Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend speaks for many in this House who now regret what happened in 2013 and our failure to stand by our red lines, because many more deaths have occurred than would otherwise have happened.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

T5. When he was Foreign Secretary, William Hague described the UN Human Rights Council’s universal periodic review as“a valuable mechanism for holding countries accountable for their human rights record.”—[Official Report, 15 April 2013; Vol. 561, c. 15WS.] Does the Foreign Secretary agree that the UN periodic review meeting on 23 January provides an opportunity to hold Israel to account for its treatment of Palestinian children held in Israeli military custody, and will he use the meeting to do so?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not wish to be unkind to the hon. Gentleman—he is a most perspicacious Member of the House—but questions are simply too long at topical questions; topical questions are supposed to be briefer. If we can have brief questions and brief answers, far more colleagues will get in.