Middle East

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Chair of the International Development Committee.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and support every word that he has said.

No one wants a ceasefire more than I do. I cannot describe the tears that I and others in the House have shed for all the innocent civilians who have been murdered and maimed. I cannot think what the families of the hostages are going through, and, to be honest, I do not want to think of what the hostages themselves have endured. But the ceasefire is far from certain, the peace following it is far from certain, and the two-state solution is very far from certain. What is certain is that on 28 January the Knesset’s legislation that effectively bans UNRWA comes into force, and I am unable to see how the aid, the stability, the health systems and the schools can be implemented if that happens. My Committee will publish a report on this subject tomorrow, but can the Foreign Secretary speak now about what he is doing to urge Israel to ensure that that legislation does not come into force and that aid can flood in where it is needed?

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for all her endeavours on these issues on behalf her Committee, and on behalf of this country. She is right that colleagues in all parts of the House, in this Parliament and the last, have shed tears about this most heartbreaking of conflicts. In my 25 years in the House, I have not seen such emotion from UK parliamentarians in relation to this central challenge.

As for the position of the UK Government, in the midst of this conflict, when there are so many children out of school, so many children orphaned and so many hospitals lying in rubble, when there is disease and famine, we cannot see how there cannot be a role for the central UN agency at this time if this peace is to hold. On Monday, I made that point to the Israeli Government again. Along with my French and German colleagues, I wrote to the Israeli Foreign Minister, making that point and pressing him on the winterisation plan that we believe must be implemented. The clock is ticking down to that Knesset legislation. What we do not want is the undermining of the peace that begins on Sunday by that legislation just a few days into its passing.