Middle East Peace Process/Syria and Iran

Sandra Osborne Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Britain has a strong history of working to prohibit chemical weapons and of encouraging other countries to sign the chemical weapons convention. Syria’s decision, if verifiably implemented, will of course be a major advance; as it could easily be the largest arsenal of chemical weapons in the world, its destruction would be a major advance. My hon. Friend is quite right that that should lead us only to redouble our efforts to make sure that other stocks of chemical weapons in the world are destroyed.

[Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the former Minister, the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), particularly for the regular briefings he provided to Members of all parties; I hope his successor will continue that practice. I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement on Lebanon and the extra resources going into the international support group. Has he made any assessment, however, of the impact on the Palestinian refugees, currently living in Lebanon and elsewhere, who have suffered for many years, of the influx of so many Syrian refugees?

[Mr Hague]

The impact on most people in Lebanon is difficult. As the hon. Lady knows, the influx of refugees into that country is proportionately huge, with more than 700,000 refugees living there—a large proportion of Lebanon’s population. The United Kingdom continues to give strong support for Palestinians in Lebanon, and a good deal of the help from the Department for International Development that goes through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency goes into supporting those Palestinians. We are very conscious of the problem; supporting these people is part of our approach to Lebanon.