Arms Export Licences: Israel

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for her excellent speech and for all she is doing on this important issue. I associate my remarks with the personal approach she has taken, because I have a constituent whose partner is being bombed as he tries to evacuate from south Gaza. Does my hon. Friend agree that, in addition to arm sales to Israel, we should think about arm sales to the US, Saudi Arabia and many other countries, and ensure that we tighten the licensing arrangements for arms manufacturers to those countries?

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. This is a debate about arms sales to Israel.

[Zarah Sultana]

Thank you, Sir Christopher. Since being elected, I have raised the issue of arms licences for regimes such as Saudi Arabia, which used British-made weapons in Yemen, so I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The Bill I presented would suspend sales to not just Israel but the likes of Saudi Arabia, whose war in Yemen led to the death of thousands of people with, again, clear and well-documented violations of international law. In another example of shameful disregard for human rights, that war was also facilitated by our Government and is therefore linked to this debate. Export licences to Saudi Arabia since the beginning of the war have been worth a staggering £6.8 million, which is why I have repeatedly called for the House to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

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[John McDonnell]

That is why I am asking the question: the key components of those planes could be being used in the bombing of Gaza and the huge loss of life.

I reiterate what others have said: I find it difficult to participate in these debates without becoming extremely angry or emotional on all sides—both because I want the release of the hostages and because 7,000 children have now died. That cannot be right, and I believe it is a war crime. Anything that we are doing to give aid or comfort in this direction will ensure that we will be condemned in the future.

Finally, a number of us met Yachad today. We met with heroes and heroines from Palestine, Palestinians and Jewish Israelis. They are trying to campaign for peace. As part of their heroic campaign, one of their clear demands is for a ceasefire, so that we can release the hostages and at least plan for the future in peace.

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Before I call the next speaker, I must tell hon. Members that the wind-ups will start at 3.30 pm. That means that the demand exceeds the supply, and I will impose a three-minute time limit. I call Apsana Begum.

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[Apsana Begum]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We are bearing witness to this unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. It is there before us, so we have a right to know how many Palestinians were slaughtered using UK-made weapons; how many children were dispatched using UK-traded armaments; how many women have been slain by ammunition from the UK; how many schools, hospitals and refugee camps have been annihilated with the help of UK engineering; and how much profit is being made from death, destruction and war crimes. What is the Government’s price tag for humanity?

We are told that the UK’s arms export system is based on the principle of avoiding a clear risk of British weapons being used to commit serious violations of international law—

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. We must move on, I am afraid. I call Richard Foord.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I want to talk about parliamentary scrutiny of these arms transfers to Israel because the current system is lacking. There is a good attendance today and it is excellent that lots of right hon. and hon. Members wanted to come to this debate but, frankly, we do not debate arms transfers very often. One reason for that is that we assume that Select Committees are all over this, but that is not the case.

My contribution is shaped by having worked at the University of Oxford, immediately before being elected last year, on export controls and preventing Oxford research from falling into the hands of adversaries. As well as being shaped by that and constituents’ opinions, my view is also shaped by having been bombarded by Iranian rockets. The difference between my personal experience and that of many Gazans at this time is that I had sufficient protection afforded to me by a counter-rocket system, not dissimilar to the iron dome. That is clearly not the case right now with the air and artillery attacks going on in Gaza today.

Liberal Democrat policy in this area is quite straightforward. We believe that arms exports should not take place to countries designated human rights priority countries by the FCDO. In 2021, the FCDO named Israel as one of those countries, but in the 2022 report on human rights and democracy, Israel slipped from the list and appeared instead under the Occupied Palestinian Territories entry in the register. None the less, I am of the opinion that, as a state named in that list in 2022, Israel should not be in receipt of UK arms.

Briefly, the Committees on Arms Export Controls are made up of members of four Select Committees—International Trade, Foreign Affairs, Defence and International Development—but they have not met since March. That is outrageous, and we need to do something about it.

