Oral Answers to Questions

Alan Duncan Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

We do, as the hon. Lady knows, regularly discuss with Turkish Ministers concerns about human rights, including freedom of the press. She will also know that we, like other countries, do not lobby on behalf of citizens who are nationals of other states. It is for their Governments to take the lead in doing that.

[Sir Alan Duncan (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

We have today seen the well-worn exchange of differing opinions on Israel and Palestine. Whatever the tit-for-tat arguments might be, does the Foreign Secretary accept that the fundamental moral principle beneath all this is that Israel’s annexation of its neighbours’ land through settlement building is illegal, and that there is no place, either in this argument or in this House, for those who will not publicly admit to that principle?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

I am not going to define who can and who cannot take part in the argument, but we believe that settlement building breaches international law and that it is essential that we do not allow the facts on the ground to make impossible a two-state solution, which we all fervently hope will be the ultimate solution to the Palestine question.