Middle East

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome the work my hon. Friend has done on how charity systems are abused to funnel support to illegal settlements. She has rightly raised that issue not just with me but with the Culture Secretary and directly with the Charity Commission. The Minister for the Middle East will be meeting the CEO of the Charity Commission tomorrow to pursue exactly this issue to ensure there is a thorough investigation. Some evidence suggests that rules are being broken. We should not end up with UK gift aid being funnelled to illegal settlements. That clearly breaches all the standards that anybody across the UK would expect there to be, as well as the Charity Commission rules, which is why it is essential to look at this. On the wider issues around trade, we do not want trade with illegal settlements. That is why we will continue to look at strengthening the sanctions regime and work with allies across the world.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)]

We welcome the new sanctions, but the issue of illegality goes much deeper than these now-sanctioned organisations. The illegal settlements in the west bank are state sponsored, state financed and state protected. That is also the case for the settler violence that inevitably follows, which is carried out with almost complete impunity. Why have the Government chosen to sanction these particular organisations, but decided not to take further action against the Netanyahu regime in the face of its state-sponsored illegal settlement policy?

[Yvette Cooper]

As I set out earlier, the UK has introduced sanctions against individual members of the Netanyahu Government, something that very few countries across the world have actually done. We believe that is the right thing to do because of the seriousness of what they have done and the seriousness of the situation around illegal settlements. The hon. Gentleman is right that this is about international law more widely, but also, specifically, the peace and security of the middle east. We know that there is no alternative to the two-state solution, but ultimately, to make progress on Gaza, as we did for a brief period in autumn, we need to build up international consensus and not just look for what individual countries should do.