Iran-Israel Update

Liam Fox Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We have repeatedly called for an immediate humanitarian pause so that we can get the hostages out and more aid in, and use that as the foundation to build a more lasting and sustainable ceasefire, but it is worth pointing out—this has not been mentioned by colleagues so far—that Hamas, yet again, have rejected another offer to release hostages. It is important that we do not lose sight of that. We must have the hostages released as part of any of those conversations, and over the weekend it was Hamas who yet again rejected the latest round of those talks.

[Sir Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the leadership he has shown on this issue, and I echo his call for the need to avoid a spiral escalation. However, we have seen a military attack by Iran on a nation that its regime believes should not exist at all. Iran has directly or indirectly engineered a war in Gaza, with the aim of thwarting better relations between Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, and Israel. We now have death and destruction in Gaza in a conflict that no one can win, and where the only beneficiaries are Iran, its proxies and its allies. We have seen an Iranian journalist attacked on British soil, and we have seen an international vessel being pirated by the IRGC in international waters—another vile example of hostage taking. So I ask my right hon. Friend again: why is Iran Air still operating out of Heathrow, and why are Iranian banks still operating in the City of London? When will the snapback mechanism be invoked, and what can be done to stop the export of Iranian oil to Russia and other countries, which is now keeping the regime afloat?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his leadership on this issue over a consistent period of time, and he is right to highlight the threats that Iran poses to us. I want to reassure him that, on all of the areas that he mentioned, active work has been undertaken by the Government. As I mentioned in my statement, we discussed yesterday on the G7 call the need for and benefit of co-ordinating further measures, perhaps including some of the things that he talked about, among allies in order to have maximum impact both on the regime and the ultimate designations of any future sanctions. I am pleased that our new sanctions regime, which we implemented at the end of last year, gives us extensive new powers. I am keen to make sure we use them to good effect, but where we can co-ordinate those with allies, I know he would agree with me that that would be preferable, and I can reassure him that that work is happening at pace.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liam Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am sorry to hear about that specific issue in the renal unit. The hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not being familiar with the details, but I will make sure that the Department looks into it and that the NHS is provided with all the support that it needs to rectify the situation.

[Sir Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

Q11. Tomorrow is World Down Syndrome Day. We have made huge innovative strides in this country, with the unanimous passing in this House of the Down Syndrome Act 2022 and initiatives such as yours, Mr Speaker, to provide work placements here in the Palace of Westminster for people with Down syndrome. However, there is an outstanding issue that we must deal with. The time limit on abortion in the UK is 24 weeks’ gestation, but due to an anomaly in the law, for Down syndrome it is 40 weeks —up to full term—which many Members may not understand. With cross-party support I will table an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill to equalise the time limit in line with our disability and equality legislation. Surely, in the 21st century we cannot accept that people with Down syndrome are second-class citizens in our country. Will the Prime Minister support the change?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his dedicated work to pass the Down Syndrome Act. I thank him also for highlighting World Down Syndrome Day, and we will host a reception in No. 10 to mark the occasion. As he knows, when the grounds for abortion were amended, Parliament agreed that doctors were best placed to make those difficult decisions with women and their families. He also knows that it is a long-standing convention that it is for Parliament to decide whether to make any changes to the law on abortion. These issues have always been treated as an individual matter of conscience.

Defending the UK and Allies

Liam Fox Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said, we are engaging extensively with our international partners, including our Gulf allies. I spoke to the President of Egypt just last week, and will continue to do so. Let me say again, however, that it is important that no one takes away the idea that this House believes, on any side, that there is a link between direct action in self-defence against the Houthis and the situation in Israel and Gaza. They are entirely distinct. We will do everything we can to bring more aid into Gaza, and to make sure that we work hard for a sustainable ceasefire. That is separate from our ability and necessary duty to defend our interests and our people.

