Palestinians: Visa Scheme

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) for leading the debate. It is incredibly important, for a number of reasons, to consider that Palestinian individuals affected by the war should be allowed into the UK, just as we have done for Ukraine. Currently, there is no bespoke visa scheme for Palestinians to allow them to come to the UK in much the way that there has been for Ukrainians.

I will keep my remarks fairly short, and I will touch first on the international community aspect. As we saw on Friday past, 143 countries at the United Nations General Assembly voted to recognise Palestine as a state. I think that Palestine has to be recognised as a state as soon as possible. I believe strongly in the two-state solution, and only then can Palestine have the recognition and the building blocks to join the international community as a fully paid-up member. Also, aside from that aspect, I want to go back to a point mentioned by the two previous speakers in the debate, the hon. Members for Lancaster and Fleetwood and for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum). They mentioned that perhaps favouritism was shown to some communities and not others, and I very much hope that that is not the case.

I can only speak on behalf of my constituents in Bolton North East, and today in the audience I count almost a third to perhaps a half of our audience members as having a link to Bolton in some shape or form. This issue is incredibly important for my constituents. The hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and I saw that on Saturday when we attended a rally at Bolton Town Hall in support of the cause of the Palestinian people, and the Gazan people in particular. My constituents care very much about this issue, and they believe that Palestinian lives are as important as anyone else’s.

Bolton is a place of fantastic diversity, and we have incredibly good form in welcoming people from all across the world. I am very proud to have a Muslim community in Bolton that numbers almost 20%, mostly from Gujarati Indian backgrounds, but also Pakistani, British and others. It seems like I and the hon. Member for Bolton South East, whose constituency is beside mine, are working as a team: we attended the opening of a new medical centre in Bolton founded by an Afghan-British national. That shows the impact that people from across the world can have on modern-day British society. We should see people not as a burden but as an opportunity.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I have to say that Orkney and Shetland does not boast the same ethnic diversity as Bolton, but I have been overwhelmed by the number of emails that I have received on this issue. The lesson to take from that is that British people as a whole, whatever their ethnic background or heritage, see people in harm’s way and want to help them. That is why there is the scale of support for a visa scheme of this sort.

[Mark Logan]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman. If a scheme to welcome Palestinians came out at some point in the future, there might be a challenge between us to house a Palestinian; I would be happy to do that if such a programme existed.

With my Parliamentary Private Secretary hat on, I stand with the Government on all policy issues, of course, but I have a question for the Minister that my constituents are asking. Are Home Office civil servants considering alternatives—one identical to the one for Ukraine or others—that could help the people of Gaza? At the end of the day, the Gaza strip has roughly 1.8 million to 2 million people: about the same population as my home region of Northern Ireland. People have fled to Rafah, which pretty much maps on to the same area as Heathrow airport; it has been referred to as a city of children. Action needs to be taken. We can do more, as a country and a people, for the people of Gaza and Palestine in this time of need.