Countering Russian Aggression and Tackling Illicit Finance

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I want to make a few short remarks in favour of the motion and expressing my solidarity with our Ukrainian friends, who, as the Prime Minister rightly said,

“threaten no one and ask for nothing except to live in peace and freedom.”—[Official Report, 22 February 2022; Vol. 709, c. 175.]

Of course, that is the plight of so many across the globe who find their lands illegally occupied by their neighbours. I applaud our Front-Bench team for bringing this motion to the House, and I endorse entirely the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) in his excellent exposition on this Government’s failures to better regulate, control and monitor the influx of Russian oligarch moneys, among other things.

I have three brief points to make. First, the measures announced by the Prime Minister have been widely criticised as insufficient, and we heard from the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on that very point, so the criticism is well-founded and widespread. The current extent of the sanctions to three individuals and some banks—we have been told that they are not the major players—is hardly the punitive sanctions that we were led to believe would be imposed.

Time after time, we have seen some Government Members cuddling up to powerful Russians, many of whom have benefited from the break-up of state-owned industries in Russia to the detriment of the Russian people, and it is those Tory politicians who have had direct financial benefit. It seems more than a bit rich for the governing party of this country to talk about sanctioning the sorts of people who have been filling their party political coffers. We have heard mention of Alexander Temerko. It is true that not every Government Member has had funds from that individual, but I ask the vast legions who have had that benefit: what do they think he wants or expects of them?

Secondly, and worse still perhaps, we have just had the Elections Bill go through this House. One of the most dangerous provisions within it, as pointed out by Opposition Members, was the open door to political donations from overseas. This dual citizen route to influencing politics in our country will come back and bite the governing party for some considerable time to come. The Government should understand that there is great scepticism out in the country that they really mean it when they talk about being tough on Russian oligarch money or any other dodgy money coming into British politics.

Finally, I will finish on regulation and control. Undoubtedly, there needs to be a major overhaul of company law, which allows 761 companies to be registered above a takeaway in Somerset, with directors declaring themselves to be “Jesus Christ” or “Adolf Hitler”. Until recently, I though a slap was a form of physical violence, but it is also a SLAPP—strategic lawsuits against public participation. It is a type of litigation, or threat of litigation, that is used, as the name suggests, strategically by claimants against organisations and individuals, including NGOs, activists, academics, whistleblowers and journalists, to shut down free speech. We are not going to settle the appropriate mechanisms here and now, but as we cannot give into Putin, we cannot give into the bully boy tactics of oligarchs or anyone else who wants to abuse their power and wealth.

Perhaps the Government can give some thought to protecting investigative journalists, as raised by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely), who have the courage to take on people, and to ensuring that agencies of the state are properly equipped and protected and have the capability and capacity to take on such people through unexplained wealth orders and other measures. We could all do with rereading the Treasury Committee’s report on economic crime. Certainly, the single enforcement body that it alludes to would go some way to providing the real teeth that are clearly necessary but sadly absent.

[Bob Seely]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In my speech, I was going to name another Member of the House of Lords—I will not do so—who has recently taken leave of the House of Lords to work for Russian interests but does not want to declare what he is doing. Because that person has taken leave, could one mention them in a speech—or despite them taking leave, is one still not allowed to mention them?

Palestine: Road Map to Peace

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Ms Rees. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Tahir Ali) on securing the debate, but I must say, very sadly, that the prospect of peace in Palestine looks more distant than ever. With each illegal home the Israelis construct, the dream of a viable Palestinian state is dealt another blow. The Palestinian people are subjected to yet more intolerable brutality and oppression, with Israeli forces giving settlers licence to attack Palestinian civilians.

The human rights group B’Tselem has documented a staggering 451 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians since early 2020, and Israeli forces failed to intervene to stop the attacks in two thirds of cases. The organisation has also recorded how settlers have been used as a tool of the state to expropriate 11 square miles of Palestinian farm and pasture land in the west bank over the past five years alone.

