UK-Israel Trade

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to sum up this debate on behalf of the Scottish National party, and I commend the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) for securing it and for the measured and well-informed way in which he introduced his remarks. I cannot say I agree with everything he said, but I compliment him on the eloquence with which he presented his case.

I have always thought that Israel is something of an enigma in the world. As we have heard from a number of Members, there is no doubt that the advances in knowledge and research that Israel helps to promote have the potential, and sometimes the actuality, to benefit humankind well beyond that country’s borders. At the same time, however, Israel is almost an outlaw; it is a criminal, and it is acting against international law every day of the week. There have been a number of serious, lethal attacks on civilians for which nobody in Israel has yet been held to account. Just as it would be wrong to completely demonise Israel and treat it as a pariah state, and wrong to ignore the atrocities committed by some on the Palestinian side, so it is wrong to talk about Israel only as a place from which Britons may get rich, and to ignore some of the human rights issues that perhaps do not affect many people living within Israel’s borders, but that certainly affect many who live within the borders of Palestine.

[James Morris]

I visited Israel recently and met the Israeli-Palestinian Chamber of Commerce. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, irrespective of some of the obviously complex issues in that region, trade between Britain and Israel, and between Israel and Palestine, is a key lever for creating the conditions for a two-state solution?

[Peter Grant]

I will come on to that in a minute. There is no doubt that trade relationships can lead to wider relationships and be used as a way of influencing—for good or sometimes for ill—the actions of other countries and Governments. Today’s debate, presumably not by accident, is not about trade with Palestine; it is about trade with Israel. If someone applied for a debate on UK-Palestine trade, and enhancing and expanding fair trade networks between the United Kingdom and Palestine, I wonder how many of the people who were so desperate to speak in this debate would be as desperate to speak in that one.

[Mary Robinson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

No, I am afraid I do not have a great deal of time.

Although trade in general between the UK and Israel is to be welcomed and promoted, we should not get things out of context. Israel accounts for less than 0.5% of UK exports—it will not fix the huge absence of trade that we will have if discussions with the European Union go wrong. We could increase exports to Israel by a factor of 10 and it would still be only a relatively minor trading partner compared with the European Union and a number of others.

We must try to negotiate an equivalent of 40 trade deals in just a couple of years, if we are lucky—possibly not even that long. I must take to task the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), who said that the Trade Bill will replicate all the current trade deals in British legislation. No, it will not. The Trade Bill will convert EU legislation into UK law, but the only way that the UK can replicate its trade deals with the 40 countries in question is if those 40 countries agree to that. This Parliament cannot unilaterally agree to extend a trade deal after we have left the European Union, and the European Union cannot do that on our behalf.

Although we can speak positively about trade with Israel in general, there are two aspects of that trade about which I cannot speak positively. As the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) mentioned—I was very disappointed by the response he received—trade with the Occupied Palestinian Territories should not be treated as if it were trade with Israel. Indeed, at the moment, under the EU agreement with Israel that cannot happen, and when Gordon Brown was in office, he said that it would be an offence to take goods from the occupied territories and sell them marked as produce of Israel. I want the Minister to give an absolute assurance that after we leave the European Union, nothing will be done to land a deal with Israel that will make it easier for goods that have been produced illegally in the illegally occupied territories to be exported here. We should regard those goods as the proceeds of crime.

[Mr Harper]

On that specific point, the hon. Gentleman seems to be mushing two things together. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) was talking about settlements, which is one issue, but the hon. Gentleman seems to be saying that we should not trade with any businesses based anywhere in the occupied territories. That sounds like a recipe for putting out of business every Palestinian-owned business, and subjecting them all to economic devastation. Is that really what he is saying?

[Peter Grant]

To clarify, I am talking about trade with areas that are under illegal occupation by Israel, and where Israel has illegally occupied parts of Palestine. I do not think that “settlements” is the correct term; this is an illegal occupation, and we should not be looking to trade with any business carried out under the illegal Israeli settlement or occupation—call it what you will. Plenty of other Palestinian businesses in Gaza and the rest of Palestine would welcome our trade, if only the Israelis would let that trade get through to Gaza.

Another area that has not yet been touched on but must be mentioned is the UK’s massively increasing weapons sales to Israel. UK arms sales licences to Israel have increased by 1,100% in two years, and in 2017 the value of licences awarded was £220 million. Israel is about our 45th biggest export customer, but it is our eighth biggest arms export customer. Consider what the Israel defence forces have been using some of those small arms to do over the past two or three months—it is time for those arms sales to stop.

I do not deny, and I would never argue about, the right of Israel to exist or defend itself against aggressors, and I would never argue about the fact that Israel faces an aggressor in some of the more militant elements within Palestine. However, children being shot with high velocity sniper rifles; medics whose only weapon is a first-aid box being shot from a distance with high-velocity precision rifles by highly trained and skilled snipers—those are not acts of self-defence, those are acts of unlawful killing and should be called out as that. The United Kingdom should not be selling weapons to anybody who is still under investigation for such crimes.

[Dr Offord]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

No, I will not give way. As I have said, I am not against trade with Israel—I know that some of my colleagues might be, but I am not. [Interruption.] No, it does not sound like that at all. Perhaps hon. Members should bother to listen, instead of just spouting forth their own prejudices.

[Dr Offord]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

As I have said a number of times, I cannot keep giving way. Perhaps Members should listen to what I am saying, then they would not have to intervene and lay bare their misinterpretations of what is being said. The SNP does not support an all-out boycott of Israel.

[Mr Nigel Evans (in the Chair)]

Order. You are into your last minute now.

[Peter Grant]

Thank you, Mr Evans. We do not support an all-out boycott of Israel, and I do not think that would work. I have good friends who believe that that is the right thing to do, but I think they are mistaken. I do not think they are being dishonest or disingenuous, but I think they are simply mistaken about what is the best tactic to use.

I will return to the point that I made before: if we had a debate this afternoon about expanding the opportunity for Palestinian producers with fair trade products to export those products to the United Kingdom, how many hon. Members would be desperate to come here and speak in that debate? Perhaps that is part of the problem. When we talk about our relationship with Israel, the debate is always oversubscribed. When we talk about trade with Palestine, which has the potential to ease significantly the poverty of people there, we do not get the same level of interest from Members of this Parliament. That unfortunate imbalance should be addressed.