Israel and Palestine
Debate between Paula Barker and Joanna Cherry(11 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)
I associate myself with the hon. and learned Lady’s earlier comments about Hamas. Does she agree that the UK Government should look at a process whereby we can get Palestinians over to the UK, as we did with the Ukraine scheme? They can return to their homes once it is safe to do so.
Joanna Cherry
I very much do. I raised the issue with the Minister in the main Chamber last week in relation to the elderly mother, pregnant sister and small baby of a constituent. It is incumbent on the British Government to look seriously at humanitarian visas, particularly given our links with the region and how many of us have constituents with family there. These people will not want to come here permanently, and they will want to go back to their homeland, so the Government need not worry about the long-term net migration figures. As a humanitarian country, we should surely be looking at humanitarian visas.
The point of my speech—I say this because I am a lawyer and this matters very much to me—is that Britain has an obligation under international law to prevent war crimes and to prevent another genocide from happening, but it is not fulfilling that obligation. I know that the Government never reveal their legal advice, but I want to hear from the Minister whether they are alert to their international legal obligations, and to what extent they are taking those on board. In fairness to him, he responded very generously to my question about this issue in the main Chamber last week. I want to hear that he and other Foreign Office Ministers will pressure the Home Office—and goodness me, does it not need to be pressured to do anything humanitarian?—to grant humanitarian visas to Palestinians who want to come to the United Kingdom for temporary respite before they go back to their homes.