Middle East

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I am not going to get ahead of my skis. We continue to work with partners internationally on making those assessments. I spoke to the Israeli Foreign Minister and was very clear that we stand against that. The right hon. Gentleman will recall that when these plans surfaced the previous Government stood against the E1 development. At that time, I think the Government’s position was that they would recognise if they went ahead. We will continue to make that assessment, but I hope we can see the plans put to one side.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South and Mid Down) (SDLP)]

Last month, along with eight party leaders across Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, I wrote to the Prime Minister about the catastrophic situation in Gaza and the deficits in the UK response to the unbearable suffering we are seeing—biblical levels of injustice, pain and hunger. Does the Foreign Secretary recognise the parallel crisis in the belief of ordinary people across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in international law and in the UK’s response? People are not seeing their values reflected in the UK’s actions in the continued supply of arms, the failure to levy all possible sanctions, and the strings attached to the recognition of the state of Palestine.

[Mr Lammy]

Can I just be clear? There is a lot of mendacity in some of the sort of stuff we see on TikTok. We have stopped the sale of arms to Israel. We have stopped the direct sales of F-35s to Israel. Germany only just recently made the decision that we made last September. The UK represents 1% of sales; 90% are Germany and the US system. There are many other Governments that supply and that have not made the decisions we have made. On recognition, we will continue to work with partners as we head towards the UN General Assembly and make the necessary assessments.

Oral Answers to Questions

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

My hon. Friend can be assured that we will continue to safeguard the sovereignty of Gibraltar, which is much cherished. He can also be assured that in the negotiations we will fully protect the operations and the independence of the UK’s military facilities in Gibraltar. I very much look forward to discussing this more fully in front of his Committee tomorrow morning.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

T10. Despite repeated claims by the Saudi authorities that they would abolish the death penalty for children, child defendants are still regularly sentenced to death. Some 11 have been executed since 2015. Child defendants Abdullah al-Howaiti, Abdullah al-Derazi and Youssef al-Manasif have all received death sentences for crimes allegedly committed before the age of 18. In April 2020, Saudi authorities issued a royal decree purporting to abolish the death penalty, but that appears to have been an empty promise. Will the Minister intervene and impress on them their human rights obligations?

[David Rutley]

We continue to engage with the Saudi authorities on this and, as the hon. Member knows, we push back on the death penalty being used in any country around the world.

Sudan: Government Response

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

There is very little we can do until those people reach a place of safety. As I said, many have fled across the border into Chad and South Sudan. We are actively helping those people in the way that I described.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

Sudan is experiencing the worst displacement crisis in the world. It is not so much a civil war but a war on civilians, who are losing their homes, livelihoods and lives on a scale that is hard to comprehend. The Sudanese people feel forgotten, so it is vital that both aid and political focus are forthcoming. Will the Minister work with his Home Office colleagues to support Sudanese people in the asylum system, who are beside themselves with worry about family members? Will he better facilitate reunion for those UK citizens who have family among the most affected and who are able to leave?

[Mr Mitchell]

We will do everything we can to assist. The hon. Lady will understand the constraints we work within, but I will note what she said. If she has any specific cases that she wishes to raise, I hope she will do so.

Humanitarian Situation in Gaza

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

I do not know the detail of some of the earlier points the right hon. Gentleman raised, but I will welcome receiving that. My understanding and memory is that we put sanctions on two individuals. We keep this issue under constant review, because those actions and what happens in the settlements is important, given the implications that has for the west bank.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

The escalation of recent days is deeply worrying, with two nuclear-armed countries exchanging ballistics, and neither with any reputation for care of civilian lives and both with agendas of their own. That escalation has occupied the headlines, but the people of Gaza continue to suffer unrelenting military attacks and starvation. The rules-based order and international law have suffered lasting damage, including by the targeting of aid workers and medics. The UK’s influence with an out-of-control Netanyahu Government has yielded little, but one of the few legal tools available is the suspension of arms export licences. When will the Government use that?