[Sir Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

I commend the Prime Minister for his firm and principled response to events in the Red sea, but is it not clear from Iran’s support for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis that it will do anything to stop a lasting peace between the Arab states and Israel because the Iranian regime believes that Israel should not exist at all? Would it not be a real defeat for Iran to see it isolated by a meaningful resolution of the Palestinian issue and the supercharging of the Abraham accords in a process to bring peace and stability to the region, all underpinned by an international resolve to confront Iran’s proxies wherever they threaten our interests and values?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his excellent remarks and for his work on the Abraham accords, which have done much to bring more peace and stability to the region. He is right to say that the behaviour of the Iranian regime poses a significant threat to the safety and security of the UK and our allies and ensures regional instability where we want to see more peace and stability. I can assure him that we are keeping abreast of all the risks in the area. That is why, for example, the Royal Navy last year and the year before continued to interdict illegal arms smuggling by the Iranians to the Houthis. We will continue to keep in close contact with our allies to take all the measures we can to protect our people and ensure that the Iranians’ destabilising influence in the region is reduced to the best extent possible.

Israel and Gaza

Liam Fox Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The United Kingdom Government’s long-standing position under both parties has been that the United Kingdom will recognise a Palestinian state at a time when it best serves the object of peace. We are committed to the objective of a sovereign, prosperous and peaceful Palestinian state living side by side with a safe and secure Israel. As last week’s attack demonstrates, right now we must ensure that Israel has that security.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that to conflate Hamas and the Palestinians is not only wrong but dangerous? Hamas have abducted, tortured and executed Palestinian members of Fatah, they have broken the arms of children who have worn Fatah colours to school, and they do not want a two-state solution because they do not believe Israel should exist as a state. But if the fingers on the trigger were Hamas’s, the strings were being pulled from Tehran. With £100 million of investment going from Tehran to the terrorists of Hamas, is it not time that we in this country asked again why Iranian banks are operating from the City of London, why Iran Air is operating from Heathrow airport and why we have not proscribed the IRGC, as I believe we should have?

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with my right hon. Friend that, crucially, the Palestinian people are also the victims of Hamas, as he said. Hamas do not represent the Palestinian people or their legitimate aspirations to live with security and dignity. They do not stand for the future that the Palestinian people want, and he is right to highlight that. That is why we have taken the approach that we have, and we will continue to make sure that our sanctions regime is effective. Where we have sanctioned entities, including banks, we will ensure that those sanctions are complied with. The new economic deterrence initiative that we have established with funding will help to ensure that that happens.

Northern Ireland Protocol

Liam Fox Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady for her support and for the way in which she and her colleague the Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) have engaged with me and the Secretary of State over recent weeks. We appreciate it and will continue to do it. She makes a really important point. Northern Ireland is in the unique position, not just in the United Kingdom but in the entire continent of Europe, of having privileged access to two markets. As we look forward, we all want to see greater prosperity and opportunity and more growth in Northern Ireland. We can build on this framework to deliver more investment and jobs. That is the prize available to us. I know that my colleagues are determined to work with all businesses and parties in Northern Ireland to deliver that, but the hon. Lady is right that the precondition for that is a functioning Executive, and we continue to work very hard to see that come about.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

May I congratulate my right hon. Friend and his whole negotiating team, whose quiet confidence and competence have led us to an agreement that, frankly, many people would not have thought possible? Will he say something specific about the role of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister on the Joint Committee, which will be key to boosting transparency and accountability? In general terms, I hope that this new tendency to under-promise and over-deliver becomes the hallmark of the whole Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liam Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Of course we believe in freedom of religious expression and belief in this country, but we are also balancing that with the rights of women to seek legal and safe abortions. That is currently being discussed in this Parliament. These are always matters of a free vote, and I know that Members will treat them with the sensitivity they deserve.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

Q11.   Innocent civilians are being murdered in Ukraine on Putin’s orders as we speak, and as we sit in a warmed House of Commons, families are freezing because their electricity has been cut off by Russian forces. Putin believes that Ukraine is more important to him than to the free world, and is moving to a full war footing. Ukrainians must make gains on the battlefield, and the next six months are crucial. They need a full range of weapons—air defence, artillery, longer-range missiles, and tanks—and enough to make a real difference. The UK has shown great leadership on this issue, so may I ask my right hon. Friend to use every means at his disposal, domestic and international, to honour the courage of the people of Ukraine, and to defend the whole world order, because ultimately that is what we are talking about?

