Matthew Offord
Main Page: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)Department Debates - View all Matthew Offord's debates with the HM Treasury
Local Government: Ethical Procurement
Matthew Offord Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
It is a great pity that this has been promoted as a debate about local government when in reality it is just a thinly disguised attack against the legitimate and democratic state of Israel. Why has there been no discussion about the repression in other middle eastern nations such as Saudi Arabia and Iran? Why does the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions organisation spend all its time demonising Israel and ignoring Hamas and Hezbollah as they pour rocket fire down on Israel? The premise of the debate has more to do with cheap political point scoring than with the lives of individuals. Palestinian workers would risk losing their jobs if such actions by BDS were successful and economic sanctions were directed against Israeli firms that employ them. [Interruption.]
Dr Offord
Those Palestinian workers are paid on average three or four times more than they could earn elsewhere. About 500 Palestinians lost their jobs in October 2015, when international pressure from the BDS movement led to the closure of SodaStream’s factory in Ma’ale Adumim. That demonstrates that the BDS movement only seeks to harm Israel, with little consideration of how its actions will affect the livelihood of Palestinians, even though Palestinians employed by Israeli companies enjoy substantially higher wages and improved living conditions than those employed elsewhere.
Dr Offord
Indeed, reports of anti-Semitic attacks being perpetrated in Europe can be directly linked with the hateful rhetoric espoused by many BDS campaigners, and BDS founder Omar Barghouti has repeatedly expressed his opposition to Israel’s right to exist as a state of the Jewish people. But most telling of all is that the Palestinian Authority themselves do not support a boycott.
Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Order. A point of order from Andy Slaughter. Let us hope it is a point of order.
Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
If the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) was out of order, I would have called him out of order. It is actually the point that has been raised by the opening speaker, so I call Dr Matthew Offord.
Dr Offord
Thank you, Mr Streeter, for your wise words.
In December 2013, Mahmoud Abbas stated that, with the exception of settlement goods, the Palestinian Authority do not support a boycott on Israel. He said that
“we do not ask anyone to boycott Israel itself. We have relations with Israel, we have mutual recognition of Israel.”
I and my constituents welcome the Government’s announcement of new rules to curtail silly left-wing town halls and all publicly funded bodies from adopting politically motivated anti-Israel boycott and divestment campaigns.
Dr Offord
Apology accepted. The BDS movement says that having such interests makes companies “complicit in war crimes”, as they help to entrench the occupation and settlements. If that was the case, why did not BDS and its supporters seek a ban on British goods and services when Tony Blair decided to invade Iraq? The simple reason is that British goods and services had no influence over British foreign policy, as indeed academics and universities and goods and services in Israel have no influence over Israeli foreign policy.
What Labour and the Scottish National party failed to achieve in the general election—a majority or coalition Government to decide foreign policy—we will not let them seek to achieve at local level. Such policy is made in this House. There is no place for that in town halls, whose duties are simply to deliver local services and not to make foreign policy.
Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
I call Owen Thompson —who is not present. I call John Mc Nally.
Richard Burgon
I agree with my hon. Friend that we should make democratic choice the key part of this debate but, after hearing some contributions from Government Members, I think that they are not in favour of democratic choice in relation to this matter.
These proposals are a step too far. Britain has a clear position on settlements: they are illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible. This is about democracy, and the proposals are an affront to democracy, choice and local power, and the comments of the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) are an absolute disgrace.
Richard Burgon
The hon. Gentleman’s comments from a sedentary position and when he stood up to speak. His comments were an affront to local democracy.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
I draw hon. Members attention to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I also had the fortune to go to the west bank on the Fatah UK trip that has been referred to.
When we saw that the topic for the debate was local government and procurement policy, we wondered whether it had much to do with Scotland. As my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) noted, those matters are a matter for the Scottish Government—I shall return to that in a moment. However, it quickly became apparent—I think all parties understand this—that this is a debate not about local government, but about foreign policy. It is interesting that, rather than choosing an English town hall in which to make a pronouncement about the affairs of local authorities, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, travelled to Tel Aviv to make an announcement alongside the Prime Minister of Israel, and chose to illustrate his announcement by referring to the impact of local authorities’ actions on the settlements in the occupied territories.
