Middle East

Melanie Ward Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

It is just wrong to say that the Government have been passive in relation to the ICC. We fund the ICC and continue to support the ICC. I think I raised the ICC in my second meeting with Secretary of State Rubio. We work very closely with our Dutch colleagues in particular on the ICC. We have been crystal clear on the importance of international humanitarian law. I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman is wrong on this issue.

[Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary will be aware that increasing numbers of human rights experts and genocide scholars assess that Israel’s actions in Gaza equate to a genocide, with famine being deliberately created and hospitals being bombed to kill journalists. Against that backdrop, the Government are right to recognise the state of Palestine and to do so in a way that tries to drive change on the ground. Does he share my deep concern at the unacceptable new restrictions on visas and registration that are set to shut down the work of the most effective international humanitarian organisations in Gaza? What action are the Government taking to try to prevent that?

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is right. It is unacceptable to restrict the ability of aid workers to go about their work in the face of such suffering. I put alongside that another issue I am hugely concerned about, which is the effective starving of the Palestinian Authority of the funds to pay their staff and complete the reforms that we are trying to work on with them, such that they can never get to a position where they can apply the governance that I know they wish and hope to apply