Ukraine (Flight MH17) and Gaza

Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The only proposal on the table currently is the Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire and a process. We have said that we back that, the Israelis are willing to back that, and we need Hamas to back that as well. Everyone who can should bring their pressure to bear. All those countries that have a relationship with Hamas—of course, we do not because it does not recognise Israel’s right to exist and it believes in violence—should bring that pressure to bear.

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

One of the people tragically lost on flight MH17 was Glenn Thomas, a British national who worked for the World Health Organisation and who was known to a number of us in this House through his work with our all-party parliamentary groups, including the group on global tuberculosis. His loss was a great shock to us. Will my right hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to his work and to those who were travelling to the world AIDS conference? Do not the values of the World Health Organisation and that conference, the values of internationalism and respect for human rights, stand in stark contrast to the disregard for such values shown by Russia, the aggressor?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. I certainly join him in paying tribute to Glenn Thomas and in sending our condolences to his family and friends. The World Health Organisation and specifically the work that has been done on diseases such as TB, malaria and AIDS has been staggeringly successful and it is a beacon for what we can achieve if we spend aid moneys wisely and sensibly and work together as a global community. My right hon. Friend is right—what a contrast between that lifesaving effort and the brutality of what we have seen on our television screens.