Now, if we are to say—as some Government Members have suggested—that local councillors should not be having a foreign policy and should concern themselves with local matters, we might rightly ask ourselves, “What are the Ministers responsible for the UK civil service and English local authorities doing travelling to foreign countries to make pronouncements on foreign policy?” We need to understand whether this is actually a dispute among colleagues in the Cabinet and an attempt by some who disagree with the established position of the Foreign Office to undermine it, or whether it is a genuine confusion that has arisen. Perhaps the Minister will clarify the position in his response.
We should be absolutely clear that what is under discussion here is not the state of Israel, but the activities in the illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Now, I know that the Israeli Government refute the fact that the settlements are illegal, but the UN Security Council, the General Assembly of the UN, the European Union, every NGO I can think of, and our own Government regard the settlements as illegal, so I hope that we can at least agree that engagement in those activities is unlawful.
I have witnessed these settlements, and I think that when some people refer to community settlements, they still believe that they are small, little, cutesy villages that are being developed. In fact, these are massive conurbations of thousands—sometimes tens of thousands—of people, with all the infrastructure we would expect from a modern city. Although many of the settlements have been built effectively as dormitories for people working inside Israel proper, it is clear that if they are to continue, they must develop their own economy and, therefore, the capacity to develop trade and production in those areas is vital for their survival.
We need to ask ourselves a question: is it the role of public agencies in the UK to assist in that illegal process or is it right and proper that they should do something about it? I think it is entirely proper that they should do something about it. The advice of the Scottish Government is consistent with that of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in saying that there is a general presumption against trade and investment in illegal settlements and telling local councils that they should make a decision on individual matters of procurement according to procurement legislation and take into account the circumstances that apply, but reminding them that when it comes to the term “gross misconduct”, which colleagues have mentioned, it is entirely right and proper to regard the support for an international illegal operation as gross misconduct.
Looking at some of these contracts, people should be advised that they need to understand whether the contract will be secure—whether the agency or company with which they are contracting has the legal right to sign the contract, and to use the resources and occupy the lands and premises that they say they do. If a local authority is being prudent and making a careful judgment about that, it is acting in the interests of the people who elected it, and that is right and proper.
I have a minute or two left, so I want to say to the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) that in his speech, which I thought he galloped through with rather undue haste—it would have been better for him to have taken some interventions, because it might have demonstrated better confidence in his own arguments—he attempted, as others have, to suggest that this is an attack on Israel. It is not. I believe in the two-state solution. I would like to see a viable state of Palestine and a viable state of Israel, but I firmly believe that the actions of this right-wing Israeli Government and their refusal to take moves to end the military occupation are putting the prospects of a two-state solution in severe jeopardy.
Dr Offord
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his contribution because he is consistent, unlike, unfortunately, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), who has hurriedly left the Chamber. Does the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) not agree that the disinvestment strategy promoted by the BDS would actually lead to ending the possibility of a two-state solution, which would mean that there would not be peace in the middle east?
Tommy Sheppard
No, I do not make that connection or draw that conclusion in the slightest. In fact, I have visited the area recently and spoken to many Palestinians who are involved. They are absolutely of one mind in telling us that they want us to call for disinvestment in the illegal settlements in the occupied territories. That is their position and it is incumbent on us to try to understand, respect and advocate that position if we can.
I have limited time, but I very much welcome the fact that we are having this debate, which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) secured. I welcome the attendance and the level of contribution. I do think that it is time, following this discussion, that we sought a debate in the main Chamber and devoted rather more time not just to this issue, but to the underlying aspects behind it. It is incumbent on us to do that because the overriding impression that I brought back from my recent trip to the west bank was one of desperation and despair among people who really feel that the world has given up on them. We need to show them that we have not.