There is no other way to look at this than as a state-sanctioned project of colonisation and ethnic cleansing. A Human Rights Watch report published in April this year concluded that

“the Israeli government has demonstrated an intent to maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians across Israel and the OPT”—

that is, the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The report goes on:

“In the OPT, including East Jerusalem, that intent has been coupled with systematic oppression of Palestinians and inhumane acts committed against them. When these three elements occur together, they amount to the crime of apartheid.”

The crime of apartheid cannot be allowed to stand, but thanks to the international community offering little more than hollow words of condemnation, the Israeli authorities wilfully continue to break the law, safe in the knowledge that they will not face the repercussion of proper sanctions.

If the Government will not provide moral and substantial leadership on this issue, it will be up to civil society to do so, through the boycott of, and divestment from, companies engaged in violations of Palestinian human rights. The Government need to lead the international community in providing more than mere denunciations. We need actions and sanctions, and we need them now.

Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

That is indeed the case, and it shows that we can have the best of both worlds because we are gaining from the trade deals that the European Union has negotiated at the same time as increasing our trade with other countries with which Europe does not currently have a trade deal.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware of the significant inward investment in the automotive trade in the north-east of England, not only at Renault-Nissan but at Nifco, at Elring Klinger and at A. V. Dawson in Middlesbrough, which are all part of the supply chain? If we had to wait seven years for a new trade deal to be reached, what would be the likelihood of Nissan or Hitachi continuing to invest in our region?

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. The north-east, along with Wales, probably understands better than any other part of the country just how important membership of the European Union is to the economic prospects of the communities and families that depend on the jobs that come from that investment, not least because the north-east exports a higher proportion of what it produces to Europe than to other parts of the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I am pleased to take part in this debate, and in doing so I want to reflect on the pageantry and ceremony of last week’s occasion. Having thought about how that tradition fits in with the wider issue of human rights, the lived experience of all the citizens of our country and the growing inequalities in our land, I confess to finding it all somewhat uncomfortable.

Last year was the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta and the beginning of our human rights story. That milestone in civil and human rights laid the foundations for the Chartists, the Levellers, the suffragettes and other movements that have believed that citizens ought to be equal under the rule of law and protected from the exploitation of political power.

I find myself questioning how all those hard-won rights sit with the realities of the lives of the citizens of our country, because they are the reason we are here in this place. For example, cuts to legal aid are turning access to justice from a right for all into the preserve of a wealthy few. The absence of accountability for the powerful in cases of historical injustices fuels the notion that the powerful in our society are above the law. Attacks on our rights and the failure to hold transgressors to justice are undermining civil and human rights both at home and abroad. The exorbitant fees that are now paid in employment tribunal cases have eroded the ability of working people to seek justice for abuses in the workplace, as was fully intended.

Ensuring that people have access to justice is a fundamental part of our democracy, as everybody, regardless of their personal circumstances, should be entitled to equal treatment under the law. It is the poorest and the most marginalised who find themselves without legal representation when they face legal problems, and that has become worse as our welfare system has been made ever more punitive, punishing the most vulnerable in our land.

The current undermining of access to justice is mirrored in cases of historical injustice that have not yet been addressed. The Hillsborough disaster is a poignant illustration of how justice was denied to ordinary people to protect the interests of the politically powerful. The recent verdict of the inquest that supporters were unlawfully killed owing to grossly negligent failures by the police and ambulance services to fulfil their duty of care was nearly three decades too late. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) is to be wholeheartedly commended for his efforts to secure truth and justice for the Hillsborough campaigners. The Home Secretary also deserves a great deal of credit. Her excellent performance at the Dispatch Box recently spoke to the very issue I want to explore.

That the friends and families who said goodbye to loved ones who went to enjoy a game of football and never returned had to wait 27 years for an inquest to conclude what an entire city already knew was shameful. However, I want to send a message of full support to all the police officers throughout the UK who go about their duties diligently every day to keep us safe. My criticisms are not of them—they do brilliant work, day in, day out—but of the rotten culture that was all too pervasive. It is our duty to ensure that the truth is revealed in all its horror, so as to extinguish any last vestiges of such corrupt thinking and ensure that such disasters are never repeated. Nothing short of a cultural shift will suffice.