I am pleased to say that Committee Chairs—three Conservative, one SNP and one Labour—wrote to the Leader of the House to say that the system cannot continue, and that we need a Standing Committee to examine arms transfers, including to places such as Israel. In her response, the Leader of the House said, essentially, that there is no requirement for that, but I am certain that it is required; otherwise, we will continue to find ourselves in situations where the Government are caught out for transferring arms to a country that is clearly in breach of human rights.

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. We now have Mohammed Yasin.

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[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has quite rightly focused on the horrific situation in Gaza, like many other Members. However, when I visited the west bank earlier this year, the rate of murders, violent attacks and intimidation by illegal settlers was already on the rise, with the IDF too often either refusing to intervene or even protecting the attackers. Since the heinous attack on 7 October by Hamas, the death toll has reached intolerable levels in Gaza and the west bank. Labour Members are very clear that arms export licences should be granted only where there is no risk that they could be used in contravention of international law. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is essential that Ministers—

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. This is an abuse of an intervention.

[Kim Leadbeater]

Apologies, Sir Christopher. Does my hon. Friend agree—

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[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

No, resume your seat. I call Nadia Whittome.

[Nadia Whittome]

I completely agree with the point my hon. Friend makes. It is not only bombs causing death and despair in the strip: nine in 10 people in northern Gaza have gone a full day and night without eating; doctors are heroically battling to save lives with no anaesthetics, antiseptics or even clean water for their patients. The World Health Organisation has warned that untreated diseases caused by the siege and the resulting collapse of healthcare could claim even more lives than airstrikes.

This humanitarian catastrophe is not a result of some natural disaster, but the intended consequence of the actions of the Israeli authorities—actions that our Government still cannot bring themselves to condemn. Not only that: while Israeli Ministers call openly for a second Nakba, our Government continue to license arms sales to the Israeli Government.

Last night, I was honoured to host in Parliament representatives of Standing Together, a movement of Israeli Jews and Palestinians united for peace, justice and human rights. One of its organisers, Uri Weltmann, wanted to send this message to our Prime Minister: standing with the Israeli people is not the same as standing with this violent, hard-right Israeli Government. Bombing hospitals and starving children will not bring peace to Israel and Palestine. We must immediately suspend the sales of arms to the IDF and end the UK’s complicity with the Israeli Government’s war crimes. I called for that in 2021, when Gaza was once again under attack, and it is even more urgent now.

We must demand an immediate ceasefire, the unconditional release of hostages and for the siege to be lifted. We must push for a proper peace process, working towards a just, lasting solution that protects the safety, rights and self-determination of the people of both nations.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. I am afraid that we cannot take any more Back-Bench speeches, so I call Martin Docherty-Hughes, please, to wind up.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

Thank you, Sir Christopher; it is good to see you.

Let me be clear: the barbarous attacks on 7 October have no justification whatsoever, and Hamas are a terrorist organisation and a death cult. They should release all the hostages immediately before being prosecuted as the war criminals they are. Furthermore, the Scottish National party agrees wholeheartedly with the right of Israel to defend itself. That is the very basis of sovereignty and of international relations. What should not have to be said, however, is that that right to self-defence should be in accordance with international law, or even with the most basic aspects of our common humanity.

Concepts around collective punishment and the treatment of prisoners in wartime are not what those on the Government Benches might speak about on GB News as the preserve of the Islington set; rather, they have been central to the very idea of human rights and the correct prosecution of a just war for as long as those concepts have existed. It will therefore be no surprise, I hope, to hear that those of us in the SNP have no compunction about supporting the aims of today’s debate, and we thank the hon. Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) for securing it

Before going on to the substantive reasons for that, I would like to briefly touch on the most underexamined aspects of this conflict: its intersection with the tedious and self-defeating debate on immigration in this political state, on which the Government seem intent on taking up more time today. We have had months of confected rage from those on the Government Benches about desperate people trying to cross the channel in flimsy boats, without really interrogating the many reasons why those people find themselves in that position.

If we consider the numbers of global conflicts that have caused instability and forced large numbers of people to flee, be they those in Syria, Afghanistan or Ukraine, and how these flows of people present opportunities for people traffickers ready to profit from human misery or indeed, on a broader level, for our geopolitical opponents to gain potential leverage by destabilising our democracies, we might expect one factor in this Government’s thinking to be how to avoid facilitating the sort of actions that set those population movements in motion.

