Middle East

Debate between David Lammy and Helen Hayes

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I was with the Qatari Foreign Minister on Sunday, and we were in touch overnight. I of course thanked him for his tremendous work to get this deal over the line. I think that, while working together over the past few months, we have become friends. There is much that the UK Government can and will continue to do. As I said on the radio last week, diplomacy is failing until it achieves success. The hon. Member will know from his experience and wisdom that success has many fathers and mothers.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I welcome the announcement of this long overdue ceasefire today. My thoughts are with all those who have lost loved ones on and since 7 October, the families of hostages anxiously awaiting news, and the tens of thousands of families in Gaza who have suffered bereavement, displacement and destitution. My thoughts are also with all those for whom the announcement is bittersweet; I think particularly of Rachel Goldberg—the mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin—whom I met in East Jerusalem in February. She has campaigned with such dignity for the release of her son, who was tragically killed in August. I think, too, of the families in Gaza who are losing their loved ones even now as this ceasefire is being announced. But while the war has raged in Gaza, the settlers have dramatically increased their activity in the west bank, taking land that does not belong to them in a systematic attempt to undermine the possibility of a viable Palestinian state.

As our thoughts now turn to the peace process ahead and the aim of a two-state solution, what action is the Foreign Secretary taking to address illegal settlement? Without a more robust approach, a two-state solution simply cannot be achieved.

[Mr Lammy]

May I pay tribute to my hon. Friend? We have worked together over many years. Her constituency, in so many ways, is not dissimilar from mine, and I know how heart-rending this has been for her constituents. I also know the grace, the manner and the fortitude with which she has represented their interests very strongly within the Labour movement.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to centre the west bank, the expansion and the violence that undermines the two-state solution. It was very important for me to be able to discuss these issues with President Abbas. One hugely important role that the UK Government play is in relation to reform and supporting the Palestinian Authority. That work must continue. We stand by the 1967 borders that we think can achieve the two-state solution that is required. We worry about the security situation in the west bank. We worry, too, about the arms and the supplies that are coming in from malign forces, particularly from Iran and some neighbouring states. But we are also in an intense dialogue with the Israeli Government about what we think are breaches of international law in relation to how the area is properly secured and policed. We certainly do not want to see the language, the rhetoric or the behaviour that undermine the possibility of the two-state solution.

Middle East

Debate between David Lammy and Helen Hayes

Monday 28th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I really accept the heartfelt way in which the hon. Gentleman put his question, but we have suspended arms that could be used in Gaza in the way he described. That is what we have done. I stand by that decision.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The situation in northern Gaza is beyond desperate, with many reports of actions that have every appearance of aiming to empty the territory of its entire population. The UN humanitarian chief, Joyce Msuya, has warned that the entire population is at risk of dying. The strategy of the Israeli Government is intolerable, and has failed on its own terms, because the hostages have not been released, as we all want to see. Can the Foreign Secretary say what happens next? What further meaningful action are the Government planning to take to safeguard lives in northern Gaza and secure an immediate ceasefire?

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend evokes the hostages, which allows me to put on record our desire to see the UK hostage, Emily Damari, freed. I reassure my hon. Friend that last week at the UN Security Council we convened a meeting on humanitarian access. We issued a statement only yesterday with some colleagues from the G7, including Japan, Germany and South Korea, urging Israel to step back on the UNRWA decision.

Gangs and Serious Youth Violence

Debate between David Lammy and Helen Hayes

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I notice that the Front-Bench Opposition spokesman is absolutely aware of that. She is ever so slightly older than me. At that time, there was real concern about gang activity in seaside areas or in urban areas of the country. The debate in this House about young people and crime and about gang activity is not new, so what is new? I think that the level of violence is new, the age profile is worrying and the geographic spread feels out of control.

On the age profile, the Met police says that its matrix—its central way of recording who is caught up in what it describes as gang activity—had a total of 3,459 individuals at the last time of publication in May 2014. There were 500 individuals under the age of 18: two 13-year-olds, 21 14-year-olds, 71 15-year-olds, 138 16-year-olds and 268 17-year-olds. There were also 356 18-year-olds, while 55% of the total were aged 18 to 22. Something is going on, and it is something we should be very worried about.

Any Members with significant housing estates in their constituency will talk about the arrival in this country of a phenomenon, which we often associate with America, of young people—teenagers—running drug activity on behalf of older individuals.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the serious violence against women and very young girls associated with gang-related activity is not presently recorded appropriately or understood, and that not enough action is being taken on that specific part of this important problem?