Middle East Peace Plan

Robert Courts Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

It is not a question of hiding behind what others say. Generally speaking, it is a good thing to be in the mainstream of international opinion. I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman would be quite keen on that. I have already read out some of the comments made over the past 36 hours or so, and most of them say that they want to see a negotiation between the parties. At the moment, there is none—there is a vacuum. What we have is this document, launched this week, and if this can be baby steps towards something that makes sense in the future, I would have thought that most of us would at least welcome that as part of a process.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

We are dealing with one of the world’s longest-running and most complicated conflicts. Does the Minister agree that if these proposals represent a step towards negotiations and an acceptable agreement, we should give them fair consideration?

[Dr Murrison]

It would be unwise to completely dismiss out of hand something of this nature, created and built by one of our closest allies, but that appears to be the position of those on the Opposition Front Bench. We need to get to a position where we have the start of a negotiation. That is, as I have said, baby steps, but if we can see a way forward to the start of a negotiation, that would be a good thing.