Middle East

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I too welcome the proposed actions of His Majesty’s Government. I know that many other noble Lords will wish to intervene in this; I will keep my questions very brief.

There are two areas that the Minister has not touched on. The first is with respect to the denial of visas to the Palestinian delegation, who now do not have the possibility of attending the UN session when the state of Palestine is recognised. Have HMG thought of any alternatives? Canada is a country that is about to recognise Palestinian statehood and perhaps one alternative would be for the countries that propose to do so to convene in Canada with the Palestinian delegates to assure them of support.

My second point is about the Government’s assessment of when the International Court of Justice is likely to rule on the case on genocide initiated by South Africa and heard last year. It seems to me it is sitting on its hands a little bit and I wondered whether the Government could suggest that some kind of expedited procedure might be necessary when we have so much at stake in terms of the number of deaths on both sides of that equation.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

On the issue of attendance at the UN General Assembly, it is obviously an issue for the US to decide who enters the country, but it is not right to deny Mr Abbas the ability to take part in the event in New York. We will make that clear, but ultimately it is up to the US to make that decision.

I note what the noble Baroness says about Canada; it is an interesting suggestion which I had not previously heard. I know the Canadians have the G7 as well, so I do not know what consideration they may have given to that.

As to the timing of the ICJ, I am not aware that we are able to speed that up in any way, but I hear what the noble Baroness says about her desire to see progress.