Oral Answers to Questions

Liam Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is absolutely vital, if we are to have a successful outcome in what we are trying to do collectively, united with Ukraine, that we demonstrate that this is not about the Russian people; this is about the Putin regime.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

Q11. Does my right hon. Friend agree that choices always have consequences? Putin has chosen to inflict death and destruction on the people of Ukraine and must be made to pay, but others, including those in the Russian military and Russian oligarchs, could still choose to be on the right side of history. Will my right hon. Friend and other world leaders tell them to make the right choice and to make it soon, because in this conflict, time is life?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend has made a very powerful and important point. I do hope that those who have any links with the Putin regime whatever—any so-called oligarchs and all those who are in any way associated with the regime—take this opportunity, as some brave individuals already have, to dissociate themselves from this barbaric invasion.

Ukraine

Liam Fox Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the monitoring mission teams. They are wonderful. I have met them and they do a fantastic job. I am sorry that they have had to be withdrawn, for the duty of care reasons that the hon. Gentleman rightly alludes to. We will keep that under constant review.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

The 1994 Budapest memorandum saw Ukraine give up its nuclear weapons in return for a security guarantee signed by not only Britain and the United States, but Russia. Does my right hon. Friend believe that Ukraine would have been invaded had it retained its nuclear weapons? What does that say about the value of a Russian signature on any international agreement?

[The Prime Minister]

It is clear that President Putin sets no stall by international law whatever and that is just one of the legal obligations that he has torn up.

Ukraine

Liam Fox Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I did have a chance to talk to Nancy Pelosi and her bipartisan delegation. The sentiments expressed by Members of this House today were very much shared by that delegation of Congressmen and women.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. The UK Government have behaved with integrity and honour throughout the crisis. I echo his welcoming of Chancellor Scholz’s brave decision today to freeze Nord Stream 2. However, sanctions can only achieve so much when dealing with an undemocratic state and someone like Putin. What we are witnessing is the real-time cannibalisation of a European democratic state bite by bite. Ultimately, we will have either to ensure that Ukraine is given the means to defend itself from future aggression, or give some sort of security guarantee. Otherwise, we will find Russian troops on the borders of Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary, which would be an absolute failure of western policy.

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend has recently written and spoken powerfully about the subject and he is completely right that we will have to dig in for the long term to support Ukraine in every way that we can: economically, diplomatically, by the provision of military support in the way that we are already. It will take time, but to return to the point I made in my statement: it is vital that President Putin should fail. I believe that he will fail because the giant facts are against him. He is taking on Ukrainian national feeling and in the end he will not succeed. We will help the Ukrainians to succeed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liam Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am absolutely amazed that some of you wanted to catch my eye. Obviously you do not now. Thanks for that—it is making my life easier. Do not be shocked when I do not call you to put that special question today.

Let us come to the man of the moment, Dr Liam Fox.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

Q6. As we look forward to 2022, one of the dates that stands out for me is 21 March, which will be World Down Syndrome Day. In thanking the Government, and indeed all parties in the House, for their support for the Down Syndrome Bill, may I ask the Prime Minister if he will give his personal commitment to ensuring that we get that Bill on to the statute book before World Down Syndrome Day, so that we can be the first country in the world to do so? We talk about global Britain, but that cannot just be about trade and diplomacy; it must also be about values. Would that not be a great place for Britain to start?