The Hillsborough inquiry showed how senior police officers in South Yorkshire falsely blamed the victims to protect certain interests, which was an absolute disgrace. The Sun and Kelvin MacKenzie will never be forgiven for their dreadful slurs and insults. In remembering the 96, many of us will never forget the infamous article in The Spectator that was published under the editorship of the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), with its condemnation of an entire city and its people—and he wants to be Prime Minister!

Hillsborough is not an isolated instance of historical injustice; there are others that I would like to have addressed. This is ultimately about how we view ourselves as a society and what sort of country we want to be. I contend that if we do not look at such injustices with great honesty, we will never learn their lessons. I hope that any discussion of the Human Rights Act will be framed in that context, so that we can properly examine the lessons to be learned from those terrible events.

Child Prisoners and Detainees: Occupied Palestinian Territories

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

I will be extremely brief. First, however, I commend the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) on securing this important debate. She and I went on the same CAABU-organised visit to the west bank in September 2015. I declare that I am a board member of CAABU.

A number of hon. Members have mentioned context, which is all-important when considering the issues arising in this debate. The basic context is that Israel has been the occupying power in Palestine for almost the past half century. The fact that Israel is the occupying power brings certain responsibilities and duties. The question that has to be considered is whether Israel, as the occupying power in Palestine, is discharging those duties properly.

We have already heard about the two UNICEF reports, which concluded that Israel is in significant breach of its duties in Palestine. Those reports were supported by the report of United Kingdom jurists, which was funded and sponsored by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It is therefore missing the point for hon. Members to suggest that there is fault on both sides. The significant point is whether there is a breach of law. If there is a breach of law on the part of Palestinian children, those Palestinian children should be dealt with in accordance with the law. The difficulty, of course, is that the legal system applied by the occupying authority in Palestine is a military legal system. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) mentioned, Palestinian children who find themselves caught up in the military court process are treated differently from Israeli children who may have committed similar crimes. I do not wish to repeat arguments that have been advanced by other hon. Members.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

When I have my meeting with the Minister, I will push that very point.

[Andy McDonald]

Palestinian children have been subjected to such treatment for decades. Generation after generation grow up having experienced violence and trauma, and they harbour feelings of resentment, persistent anger, hatred and mistrust as a result. Does my hon. Friend agree that, unless those gross and offensive violations cease, the prospects for peace will continue to diminish?

[Sarah Champion]

Sadly, I agree. Everybody in this Chamber and in the country wants lasting peace. We should all be driving for a two-state solution.

I am delighted that the Minister has agreed to meet with me. I want to discuss with him how the UK can meet its legal and humanitarian obligations. I thank the Minister and Members in this Chamber for participating in this debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered child prisoners and detainees in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

UN Independent Commission of Inquiry (Gaza)

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on securing the debate.

I, too, welcome the fact that the Government voted in favour of the report at the UN Human Rights Council last Friday. I look forward to seeing how they implement the robust recommendations of the report, which highlights Israel’s targeting of residential buildings, including schools, hospitals and apartment blocks, the use of heavy artillery in densely populated areas, and the targeting of civilians.

Given the way in which Israel conducted its assault—it used 20,000 tonnes of explosives, dropping 120 one-tonne bombs and attacking residential neighbourhoods in one of the youngest and most densely populated areas in the world—the primary victims were always going to be civilians and children. The UN report found that 65% of Palestinian deaths were civilian, including more than 500 children. The images of the four boys killed by explosive rounds while playing on Gaza’s beach are the most enduring of the conflict.

Britain approved the sale of £7 million of arms to Israel in the six months before the offensive. That included components for drones, combat aircraft and helicopters. The Export Control Organisation, which is part of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, is responsible for assessing arms export licences, with each licence assessed on a case-by-case basis against the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria. Those include consideration of whether the proposed export would

“provoke or prolong armed conflicts or aggravate existing tensions in the destination country…be used aggressively against another country…be to a destination where the behaviour of the buyer country raises concerns with regard to its attitude to terrorism or respect of international law”.

If the proposed export fails to meet one or more of the criteria, a licence will be refused.

