Middle East

Patricia Ferguson Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that I spoke to the UN about this last week. We are working with the UN, and I was pleased that the World Food Programme was able to get some extra trucks in. We will continue to work closely with the UN, because we believe that it must be a fundamental part of the system that distributes aid to the people of Gaza.

[Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement, and I note the agreement reached with the 30 other nations. However, as we know, Israel has already rejected it. It seems to me that Israel is becoming more and more emboldened by the lack of concrete action by the international community. While people starve or are killed while queuing for food, and while those sheltering in the Caritas Jerusalem shelter were bombed at the weekend, it really does begin to look as though there is genocide unfolding before our eyes. I realise that the Foreign Secretary will want to take a legalistic view of that, but to those of us looking at it from a moral and logical point of view, there can be no other words for it. Although I understand and I agree with the Foreign Secretary that recognising the state of Palestine will not bring this to an end, it would at least give the people of Palestine something to cling on to and some hope, so can we please not discount the opportunities to raise that issue, but advocate for it and declare that we regard Palestine as a state?

[Mr Lammy]

In my experience, my hon. Friend chooses her words carefully, and the whole House will have heard what she has said this afternoon. I reassure her that, in my discussions with the Jordanians, the Saudi Arabians, the Qataris, the Emiratis and the Egyptians, and indeed with Prime Minister Mustafa, we of course discuss the recognition issue, as we have been doing with our French colleagues.