Oral Answers to Questions

Alan Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am immensely grateful to colleagues. Ministers are not helped if Opposition Front Benchers chunter from a sedentary position on a protracted basis. We need to try to speed up.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

12. What recent discussions he has had with the Government of Israel on Palestinian communities in the west bank that are threatened with demolition.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

17. What recent discussions he has had with the Israeli Government on the military detention of Palestinian children.

[The Minister for the Middle East (Alistair Burt)]

We remain seriously concerned about the continuing demolition of Palestinian property by Israeli authorities, and our embassy in Tel Aviv raised our specific concerns about it with Israel in November last year. Israel’s treatment of vulnerable Palestinian minors held in military detention also remains a human rights priority for the UK. I raised our concerns with the Israeli authorities during my visit to Israel in August last year, and will continue to do so.

[Alan Brown]

The Israeli Prime Minister’s party has just voted for the annexation of the west bank. The Israeli Attorney General has said that new laws must take into account the possibility of application to the occupied territories, and 46 Bedouin communities are still threatened with eviction. When will the UK’s approach change? When will it join other EU countries in calling for aid to compensate for the demolition of EU-funded structures and an end to trade with illegal settlements?