Middle East

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with my hon. Friend. We must provide the security needed at all our places of worship. I know that across the House, people will be saddened and concerned to know that some of our places of worship require the sort of security that we are seeing today. That is something we must all work to alleviate. That is partly a question of putting in more resource, but it is much bigger than that in terms of the change that we need to bring about. I do believe that the approach that we are taking of diplomacy, sticking to our values and being in the room to argue is of benefit to this country in relation not only to the middle east but to India and the wider world.

[Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

After the horrors of Manchester, there is a sense of joy and relief in synagogues in my constituency at the final release of the hostages, many of whom were sponsored by synagogues, but there is also a sense of trepidation when they see Hamas terrorists patrolling the streets of Gaza and carrying out summary executions, so I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment that Hamas can have no role in Gaza. While he is on the issue of Islamic extremism, does he agree that now is the time to review the UK Government’s approach to the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been banned in many other countries, such as the United Arab Emirates?

[The Prime Minister]

I join the right hon. Gentleman in noting the feeling of trepidation, because I think that across the country we can all feel the trepidation and fear following the terrible impact that the Manchester attack had on all our communities, but the Jewish community in particular. I absolutely assert and am clear that Hamas must play no role whatsoever. That is why it is so important that we work with our international allies on the follow-through from what happened yesterday—aid, security and making sure that the steps are in place to move on at speed—and that is the biggest risk, frankly, to this agreement: that we are not able to move sufficiently quickly on those important issues. We do keep the Muslim Brotherhood question under constant review.