If more evidence were needed that the Government had little commitment to their own arms export licensing criteria, it was recently reported that, in the few months between the end of hostilities in Gaza last August and the end of December, BIS approved 32 military exports, worth £3.97 million, to Israel. The first licence was granted just six days after the announcement of the Israeli ceasefire. If we play the role of honest broker in the conflict while selling the occupying power the arms it uses to occupy its neighbour, how can we hold our head up?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

Well, there’s a task! Thank you very much indeed, Mr Hollobone, and it is a pleasure to respond even in brief to the debate. May I express my frustration that this debate has not taken place in the main Chamber and that we do not have three hours for it? I am looking at the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), who I think is a member of the Backbench Business Committee. I feel frustrated that I have little time to reply and simply cannot do so properly.

As hon. Members might be aware, I try to do my best on such occasions, and I will certainly write to them with the details, but even to list all the questions would take all my time before I gave any reply. Such debates are important and should not be conducted in Westminster Hall for 90 minutes. We do not do the subject matter any justice, and if I feel frustrated, hon. Members who have been given only two to three minutes to speak must also feel frustrated. I hope that the usual channels—if they are listening, read Hansard or hear the debate—ensure that next time we have such a debate, we do it properly, because the world, the nation and our constituents are watching, and we need to do the subject justice.

I welcome, I think for the first time, the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) and I congratulate her on securing the debate. She shows a grasp and understanding of and a genuine interest in the subject. I also welcome other hon. Members to Parliament—it is my first opportunity to do so for some—and their contributions to such debates as this. Britain thrives on international affairs, which is something we do well, and it is good to see that this Parliament is taking the issues very earnestly.

I, too, congratulate the Scottish National party spokesperson, the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), on a formidable speech—I echo the comments of the Labour spokesperson, the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy)—and she is another person to come to the Chamber with real knowledge of the subject matter. She is most welcome here today.

I will outline the Government’s position on the vote and the report, on what Britain is doing in Gaza unilaterally and multilaterally on the humanitarian front and so forth, and on the longer-term aspects—although I will have probably run out of time by then. I will do my best.

We deeply regret the loss of civilian life during the Gaza conflict last summer and the terrible toll of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict on citizens of both sides. The UN commission of inquiry report brings the scale of human suffering into sharp relief. It notes the victims’ continued hope that leaders will

“act more resolutely to address the root causes of the conflict so as to restore human rights, dignity, justice, and security to all residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel”.

As many hon. Members have said, this is not the first time that we have been around this buoy—Operation Cast Lead, Operation Pillar of Defence—and it seems to be something that we do every two years, with Gaza getting destroyed and rebuilt. We must break that cycle if we are to hope to move forward. We continue to believe in the critical importance of a negotiated two-state solution to end the conflict once and for all. We strongly condemn the indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel by Hamas and militant groups in the Gaza strip, as detailed in the report. On the seeming imbalance of munitions going from one side to the other, hon. Members will be aware of the Iron Dome project in Israel, which has stopped many of the munitions fired by Hamas. That is why there is the disproportionate number of fatalities or injuries on one side. I simply state that as a comment, not to justify anything.

As we have made clear, we recognise Israel’s right to defend itself. Every country, including ours, has a right to defend itself from terrorist groups and organisations, such as Hamas, and attacks. But it is a principle of international humanitarian law that the use of force in self-defence must be proportionate. The commission of inquiry report calls on all parties to fully respect the main principles of international humanitarian law and international human rights law that the hon. Member for Bristol East articulated—distinction, proportionality and precaution—and to establish credible, effective, transparent and independent accountability mechanisms promptly. We echo those calls.

[Andy McDonald]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Ellwood]

I am afraid I simply cannot—it would be unfair to anyone else—but I will certainly speak to the hon. Gentleman afterwards.

We note that the report highlights

“substantial information pointing to serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law by Israel and by Palestinian armed groups. In some cases, these violations may amount to war crimes”.

Those allegations must be fully investigated by Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the authorities in Gaza. We welcome the fact that Israel is already conducting its own internal investigations into specific incidents. Where there is evidence of wrongdoing by either party, those responsible must be held accountable.

