Diana Johnson
Main Page: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham)Department Debates - View all Diana Johnson's debates with the Cabinet Office
(1 year, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I will ensure that the Attorney General looks into it, and more generally, I will just say that I absolutely endorse those describing these attacks as what they are, which is acts of terror by a terrorist organisation. Obviously the BBC is editorially and operationally independent of Government, but the Culture Secretary raised that specific issue with the BBC director general last week.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Hamas’s kidnapping of 200 Israelis is a stark reminder that the terrorist group have learned from their paymasters, the Iranian regime, who for years have promoted state hostage taking, including, of course, of UK nationals. Will the Prime Minister say a bit more about the steps that the UK Government are taking for the release of the British nationals who are currently held in Gaza?
The Prime Minister
As I said, we are providing consular support to the affected families. We recognise that this will be a very difficult time for them. We have, for a long time, maintained Foreign Office travel advice that people should not travel to Gaza, because we know the situation is dangerous. We are working as hard as we can to open the Rafah crossing, and the Border Force team has already been deployed to Egypt so that, if and when the crossing is opened, we will rapidly be in a position to be able to bring people home.