Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Brian Leishman and Hamish Falconer

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

7. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of the Government’s policy on arms trade with Israel.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr Hamish Falconer)]

The UK operates one of the most robust export control regimes in the world. One of our first acts in government was to review and suspend export licences that could be used by the Israel Defence Forces in Gaza. We have successfully implemented that suspension and have continued to refuse relevant licence applications. All export licences are kept under careful and continual review, and we can suspend, refuse or revoke licences as required.

[Brian Leishman]

The war criminals of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Government are carrying out the most vile human rights abuse and genocide. At the same time, the UK carries out the training of Israeli military personnel and facilitates almost daily spy flights that provide intelligence, and there is continued exporting of military equipment to Israel. With all that, will the Government support an independent public inquiry into UK involvement in Israeli military operations in Gaza?

[Mr Falconer]

It is important to be focused on the facts at issue. We do not support spy flights; we have a limited presence to try and find hostages in Gaza, for reasons that the whole House would understand and support. There are fewer than 10 IDF personnel receiving any training in the UK, and that training is academic and non-military in nature. We are not arming Israel’s war in Gaza. We categorically do not export any bombs or ammunition for use in military operations in Gaza.

My hon. Friend asks about an independent inquiry. The Government welcome scrutiny and I welcome my time in this Chamber. On the questions at issue on arms sales, including on the F-35 programme, there is a judicial review on which we will hear findings shortly. There is plenty of scrutiny of this Government.

Gaza: UK Assessment

Debate between Brian Leishman and Hamish Falconer

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

I can assure the House that my focus is on the matters that we have discussed this afternoon. They are urgent and immediate, and they crowd out all other priorities.

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

The truth is that there is no need for any organisation to tell the public that what is happening is genocide. After all, we have seen the attempted extermination of the Palestinian people televised live for over a year now. I put it to the Minister that this Government will be remembered as having been complicit in, and accomplices to, the war crime being committed by Israel. What actually has to happen before our Government will take meaningful action in the name of humanity and decency?

[Mr Falconer]

On the very first day I became a Minister, we restored funding to UNRWA, and within weeks we had taken the far-reaching actions that I have described in relation to arms sales. I understand the force of the question, and I understand the feeling of our constituents throughout the country, in my constituency of Lincoln and elsewhere, but let us not pretend that this Government have taken the same steps as the previous Government. We took a series of steps, and we took them quickly and decisively.

I am not suggesting to the hon. Member that what we have done is enough—no one could hear this discussion and think it is enough; no one could have listened to the UN Security Council yesterday afternoon and think it is enough. But there is a difference between saying that there is more to be done and saying that nothing has been done.

Gaza: Israeli Military Operations

Debate between Brian Leishman and Hamish Falconer

Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

We will continue to work with our partners who are party to the Arab initiative, and indeed our partners in the United Nations Security Council, where we have called sessions and issued statements. We will continue to work along those lines in the way that my hon. Friend would expect.

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

I have a simple question, and am looking for a very simple answer. Do the Government recognise Israel’s plan for large-scale forced evacuations in Gaza as ethnic cleansing? If not, why not?

[Mr Falconer]

We continue to oppose forced displacement in Gaza.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Brian Leishman and Hamish Falconer

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

I can confirm that we say regularly to our Israeli counterparts, and indeed to all others in the region, that the only route out of these horrors is a two-state solution, an outcome that provides for the safety, security and dignity of both peoples. We are talking with our partners about what might be done to try to ensure aid gets into Gaza through whatever means are at our disposal, but at the core, Israel must relax the restrictions and allow aid into Gaza. That is the way to get the scale of aid that is required into the strip. During the ceasefire, we saw a massive increase in aid, and that is what we want to do.

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

With continued aerial bombardments impacting the flow of aid into Gaza, will the Foreign Secretary confirm whether UK-made F-35 parts have been used to enable air strikes in Gaza since 18 March?

[Mr Falconer]

To clarify my previous answer, the Foreign Secretary spoke to Foreign Minister Sa’ar on 5 March, not 21 March.

In response to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman), we will continue to press these issues with the Israeli Government. It is clear to the House that we have not succeeded, over these long months, in ensuring the level of aid into Gaza that we would like to see, or had the protections for humanitarian workers that we want to see. Deconfliction, with humanitarian aid workers, is a vital part of ensuring their security, and we are pressing the Israelis to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Brian Leishman and Hamish Falconer

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

We have millions shoehorned into a confined prison, hundreds of communities destroyed, thousands of people indiscriminately killed and lifesaving humanitarian aid being blocked. Will the Foreign Secretary show consistency, judge Israel on its actions and at last define what Netanyahu’s apartheid regime is doing to Palestinians as a genocide?

[Mr Falconer]

We have set out our position on the designation of genocide, so I will not enter into that discussion again, but I will respond to my hon. Friend on the questions of aid access, on which a ministerial colleague has spoken already and on which we have been consistent. We are clear that not enough aid is getting into Gaza, and we have been clear with the Israeli Government on our difference on the conduct of hostilities and of aid access.

Northern Gaza

Debate between Brian Leishman and Hamish Falconer

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

Thank you very much for that upgrade, Madam Deputy Speaker.

In my opinion, there is no grey area to be had here: to sell arms is to be complicit. How can the Government realistically and honestly say that Britain is doing everything it can for a ceasefire and for peace when we continue to sell any arms to Israel?

[Mr Falconer]

I have been clear about the position in relation to F-35s. I have a responsibility, as do the rest of the Government, to try to ensure Britain’s national security. That includes, where we have entered into multi-nation, complex programmes such as the F-35, not bringing those programmes down where that would undermine international peace and security. That is our judgment in relation to the F-35 components, which I have discussed already.

On other arms that are not suspended, I think that this House would be much reassured to see the detail of those licences. I am sure that everybody wants body armour and helmets on aid workers going into dangerous areas. I am sure that everybody would want us to focus on the arms that could be used in breaches of international humanitarian law, not other arms.