The UK, along with our EU partners, voted in favour of the resolution on the report at the Human Rights Council last week. We would have preferred to see a text that gave more weight to Israel’s legitimate right to self-defence, and to the threat Israel faces from militant groups operating from inside Gaza, including Hamas. However, despite those concerns, we supported the resolution. I make it clear to hon. Members, who will be familiar with this from texts agreed behind the scenes in this place, that we need to find a balanced text to support; we found that resolution to be a balanced and appropriate text.

A number of hon. Members have raised concerns about the political and humanitarian situation in Gaza. We must do everything we can to avoid another conflict. The ceasefire agreement reached in 2014 holds, by and large, but there has not been the necessary progress toward a durable solution that addresses the underlying causes of the conflict. Indeed, worse than that, we are aware that the tunnels are being rebuilt and that Hamas is re-engaging and purchasing new weapons systems. We are also aware that other extremist groups such as ISIS are taking an interest. Where would it take this conflict if we were to see that extremist operation move into the area?

The current situation in Gaza is unacceptable. As has been articulated by others, the humanitarian situation remains bleak. More than 100,000 people remain displaced, there are power outages for up to 12 hours a day and 120,000 people across Gaza remain without a water supply. I am afraid, however, that the Palestinians have not taken the steps needed for progress on reconciliation and for the Palestinian Authority to resume control of Gaza. That is one of the main causes of frustration here: the Palestinian Authority are denied access because of Hamas. Israel has eased some of its restrictions, but far more needs to be done to ease the suffering of ordinary Palestinians, and there is more that Israel can do. Egypt, too, is wary of extremists in Sinai—the Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis—and is reluctant to reopen the Rafah crossing in the south. It opens it sporadically, but is further restricting the movement and access of both people and goods.

Hon. Members have asked what can be done. It is clear that there is an urgent need to do more to address the terrible situation now. We need bold political steps: without addressing the underlying causes of the conflict, we will never break the cycle of violence I alluded to earlier—there is no alternative that can deliver peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

We welcome the recent positive steps that Israel has taken in easing some restrictions, including doubling the water supply and permitting an increase in exports from Gaza. However, we want to see Israel go much further, as I have articulated on every visit I have made to Gaza, Israel and the west bank, and to visitors from there to the UK. We call on Israel to ease restrictions much further, on President Abbas to take concrete steps to return the Palestinian Authority to Gaza and on Egypt to show maximum flexibility in opening the Rafah crossing once and for all.

I will conclude, as I want to leave the hon. Member for Halifax time to respond to the debate. I reiterate my promise to write to hon. Members in more detail and apologise for not being able to answer them more fully in this debate.

Gaza

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Any proposal for ending conflict between Gaza and Israel that does not prioritise the upholding of international law and a just settlement between Israel and Palestine is bound to fail. Indeed, the failure of the international community to halt the colonial theft of Palestinian land and to broker a just peace is the greatest provocation of further unrest.

The Oslo dynamic, which has persisted for more than 20 years, has demonstrably failed. In conflict resolution, victims of conflict sometimes abandon their right to seek justice for past crimes and transgressions in the hope of building trust and strengthening a political process that is designed to resolve the broader conflict. We need only look to Northern Ireland to see how that principle has worked in practice. Importantly, the dynamic assumes that the parties to the conflict are sincerely interested in resolving the situation in a way that is both legal and acceptable to the other party. Sadly, that is not the case in the virtually non-existent middle east peace process. Rather, Palestinians have been asked to sacrifice almost every conceivable right or claim to justice at the altar of negotiation. That has afforded the Government of Israel unparalleled impunity for its many crimes against the Palestinian people. With each unpunished transgression, those on the Israeli right are encouraged to continue to act as they like, however immoral or illegal their actions, safe in the knowledge that there will be no adverse consequences.

Palestinians are told that they must negotiate for their rights, their statehood and their freedom from occupation. Meanwhile, the party with which they must negotiate changes the facts on the ground day by day to make the realisation of those rights an ever more distant prospect. For those who seek to deny the Palestinians their rights, it is worth noting that the Israelis were not expected to negotiate with the Palestinians for the same rights. It is both impractical and wrong to expect a successful peace process to emerge from a dynamic in which there is such a disproportionate imbalance of power and in which the rule of law has been totally abandoned.

