Middle East

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

We are pursuing that particular event. If we find any cases where there are breaches of UK law, we will also pursue them. The wider issue is that nobody in the UK should be advertising illegal settlements. Nobody should be pursuing illegal settlements. No businesses or organisations should be getting involved in them. We have shown our willingness and determination to impose sanctions on organisations that do, just as we have set out today. We will continue to do further sanctions where we have the opportunity to do so, because support for illegal settlements is wrong.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

One of the most depressing things about these statements is the profound damage that they do to British national interests and our standing in the world through their pathetic delusion. On Gaza, could the Foreign Secretary confirm that she is aware that in the last two weeks Israeli Ministers have made clear their desire for the mass emigration of Palestinians from the territory, and that we should see the stranglehold they have imposed in that context?

Could the Foreign Secretary also confirm that the meagre sanctions that the previous and current Government have imposed so far have had absolutely no impact on the conduct of anybody in Israel, let alone the Israeli Government, and that the current wave of what she is calling sanctions are not actually sanctions but asset freezes? That means that unless the organisations or individuals targeted have assets in the UK, the measures will have no impact. In fact, the regime that she has chosen to bring them in under does not even include goods and services, so as we are all still free to sell those organisations or individuals bricks and mortar, corrugated iron or insurance, the measures are unlikely to have any impact whatsoever on what is going on in the west bank.

[Yvette Cooper]

We have been clear that having an impact on what happens in Gaza and the west bank depends on building international consensus and taking multiple actions. The right hon. Member complains about what this Government have done, but he should consider for a second the things that we have done that his Government refused to do. We have restored and increased funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, suspended arms licences for use in Gaza, dropped the challenge to the International Criminal Court jurisdiction, suspended trade negotiations with the Israeli Government, and introduced four packages of sanctions on violent settlers, including sanctioning Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir—leading the first group of countries to do so.

This Government have led diplomatic efforts at the UN, launched a medevac scheme for sick Gazan children and their families—helping to get students into the UK—and supported UK field hospitals in Gaza, treating hundreds of thousands of Gazans. We are funding mine-clearance operations and providing more than £129 million in humanitarian assistance this year—and then protecting that in each year of the spending review. Most importantly, we took the historic decision, which his Government refused to take for years, to recognise the state of Palestine as part of the inviolable right of the Palestinian people. That was the right thing to do.