As far as the people of Gaza actually having somewhere to go to escape the bombing, it is to Egypt and, within Egypt, to a part of the Sinai peninsula that has only recently come back under the full control of the Egyptian Government after Islamist insurrection. This is the first potential domino to fall, in a series that could see the return of the sort of instability that we saw in that country just over a decade ago. If this Government—and others, I must say, across Europe—found the prospect of 20 million Syrians on the move across the Med problematic, just wait until we see that happening with 100 million Egyptians.

Furthermore, these events do not take place in a vacuum. I would beseech both the Government and the Opposition spokespeople who follow me to take proper cognisance of the fact that our inability to ensure that our allies abide by international law in this instance will have a direct effect on how other states choose to approach their own obligations to international law in the future. We may not like the results, because we know that, while history may not always repeat itself, it certainly does rhyme.

I had not realised myself, until recently, the juxtaposition of the Suez crisis and the Hungarian uprising of 1956. The Soviet tanks poured into Budapest to—

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. I have listened to the hon. Gentleman patiently, and I was hoping that he was going to start talking about arms exports to Israel. We have had to cut the Back-Bench speeches short because more people wanted to talk about that subject, so I would be grateful if he now concentrated on the subject at hand.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

It is part of the narrative, Sir Christopher, and, as an Opposition spokesperson, I do believe that I have 10 minutes.

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[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. If you are challenging the Chair, I am going to order you to resume your seat.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

I am not challenging you, Sir Christopher; I am only trying to explore my own thinking on the very matter that you have asked me to come to, because I think it is critically important for the debate, which the hon. Member for Coventry South has brought today.

The reason that I mention that in relation to the Government’s decisions, in terms of the debate, is because the then Government were desperate to accrue international support for their invasion of the canal zone—which we have all seen the repercussions of—as opposed to actually supporting the people of Hungary. The difference between then and now, and this is what is important Sir Christopher, is that, I am afraid to say, unlike in 1956, there is no serious difference of opinion between the Government and the leadership of the Opposition—although that does not include some of the Opposition Members I see here today, I have to say.

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. I will order the hon. Gentleman to resume his seat if he carries on about the Hungarian revolution. I was at school with somebody whose father served in the diplomatic service in 1956 in Budapest, and I would love to talk about that, but it is not the subject of today’s debate. I will give the hon. Gentleman one more chance.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

Well, Chair, let me—sadly—move on, because clearly I am not being allowed to make the point that I wanted to make. However, I am sure that many Members can see the problems in which the Government and the leadership of the official Opposition find themselves.

Let me, sadly, bring my points to a close by reiterating my and my party’s position on these arms licences—I will be delighted to send my full speech on to any of my constituents, many hundreds of whom have emailed me about this issue, if they want to see it. Most of it will be of no surprise to anyone here today. The United Kingdom Government must do more than merely call on Israel to abide by international humanitarian law; they must be proactive in ensuring that no more innocent civilian lives are lost. The Israeli Government’s use of force has surpassed being legal and proportionate. There is a serious and pressing concern among the international community that states contributing to Israel’s military front may be complicit in the breach of international law and the death of over 15,000 innocent Palestinian civilians.

As such, Sir Christopher, we are asking the UK Government to cease extending arms licences to the state of Israel and to immediately halt the export of weapons or components, as has been mentioned, to the state of Israel, alongside our calls for an immediate ceasefire, the recognition of the Palestinian state and the support of the International Criminal Court’s investigation into potential war crimes.

But let us be clear: the United Kingdom will pay dearly for the moral equivalence that its current policy entails. While even the Labour leadership might not want to say it, we in the SNP are more than happy to remind the Government of this fact: violating international law may be a great wheeze to try and impress Daily Mail readers, but it has a habit of eating away at the state’s international reputation like acid. In this case, it is a great tragedy that the people of Gaza and others now involved in this conflict have to suffer so.