Israel and Palestine

Ellie Chowns Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

I think the answer to my hon. Friend’s question is no. I want to correct him on one thing: these are not anti-Israel policies. This is about the occupied territories, which we as a Government, along with the ICJ, have found were unlawfully occupied—it is really important to say that. Once we decide that it is an unlawful occupation, I do believe that, as a matter of principle and morality, then other things follow about the economic relationships that we choose to have.

[Dr Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

I warmly welcome the statement and thank the Foreign Secretary for taking this step. Yes, it has been far too long coming, and, yes, there is much more to do, but this is a significant statement, both in terms of recognition—the reality of the unlawfulness of the occupation—and in following through, with a promise to take action to ban trade with settlements. However, does the Foreign Secretary not recognise that, in the context of now years of genocide in Gaza—ever-accelerating ethnic cleansing in the west bank, as he has pointed out himself—waiting another six to nine months to implement these sanctions is still too long? We must speed up.

[Ed Miliband]

I thank the hon. Member for her kind words, and for her kind words behind the Chamber as we were coming in; they meant a lot to me. I want to do this as quickly as possible. Six to nine months is what I said in the statement, but if we can do it quicker, we will. We want to get this step right, because it is important that it actually makes a difference. It is also important to say—because it is, in a sense, the thing that will have got less attention today—that our extension of the global human rights regime to international humanitarian law violations will also help us to take action even more swiftly.