Middle East

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Brendan O'Hara

Tuesday 9th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome the work my hon. Friend has done on how charity systems are abused to funnel support to illegal settlements. She has rightly raised that issue not just with me but with the Culture Secretary and directly with the Charity Commission. The Minister for the Middle East will be meeting the CEO of the Charity Commission tomorrow to pursue exactly this issue to ensure there is a thorough investigation. Some evidence suggests that rules are being broken. We should not end up with UK gift aid being funnelled to illegal settlements. That clearly breaches all the standards that anybody across the UK would expect there to be, as well as the Charity Commission rules, which is why it is essential to look at this. On the wider issues around trade, we do not want trade with illegal settlements. That is why we will continue to look at strengthening the sanctions regime and work with allies across the world.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)]

We welcome the new sanctions, but the issue of illegality goes much deeper than these now-sanctioned organisations. The illegal settlements in the west bank are state sponsored, state financed and state protected. That is also the case for the settler violence that inevitably follows, which is carried out with almost complete impunity. Why have the Government chosen to sanction these particular organisations, but decided not to take further action against the Netanyahu regime in the face of its state-sponsored illegal settlement policy?

[Yvette Cooper]

As I set out earlier, the UK has introduced sanctions against individual members of the Netanyahu Government, something that very few countries across the world have actually done. We believe that is the right thing to do because of the seriousness of what they have done and the seriousness of the situation around illegal settlements. The hon. Gentleman is right that this is about international law more widely, but also, specifically, the peace and security of the middle east. We know that there is no alternative to the two-state solution, but ultimately, to make progress on Gaza, as we did for a brief period in autumn, we need to build up international consensus and not just look for what individual countries should do.

Arctic Security

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Brendan O'Hara

Monday 19th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to talk about the very strong feelings on this matter right across the UK—of the need to protect sovereignty for the people of Greenland and the people of Denmark more widely, and the sense that to propose tariffs in this way is just deeply wrong. It is counterproductive to our collective security, but it is also deeply wrong.

My hon. Friend has also raised issues of UK resilience. She will know that on things like the Five Eyes partnership, there is very deep, long-standing co-operation and shared technology, but there are also areas in which we agree that Europe needs to do more for its own defence and its own investment, and that is what we are doing.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)]

I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Greenland. President Trump’s threat to annex Greenland either “the easy way” or “the hard way” is pushing Europe to the verge of one of the biggest political and security crises we have faced in decades. Now, his threat to impose punitive tariffs on those opposing his illegal annexation means that the President of our closest ally is using economic and military threats against the UK and other European nations simply for defending sovereignty, self-determination and international law. On what basis do this Government view this particular President as being a trustworthy and reliable ally?

[Yvette Cooper]

We have made it very clear that threats to Greenland’s sovereignty are wrong, and that threats of tariffs and economic pressure are also wrong, because allies should stand together and not face the kinds of threats we have seen. That is a particular issue for the UK, but also for Denmark, which has been such a close ally to both the UK and the US. We are taking a very robust, hard-headed approach to this matter, to work through what is in the UK national interest and get a resolution that can protect, defend and strengthen Arctic security, as well as UK security more widely. That is the right thing to do.

Gaza and Sudan

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Brendan O'Hara

Tuesday 18th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The UN Human Rights Council resolution that the UK drew up and that was passed on Friday includes the urgent need for humanitarian access, as well as the investigation of the atrocities and the ability to hold people to account. The other important issue is that the Quad—the US, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt—has now committed to the humanitarian truce, to a ceasefire and to ending external support to warring parties. It is essential that we all work to implement the commitment that the Quad has set out and ensure that there is huge international pressure to get that peace in place.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)]

This morning, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on international law, justice and accountability, I hosted a briefing for parliamentarians on the crisis in Sudan, at which Nathaniel Raymond of the humanitarian research lab at Yale described El Fasher as a slaughterhouse, where 60,000 people have been murdered in just three weeks. Those same Yale scholars now forecast that by Christmas, the RSF will be in Tawila, where hundreds of thousands of civilians could face a similarly appalling fate. Everybody at the meeting agreed that what has been missing is the Prime Minister’s personal leadership on this issue. Will the Foreign Secretary encourage the Prime Minister to become personally involved and show that vital international leadership which could prevent Tawila becoming another slaughterhouse?

[Yvette Cooper]

I am not only worried about Tawila; I am also deeply worried that the full scale of the atrocities in El Fasher may yet prove to be even worse than has been reported and commented on so far.

On the Prime Minister’s engagement with this issue, I say to the hon. Gentleman that when I was appointed to this role, as well as in the months before that, the Prime Minister personally highlighted the importance of Sudan as one of the central areas that needed UK Government and FCDO focus, because of the scale of the atrocities. That included the work to lead the London Sudan conference in April this year. Before many people were raising concerns about Sudan, this Government were consistently highlighting the humanitarian risks, but the situation is still getting worse and we need international support for action.