Conflict in Gaza

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

Let me make it clear that when my hon. Friend talks about the horrors in Gaza, she should reassure her constituents that the United Kingdom announced £129 million of funding for the occupied territories just in the last year, which included £41 million for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency; that we are very clear that humanitarian aid should not be used as a tool; and that UK support has meant that more than half a million people have received essential healthcare, 647,000 people have received food, and 284,000 people have improved access to water, sanitation and hygiene as a result of the British taxpayer.

In terms of what we are doing, I have been in this House for 25 years. My hon. Friend knows that this is about diplomacy. I wish that I could switch this off from this Dispatch Box. She knows full well that I cannot do that, but what I can do is engage in the issues in detail. It is a hard grind. I know that this is hard for many in this House, but that is how we bring about a ceasefire.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

The shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), mentioned the all-party parliamentary group’s report on the atrocities committed on 7 October 2023, which was brilliantly researched by Lord Roberts and a whole series of different individuals. The document is almost 500 pages long and contains the evidence of what happened not only on that day, but subsequently. I commend it to the Foreign Secretary to read, because in future it will be the definitive history of what happened on 7 October. Will he therefore look at the fact that 59 hostages are still in captivity? It is understood that only 24 of them are alive—probably only barely alive—and 35 are dead. The reality is that there is an opportunity for the deal, as proposed by the United States, for a ceasefire to continue, for the release of the hostages and for Hamas to lay down their arms. That is still open to the terrorists in Hamas to take up. If they do so, we can then all unite across the House and call for the end of death and destruction.

[Mr Lammy]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning those hostages. The question now is: how do we get those remaining hostages home, and is the action that we have seen in the last two to three days likely to bring them home or to see more of them perish? I want to stand with the many hostage families who say, “Can we give the talks a chance to succeed?”, because I think military action is unlikely to bring them home.