frontline.