[David Rutley]

As I said in a previous answer, our assessment on export licences remains unchanged. We have one of the most robust export systems in the world, enshrined in law through the Export Control Act 2022 and implemented through our strategic export licensing criteria. It is important that the hon. Lady recalls and notes not just the humanitarian situation in Gaza, but also what is happening through Iran’s destabilising activities.

Israel and Gaza

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The statement that the hon. Gentleman makes and the question he asks me underline the importance of the international community and Britain working with our allies to double and redouble efforts to ensure that we reach the situation that I have set out before the House on a number of occasions this afternoon.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

Of course, an end to the threat of bombardment is the crucial step, but the humanitarian situation remains catastrophic. What specific assessment have UK officials made of the allegations against the UN Relief and Works Agency with a view to properly funding that organisation, whose infrastructure and capacity is crucial to meeting the basic everyday needs of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady underlines the centrality of UNRWA in Gaza. It has the necessary assets, which are essential for the delivery of aid and humanitarian relief. That is why we are urging the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services to produce an interim report looking into the collusion that allegedly took place. As soon as we have that report, along with the report from the former French Foreign Minister, we will be able to make the necessary dispositions not only about UNRWA but about how we get essential aid and support into Gaza.

Ceasefire in Gaza

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

Members across the Chamber have set out, in moving terms, the context and the consequences of the last few months in Gaza, so I will not try to capture it.

I worked for relief and development agencies for 10 years before being elected to this place, and I never encountered a humanitarian context as hellish as the people of Gaza are experiencing. Our constituents are watching in desperation and distress, and they feel powerless to the point of complicity. That is not the main issue, but it has consequences for their faith in politics and international law, and I want to give voice to the feelings of dread that people feel when the images they have seen on their screens become permanently etched in their mind.

I feel the same way. I look at my sweet, smiling, innocent six-year-old daughter, and I see a six-year-old trapped in a car for days, with nobody listening to her cries, surrounded by the bodies of all the people she loves. Those stories will never leave people.

Worse, people who express basic human emotion and solidarity with people who face the unimaginable are being met with slurs and distortions. They are smeared as being pro-Hamas and slurred as being antisemitic, as we heard in this Chamber just a few moments ago. Like most of my constituents, I stand in full solidarity with the victims of the wicked Hamas attacks of 7 October. Those vile, indefensible attacks were carried out by a cynical organisation that has not allowed the people of Gaza to vote for a generation, but the attacks do not justify the horrors that have followed.

I defend Israel’s right to exist. I stand in solidarity with Jewish people here and around the world, including those standing against the far-right Netanyahu Government and their excesses throughout the last summer. Netanyahu is a man who, in word and deed, has repudiated the two- state solution that many of us in this Chamber advocate, and that is the only possible outcome that does not condemn the region to years of this nightmare.

Comparisons between the middle east and Northern Ireland are shallow, and I avoid making them. The one lesson that can be learned is that the first step is to stop the killing. Those who ask for a permanent ceasefire are setting an impossibly high bar. Even when the paramilitaries were dragged to that point in Northern Ireland, it took a decade for their ceasefires to be made permanent.

We need to stop the bombs and the rockets, we need to release the hostages, we need to release the aid, and then we need to work every day to make it sustainable. Only politics can do that. There is no military solution here, and there never was. I do not care which amendment is passed tonight and I do not care about the form of words, so long as this House sends a clear message calling for international momentum towards an end to this slaughter and a pathway to a just and lasting settlement. Israel has failed to reach its objectives. If we do not support a ceasefire now, when will we?

