Children: Impact of International Conflict

Baroness Helic Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Helic (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this debate. I thank my noble friend for introducing it and for speaking with so much clarity and empathy. I also thank Save the Children for all the work that it does to shine a light on the issues children face around the world. I will not repeat what has been said but try to build on it. If I may say so, I expect that the next Save the Children report might find that 2023 was the year with the highest record of human rights violations against children, because children have somehow come to be regarded as legitimate targets and mere collateral damage.

Earlier this year, I met Victoria Rose, the lead consultant for plastic surgery trauma reconstruction at Guy’s and St Thomas’, who has done several placements in Gaza. Last week, having just returned from her latest placement, she said that 80% of the patients she had treated were children suffering life-altering wounds. She described doctors reusing medical supplies and operating without anaesthetics—on adults but also on children.

In November last year, Project Pure Hope was established by a number of NHS organisations and partners as a humanitarian, multifaith initiative to bring severely injured and sick children from Gaza and Israel for specialist medical care. A team of highly impressive doctors came together, fundraised and created partnerships, hoping to help severely injured children. I asked the previous Government to support this initiative by approving emergency medical visas for critically injured children who have been affected by life-altering explosive injuries and have been assessed by experts in the United Kingdom who recommend that they are transferred to the UK for specialist medical input that cannot be delivered in the medical hospital in the region. Unfortunately, support for these children—a limited number of children, for a limited period—was not forthcoming. I raised this again in July with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, in the debate on foreign affairs and defence, and got no answer.

We have extended help and support to the sick children of Ukraine, and rightly so; we ought to be proud of that. However, we seem to have decided not to provide specialist support for the children of Gaza. Other countries, such as the UAE, Italy and the USA, have taken a different approach. I acknowledge and welcome UK humanitarian support for the people of Gaza and support for hospitals in the region, but we know that certain needs cannot be met and certain wounds cannot be healed in the best regional hospitals; they need specialist care here. I therefore have just one question for the Minister: will UK policy change?