Arms Export Licences: Israel

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you this afternoon, Sir Christopher. I thank the hon. Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) for bringing the debate to this Chamber. I also thank other Members for their contributions. I will respond to as many of their points as I can in the time available.

It may be helpful first to outline the Government’s approach to this issue. I think we have all been deeply moved by the scenes we have seen from Israel and Gaza over the past nine weeks or so. At the same time, we must not forget how this conflict started. To do so would be a great injustice to the 1,200 victims of the Hamas terrorist attack on 7 October. It was a massacre that rightly appalled the world. Barbarism, brutality and inhumanity are not words that we should use lightly but, as more detail and witness accounts of the events of that day emerge, it is increasingly clear that they are apt descriptors of Hamas’s wicked acts.

Terrorism of this magnitude must be defeated. Israel has a clear right to defend itself, while of course complying with international law. None the less, it is only right that we continue to engage with Israel to ensure that its campaign is targeted against Hamas combatants and military infrastructure. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary stand alongside the international community in calling on Israel to ensure that its actions in defence are necessary and proportionate.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

The Minister will have heard hon. Members detail the horrors rained down upon Gaza in the past few weeks, but can he answer this: how many of the people who have been killed in Gaza were killed by arms supplied by Britain and how many of the tens of thousands of bombs that have rained down on Gaza were supplied by Britain or dropped from planes with parts provided by Britain? If the Minister says that he cannot answer those questions, that itself surely reveals why we need to suspend arms sales to Israel.

[Greg Hands]

It is not for me as a Minister in the Department for Business and Trade to give a commentary on deaths or destruction, up-to-date figures on Gaza or those kind of things. That is rightly a matter for the Foreign Office. I think that Foreign Office questions was today, which is when the hon. Member could have availed himself of the opportunity to ask exactly those questions.

We urge all parties to ensure that aid continues to enter Gaza, to end settler violence and to work with international bodies such as the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross.