Conflict in Gaza

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I reassure my hon. Friend that, yes, we will.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

Over 400 people have been killed, the majority of whom were children. Aid supplies have been blocked and aid workers killed, and the rhetoric from Israeli Ministers is getting worse. All this has happened under a ceasefire. I know these matters are complex, but at what point do we change our posture towards the Israeli Government?

[Mr Lammy]

When we are talking about Israel, we should remember that we stand alongside the Israeli people at this time, and we think of the many hostages who are underground and in desperate conditions in Gaza. Israel is a democracy, which is why we see people taking to the streets and making their voices heard. We see a heated debate in Israel as the best way forward.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

I begin my remarks by paying tribute to the many speakers in the debate, and in particular the Chair of the International Development Committee, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who has been a long-standing advocate for development aid. I have had the great privilege of working with her, and I thoroughly understand her commitment.

I will pay tribute to a few other colleagues. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) has been a long-standing, dedicated and passionate advocate not just for 0.7%, but for the effective use of that funding, and for working with the private sector, which he and I have both had the enormous privilege of doing. I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) for her commitment. I have had the privilege of working with her as well, and during her time in government she was professional and committed to her brief. Of course, last week the Government sent her here to defend Labour’s indefensible Chagos surrender deal, which uses money transferred from the aid budget to defence to pay for the lease of a site that we have sovereignty over.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

rose—

[Priti Patel]

I will not give way because I do not have time.

To spare the blushes of the Minister, I will not relitigate the debate. I am glad that he is in his place because there is a lot to cover. He will speak passionately about development aid and assistance because of his background and experience. I would like to ask him a question about the British Indian Ocean Territory and which budgets the lease costs will come from. Will it be from the FCO, defence or ODA budgets? We still need an explanation of that. I thank the Minister, because before the debate started I received a flurry of answers to some of the questions I have been posing on this issue. However, just for the record, I still do not have clarification, so there will be more.

I want to speak about defence spending and ODA. The Government were right to follow our calls to redirect some ODA funds to support the defence budget at this critical time.

Northern Gaza

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

I know how diligent, attentive and moved by these issues my hon. Friend has been over a long period. The force of his question is obviously right. We have taken far-reaching steps, yet we are all still seeing images on our televisions and hearing about them on our radio; they remain deeply distressing. We will continue to do everything that we can about a situation that is distressing for the civilians affected and for the region, and in which there are questions about adherence to international humanitarian law.

I say to my hon. Friend that there are a number of other places in my ministerial portfolio where the situation has also remained stuck for a long time, with terrible consequences for civilians, and they need to continue to have our focus as well. The situation in Palestine is appalling, as it has been for a long time in Yemen, Syria and a range of other places. We will continue to make serious efforts. That our efforts do not secure the progress that we want does not mean that we are not making them. We will remain committed to a more safe, more secure middle east and wider region in which the horrific imagery that he described is not burnishing our minds as it is at the moment. We will continue to act.

The fact that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) said, I am answering so many hon. Members’ questions with similar answers over a course of weeks and months is of huge frustration to me. I would want to be making more progress on some of these questions, whether they are on aid access—[Interruption.]. The fact that I have not been able to make progress does not mean that the UK Government are not taking every action we can to try to bring about the ceasefire that we have been calling for since July.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

The situation in northern Gaza is grave, with no functioning hospitals, medical centres destroyed and more than 1,000 medical personnel killed, injured or detained. The UK representative to the UN made it clear that that is unacceptable. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that Israel abides by its responsibility under international law to protect medical staff and access to healthcare?

[Mr Falconer]

I reiterate, to reassure the House about some of the steps that we are taking, that I have raised with the Israeli Government the hospitals and the people mentioned in many of the questions this afternoon, and I will continue to do so.