Oral Answers to Questions

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

Venezuela’s actions with regard to Essequibo in Guyana are completely unacceptable. The border was settled in 1899, and we are working with our regional partners, such as Brazil, and with international bodies including the United Nations Security Council, the Commonwealth—as has already been mentioned—and the Organisation of American States to de-escalate tensions.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

T5. The horrifying death toll in Gaza includes more than 100 aid workers and some 70 journalists. The vast majority of media casualties have been Palestinian journalists who went on working in the face of airstrikes and the deteriorating humanitarian situation as a result of the lack of information caused by the denial of access to international media. The National Union of Journalists warns of systemic targeting of journalists in Palestine, a further breach of international law. How will the Minister impress on the Israeli Government these specific obligations?

[Mr Mitchell]

As I said earlier, we do stress the importance of abiding by the rules of war. I pay tribute to the brave humanitarian workers who put themselves in harm’s way, unarmed, to help their fellow citizens.

Occupied Palestinian Territories: Humanitarian Situation

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. I do have to call upon hon. Members to try to keep their questions brief. I want to accommodate everybody, but at the present rate of lengthy questions it is simply not going to be possible.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

I thank the Minister for his thoughtful answers. In 1919, seeing children from the defeated Austro-Hungarian empire starving, Eglantyne Jebb established Save the Children. Many people said to her, “How can you help enemy children?” and one of her supporters, the great Irish humanitarian George Bernard Shaw, said:

“I have no enemies under the age of seven.”

Almost half of Palestinians are children, many thousands of whom have been killed, maimed and orphaned. So have many Israeli children, including one dual Irish citizen who is believed to be among the hostages in Gaza. Does the Minister agree with UNICEF’s regional director, Adele Khodr, who says that the situation in Gaza is

“a growing stain on our collective conscience”?

[Mr Mitchell]

The head of UNICEF, who made those comments, is right to focus on what is happening in Gaza and to express her abhorrence of what is taking place. On the hon. Lady’s citation of the brilliant work that Save the Children does, I have been intimately connected with Save the Children for the last 20 years and we honour both its work and the success it so often achieves.

Chinese Consulate: Attack on Hong Kong Protesters

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise that question. We would expect the independent police and other authorities to make as thorough an investigation as they can, given the circumstances, and we would expect to be sensitive to areas where they have not been permitted to undertake the level of scrutiny that we would expect under such circumstances.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

The footage from Manchester was chilling to all of us who value human rights and non-violence, but it resonated particularly with many of my constituents in south Belfast—which is where the Northern Ireland Chinese consulate is located—who have seen up front the approach that the CCP take not just to international law, but respecting local law. In our case, that relates to developing its premises and enforcing security at them. South Belfast is also very proudly home to many people from Hong Kong who are creating a new life away from risk and repression. Will the Minister advise the House what guidance he will give to local authorities that are dealing with consulates and what his Government will do to protect the right to peaceful protest?

[Jesse Norman]

I am not sure that I fully caught the final sentence of the hon. Lady’s question, but it is of course an aspect of a UK-wide support network that we should be able to provide a welcome for visitors from Hong Kong. We have 12 virtual welcome hubs across the UK and funding for organisations to deliver UK-wide and regional projects, as well as other forms of welcome and support. I can encourage colleagues from the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to come forward if further things need to be put in place to address the issues that she raises.

Women’s Rights to Reproductive Healthcare: United States

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Milling]

We have a proud record in this country of being able to stand up for women’s rights and of having debates on all matters relating to abortion. As we have heard, we have debated, and voted, on a number of occasions in relation to abortion legislation in this country.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) for co-ordinating this urgent question and echo the solidarity with women in the US, particularly those with trigger laws who are worried about the consequences for their own lives and where the ideology of the Supreme Court goes next. It is not often that I commend this Government, but I want to acknowledge the positive action to address the lack of access to abortion services in Northern Ireland after MLAs—I was one of them—failed to address this issue in meeting the needs of women and failed to address consistent legal rulings. Will the Minister commit the Government to continuing to end the postcode lottery that exists for services in Northern Ireland?

[Amanda Milling]

As the hon. Lady will be aware, in July last year the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland directed Northern Ireland’s Department of Health to ensure the full provision of abortion services by no later than March this year.