Palestine

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Jason McCartney

Monday 1st December 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

This has been a fascinating and important debate. I am sorry that it did not take place in the main Chamber and that there has not been more time to debate the issues. I will not be able to cover all the points that have been raised.

I join the shadow spokesman in offering my condolences to the family of Rabbi Goldberg, who was sadly killed in the terrorist attack in the synagogue on 18 November.

I begin, as others have, by congratulating the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) on securing the debate. I also congratulate the 100,000-plus of our constituents who have called for the House to debate this issue. As expected, the debate has been vibrant and intelligent—I hope that the next debate we have on this issue takes place in the main Chamber.

The weekend just gone marked 67 years since the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 181, which recommended the creation of two separate states of Israel and Palestine, with a special international regime for the city of Jerusalem. As hon. Members have mentioned, it is also 21 years since the Oslo accords. No wonder that Parliaments and citizens around the world are calling for debates, for leadership and for the implementation of the plans devised and agreed decades ago. Recognising Palestine is something that this Government—indeed all Governments—want to do. The key question, strategically rather than symbolically, is when we will be best placed to do so in order to help to secure a lasting solution.

I am going to try something I have not tried before as a Minister: I am going to answer the questions first, and if I run out of time, so be it; my speech will then have to wait, or else I will write to the hon. Member for Easington—although he would probably have said that he had heard my speech before, as it would not have differed from a previous one I have given. I will begin with the key points he mentioned. First, he talked about child detainees. Britain is very concerned about that issue. We have raised the matter with the Israelis and are asking them to continue a pilot scheme allowing individuals to be summoned rather than arrests being made at night. We are also lobbying for an end to solitary confinement. We are very much concerned about the issue.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned trading with illegal settlements. He will be aware of voluntary guidelines—it was his Government who introduced them—to enable customers to identify whether goods come from the occupied territories, so that they themselves can make a decision.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

I recently met a group of Quakers from my constituency who have been working in the occupied territories. They specifically asked about the Government’s stance towards trading with illegal settlements in the occupied territories. Will the Minister give as much detail as he can as to the Government’s view on that issue?

[Mr Ellwood]

Given that I now have only 13 minutes left, I will write to my hon. Friend with more detail. However, I will say that the scheme I mentioned is working well and that supermarkets and others have adopted it so that customers themselves can have a better understanding of where produce comes from. I am pleased that has happened. The Government do not believe that boycotts would be helpful.

The hon. Member for Easington also mentioned export licences. He is aware that a judicial review is being undertaken on them, so I am afraid that I can say little more at this time.

My hon. Friends the Members for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) spoke about the role of Hamas and its using its people as cover when firing missiles. At the peak of that firing, some 140 missiles were fired from Gaza into Israel. They were prevented from striking and causing deaths only because of the Iron Dome system, which I had the opportunity to visit when I was in the country two months ago.

The hon. Member for Bradford West (George Galloway) stated that Gaza is occupied. It is not occupied in the sense that the west bank is. Gaza has its own pressures because of the restrictions placed on it, but we want to see the Palestinian Authority move into that space of governance, so it can push out the legitimacy and the authority that Hamas claims to have.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan) spoke passionately about these issues. He gave an interesting speech at the Royal United Services Institute on this matter and has talked about being able to be a friend of Israel while also being able to be critical. He said that criticising Israel for its conduct neither questioned its right to exist nor was anti-Semitic and that, similarly, standing up for justice for Palestinians is not in any way anti-Semitic. I make it very clear that we need to be able to have frank discussions and debates with our friends without being seen to be polarised, and I am pleased to say that we have done that today.

The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) spoke about conditions in Gaza, as did the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas). I saw them for myself when I visited Shejaiya, where the situation is now compounded by the flooding that has taken place. I absolutely agree with the shadow Minister that more trade is required. Let us not just have the Erez crossing open; let us have Kerem Shalom and the Rafah crossings opened up. Indeed, on the maritime issue, I told Baroness Ashton and her successor, Federica Mogherini, what the EU could do—it could create a trade corridor from the maritime port to Cyprus where things could be checked to make sure they would not be used for tunnel systems and so on. That would allow trade to develop and goods to come out of Gaza, and it would allow the reconstruction requirements, which are absolutely necessary to support the 1.6 million people there, to come into the country.