Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Calum Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Lib Dem spokesperson.

[Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)]

I also thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of his statement. I know that he, like me, has been horrified by the scenes coming out of Gaza. Tom Fletcher, the UN’s humanitarian chief, has indeed highlighted and predicted the imminent death of thousands of infants without immediate aid, and said that the amount of aid entering the strip is but “a drop in the ocean”.

Let us be clear that mass starvation will do nothing to remove Hamas or secure the release of the hostages, so I welcome yesterday’s joint statement with Canada and France. In it, the Prime Minister spoke of taking further action if Israel does not fully lift its aid blockade and draw back from its expansion of military activity. Will the Foreign Secretary confirm whether the expanded sanctions list includes extremist Ministers Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, who have advocated illegal actions to dispossess Palestinians across the occupied territories, and if not, why not? Will the Government go beyond reviewing the 2030 bilateral road map and urgently suspend it unless the Government of Israel change path? Will they now finally block the export of all UK arms to Israel?

In response to my letter to the Foreign Secretary last week, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr Falconer), reaffirmed the Government’s position that they consider that Israel only “risks” breaching international law through its blockade. I ask the Secretary of State what more Israel would have to do to the people of Gaza for its actions to constitute not simply a “risk”, but an actual breach of international law.

The Minister also stated in his reply that the Government would only proceed with recognition of the state of Palestine at

“a time that is most conducive to the peace process”.

Does the Foreign Secretary agree with me and the Liberal Democrats that the time to recognise Palestine is now and that immediate recognition—ideally jointly with France at next month’s summit—would send the strongest possible signal about the UK’s commitment to the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination?

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I have condemned the statements of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich in the past. On 6 May, Israel’s Finance Minister Smotrich said:

“Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to…the south to a humanitarian zone without Hamas or terrorism, and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries”.

We condemn that language. We condemn the language of Minister Ben-Gvir and, of course, we keep that language under review and continue to discuss these issues with our international partners.

The hon. Gentleman asks about recognition and the work that we see France and Saudi Arabia doing. Of course, we are in close dialogue with our P5 partner of France and with Saudi Arabia, in fact. I touched on these issues with the Saudi Arabian PM in Rome at the weekend. The hon. Gentleman asked about the road map. As I have said, we will review the road map. He will recognise that there are elements of that road map, particularly as they pertain to security issues and the work we do jointly on Iran, that would not be right to suspend, but we are reviewing it—as we should, given the circumstances. I have said time and again that we have suspended arms sales that could be used in Gaza, notwithstanding those we must necessarily retain that particularly pertain to the supply chain on F-35s and their use in warfare in other theatres with which we have an interest.