Most of the current Israeli Government—those with whom the Palestinians are told they must negotiate to obtain their rights—are on record as saying that they fundamentally oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state. Last summer, Binyamin Netanyahu, who is on the left of his right-wing coalition, spoke his mind:

“I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.”

For the past two decades, negotiations have served as little more than a fig leaf to cover Israel’s expansionist aims so that it can consolidate what it has already taken by force of arms.

If the situation is to end and space is to be created for a meaningful peace process, the UK must push to make Israel accountable for its breaches of international law. That means that we should be prepared to pull whatever levers exist, whether economic or diplomatic, to ensure that the Israeli Government understand that continuing to annex Palestinian land, collectively punishing 1.7 million people with an illegal blockade and systematically denying a people their fundamental rights will not be tolerated by the international community. We should also do what we can to strengthen the voices of moderation inside Palestine and to demonstrate that it is the path of politics and peace, not the path of violence, that leads somewhere. Our Government should respect the will of Parliament and immediately recognise Palestine as a state. We must also do all we can to support the unity Government, in which Hamas is to take a back seat. In fact, the announcement of the unity Government that preceded this summer’s assault on Gaza was widely seen—

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann) that Hamas would disarm in return for economic development? That would make a hostage of all those peace-loving people in the Palestinian population who neither hold arms nor hold any brief for those who hold arms.

[Andy McDonald]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and it involves doing all we can to support the unity Government in which Hamas is to take a back seat. The unity Government was welcomed by everyone, save only for Israel.

Critically, we should understand that the realisation of Palestinian rights and the success and security of Israel are intertwined. There will never be justice for Palestinians while the occupation continues and their rights are denied. Peace and security will be unobtainable for Israel so long as Palestinians live with such injustice.

[Mr Jim Hood (in the Chair)]

The two Front-Bench Members have each given Fabian Hamilton a minute.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Our advice is that unless they are going as a health care worker to fight the Ebola emergency as part of an organised humanitarian programme, they should not travel. The advice is to avoid travel.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

12. What the Government’s priorities are for the UK’s relationship with Cuba; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

I visited Cuba in October, the first British Minister to do so in nearly a decade, and signed three memorandums of understanding to drive forward our bilateral relationship. We continue to encourage progress on economic reforms and human rights, and support a closer EU-Cuba dialogue.

[Andy McDonald]

Last December, online customers buying Cuban coffee from The Bean Shop in Perth were reported to US authorities by PayPal, which sent e-mails to those customers threatening to close their accounts if they continued to breach US law. In the light of last month’s announcement of a new start to US-Cuban relations, will the Minister secure a guarantee from the US Government that UK companies and citizens will not be penalised for trading with Cuba?

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, we are clear that settlements in the occupied territories are illegal under international law and, perhaps even more importantly, deeply unhelpful to the prospects of a peace process. We urge the Israelis at every opportunity to cease the settlement programme. If we are to move forward into peace talks, which I fervently hope we can do in the coming weeks and months, there will have to be a cessation of settlement activity while that process is ongoing.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

The Israeli Knesset will soon vote on the Jewish state Bill, which would deny national rights to Israel’s minorities, remove Arabic as a national language and assert that Israel’s identity as a Jewish state comes before its nature as a democracy. At a time when tensions between Jews and Arabs are running high, does the Foreign Secretary agree that it is wrong for the Government of Israel to press ahead with that discriminatory piece of legislation?

[Mr Hammond]

That is a piece of legislation before the Israeli Parliament, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we are always opposed to discriminatory legislation. Depriving people who are resident within a state of their citizenship and discriminating against them with regard to language will never be conducive to the peaceful co-existence that I think virtually everybody seeks for Israel and Palestine.

Palestine

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I start my contribution by thanking all the people who signed this e-petition and other petitions to ensure that the debate would take place, and all the people who have campaigned not just for months but for years for the recognition of a Palestinian state and justice for the Palestinian people. Those who have stood on wet and windy high streets on a Saturday morning collecting signatures do matter in a democracy, and this debate is, in a sense, the product of that.

