Gaza Border Violence Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Mark Harper
Main Page: Mark Harper (Conservative - Forest of Dean)Department Debates - View all Mark Harper's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(6 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Alistair Burt
The right hon. Lady is right. We will redouble our efforts, but we cannot want peace more than the people involved. It will need leadership in the region itself to demonstrate the determination to see the answer that we need, but she can be sure that we will do all we can to bend our efforts in that direction.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
May I draw the Minister back to his response to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) when he referred to the independent investigation? Does he think that that investigation could look seriously at the role of Hamas, a proscribed terror organisation, in this process and get access to the people that it needs? How does he think that it could come to a reasonable independent conclusion that we all want to see in this House?
Alistair Burt
The short answer to my right hon. Friend is that we do not know. That is important in setting out the terms of an investigation. Again, we can all see the opportunity in this investigation. There will be people calling for it to come up with different answers right from the very beginning, but we can approach it only on the basis of honesty—of wanting to find out what happened and all parts of it. Just because it might be difficult to investigate the circumstances surrounding Hamas is no reason for its involvement not to be included.