Middle East

Lincoln Jopp Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

Today, we have introduced new, strong sanctions against organisations that are operating, fuelling funds or trading in the illegal settlements. We have different sanctions regimes, including geographic and thematic regimes. We believe that the regimes need to be strengthened, and we are looking at ways to do that that give us more flexibility to respond to different circumstances.

Obviously, in the case of what is happening in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, we want to be able to target the illegal settlements and the trade and activity there, but we do not want to impact on the long-standing, legitimate trade that runs right across Israel with organisations and businesses and provides links between communities. Other countries that have looked at how to do it, and what mechanisms to use, have found it challenging and raised different practical issues, but we continue to look with our international allies at what measures could be strengthened to address exactly those issues and to promote the cause of peace and security.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for her statement. What exactly are the Brits going to contribute to the multinational maritime mission in terms of hardware? Has Ukraine offered up its two Sandown-class mine-clearing vessels and crew, which are currently in Portsmouth?

[Yvette Cooper]

The multinational maritime mission is led by the UK and France. We have set out and been looking at particular assets that can be provided as part of the mission. It is, of course, multilateral—the point is that it needs to include a range of different countries. We have had discussions with Ukraine, as have many Gulf countries, because of its particular expertise in drones and modern technology in terms of air defences, and support has been provided for some of the Gulf partners.

The precise assets used in practice will depend on what is needed at the point at which—we hope—settlement will be reached. One of the points discussed as part of the settlement is whether Iran will do the de-mining, which would clearly be most effective because it laid the mines in the first place. We would like Iran to do it first, if that is possible.