In the short time available to me, I want to draw attention to a few points. First, I was asked to give a talk last week to a group of students at City and Islington college about the history of the whole conflict in the middle east. It was a fascinating discussion, which ranged from the first world war right up to the current situation. The students had an incredible sense of the historical importance of the vote that took place in Parliament recently, when we voted finally for the recognition of Palestine, but I argue very strongly that that is only one very small step that we need to take. A settlement has to involve an awful lot more than just the recognition of the state of Palestine. People should cast their minds back to Sabra and Shatila in 1982 and to the Nakba in 1948. The victims of those processes are still living in refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria; the Palestinian diaspora across the world is huge. They also have rights—they also have the right to return home and a right to recognition. That is extremely important. They should never be forgotten.

Secondly, any peace process requires Israel to say what it wishes its final borders to be. My hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann) made many points, as did others, about the Hamas charter and what it is supposed to say. The reality is that Hamas is involved in a unity Government, and that is what provoked Operation Protective Edge this summer.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend talks about Hamas’s charter, which refuses to recognise Israel, but the charter of Likud, the ruling party in the coalition, states:

“The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.”

Is that not a fetter to progress on this issue?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Absolutely. The Likud charter, which is not talked about too much by those who support the Government of Israel, says that in those very specific terms, and there has to be some recognition that the Prime Minister of Israel is a member of Likud and is in power because of Likud support.

Another point—there are many—is that half a million people are now settlers all across the west bank. Travelling around the west bank is travelling through an occupied land where the best land and the best water are taken by the settlers, the red-roofed buildings are built increasingly over Palestinian land and the massive concrete wall snakes around the place. If it was unwrapped, so to speak, it would stretch all across Europe. That wall divides farmers from their land, divides people from their water, divides children from their schools and makes travelling impossible. There has to be not just an end to the settlement policy but an end to the settlements. They have to go; they have to be withdrawn if there is to be any peace settlement.

Another issue is, of course, trade. Britain is a trading partner of Israel. We sell arms to Israel; we buy arms from Israel. Although some licences have been suspended or withdrawn, the arms trade goes on. If we are making engines for drone aircraft in this country and those drones are used for surveillance over Gaza and used to bomb the people of Gaza, as they were during Operation Protective Edge, we are complicit in what goes on there. That is what provoked an awful lot of people to sign the petition and make their views heard recently.

Gaza is under siege and has been under siege for a very long time. It has been my pleasure to visit Gaza on nine separate occasions during the past 15 years or so, and there is a feeling of depression and anger there at the way in which the people of Gaza are denied the right to work, the right to travel, the right to trade and the right to develop. Now, Egypt is joining in with that by developing a cordon sanitaire along the border between Egypt and Gaza, so I hope that when the Minister replies, we will hear some fairly robust remarks about the policies being followed by Egypt at present, which are compounding the siege of Gaza already being undertaken by Israel. A powder keg is developing because of the lack of freedom to travel, the lack of supplies, the lack of water and the lack of food. The people are crying out for recognition, help and support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) on securing the debate and giving voice to tens of thousands of petitioners. It has been more than 20 years since the famous handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn, but the remarkable longevity of the Oslo dynamic stands as a testament not to Oslo’s utility but to its failure. The logic of Oslo and the many successive initiatives derived from it have rested on the belief that incremental progress on smaller-scale issues would build mutual trust and confidence between the parties and enable them to tackle tougher issues further down the road.

In practice, however, the opposite has been the case. A generation of Palestinians have grown up to witness a worsening situation on the ground, which stokes the fires of injustice that are escalating the conflict and endangering the entire region. The stipulation that Israel and the Palestinians would not be held accountable for violations was originally intended as a trust-building exercise for a future settlement, but it has, in subsequent decades, afforded Israel complete impunity for its actions. That has led to horrendous human rights violations and is extinguishing hope for a just political settlement.

A lot has been said about leadership today. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin was a tragedy for both peoples, because Rabin was an Israeli leader prepared to make the tough compromises necessary to achieve a just peace. Without an Israeli Government who are prepared to compromise and negotiate in good faith, a refusal to hold Israel to account does not encourage negotiations; it leads to a culture of impunity that is seized on by those on both sides who reject any type of political settlement. Israel is the dominant party in the conflict, and it is afforded an unparalleled diplomatic shield by western nations. In the current dynamic, there is nothing to prevent Israel from doing whatever it wants and taking whatever it wants, to the detriment of both peoples.

The two-state solution receives the near-unanimous support of hon. Members—myself included—the British public, the international community and, most importantly, a large majority of both Israelis and Palestinians. A negotiated two-state solution will be achieved only if there are partners for peace on both sides. Sadly, the current Israeli leadership shows little appetite for political settlement, and the direction in which it is headed is destructive for Israel and devastating for the Palestinians.

Israel is a close ally of ours, and it has good friends here who can be instrumental in encouraging it to reach a political settlement in its own self-interest. For that to happen, our Government must apply pressure, both diplomatic and economic, to create the leverage to make possible the conditions that are necessary for a negotiated two-state solution.

Palestine and Israel

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) on securing this important debate.

My father served with the Army in Palestine from 1945 to 1948 during the currency of the British mandate. He did not say much about it, but he did tell me that, at the end of his tour of duty, he had a chit for leave to spend a last night in Jerusalem. However, his comrade pleaded with him to let him have the chit as he wanted to see a girl in town. He had fallen in love with her and did not know when he might see her again, so he was desperate. My dad let him have his chit, but sadly the vehicle that took the soldiers into town that night was attacked by terrorists and the seat that the love-struck soldier sat in bore the brunt of the attack and he was killed outright. That could have been my dad’s seat.

There were other terrorist attacks—on trains and, famously, on the King David hotel. Among the terrorists were Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, both of whom went on to hold the highest office in the newly formed state of Israel. The point I am making is that committed individuals and groups who pursue self-determination might at one time be deemed to be terrorists but then perceived as freedom fighters and, ultimately, statesmen. We need look no further than the journey made by the great Nelson Mandela, as well as taking a glance across the water to the island of Ireland.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

My dad served in what was then Palestine in the late 1930s, before the outbreak of the second world war. By contrast with the other 134 countries that have recognised Palestine, our recognition would be quite different because we were the protectorate. We were the power that held the mandate of protection over the area of Palestine that subsequently became Israel and Palestine.

[Andy McDonald]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that powerful point. We have strong historical links to Palestine and we bear certain responsibilities as a result. I believe that the world will look at this Chamber to see what the British Parliament says about these important issues.

As the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) said, the Balfour declaration of November 1917 made it abundantly clear that, while this country would use its best endeavours to establish a national home for the Jewish people, nothing would be done that might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. A national home for the Jewish people was of course created, but it cannot, on any reasonable interpretation, be said that the interests of the non- Jewish people have not been prejudiced. Palestinian people are prisoners in their own land.

It has been said on innumerable occasions that a Palestinian state is not a gift but a right, and I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. When such a right exists, it is unacceptable that that right should be denied or that conditions should apply. I note that some people say that the state of Palestine should be recognised only on the conclusion of successful peace negotiations between the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority. If that view were to hold sway, the injustice would simply continue for ever more. It would be to put the cart before the horse and, worse still, exacerbate the situation. Can we really say with any sincerity that Binyamin Netanyahu will put his name to preconditions leading to the creation of the Palestinian state that would ever be acceptable to the Palestinian people?

We are all agreed that the actions of Hamas in launching missile attacks were abhorrent, but what hope are we offering to the Palestinian people? Let us imagine some coastal area of our own land being blockaded and starved, with bulldozers rolling in and destroying the properties and farms of innocent people. What would we expect those people to do? Simply lie down and accept such brutality? No; any people in those circumstances would fight with whatever they could lay their hands on to protect themselves and fight back. That is a basic human instinct, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the British would do that.

Yes, the death of an Israeli soldier or civilian is a tragedy every time it happens, but dropping bombs on innocent people in Gaza, killing thousands and annexing more and more land is not the answer; nor is it in any way justified. Do we really think that any of those actions will bring about peace? One day a Palestinian state will exist and with it there will be the hope of peace and prosperity for its people. Every day that the establishment of the Palestinian state is postponed merely guarantees the continuation of the conflict, with more innocent people losing their lives. We owe it to all those who have lost their lives on both sides, and those whose lives are constantly at risk, to bring this tragedy to an end by recognising the Palestinian state without further delay.