Patricia Ferguson

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy (Melanie Ward) for an excellent contribution that clearly came from the heart. We know that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is appalling and has been for far too long. That aid cannot get in is despicable, but that aid workers are not able to get in is also despicable, not least because we cannot just give food to starving people; we have to introduce a comprehensive refeeding programme to allow them to cope with the food that eventually arrives. We need to be taking that seriously, otherwise we will end up with many more casualties than we expect. In his response, will the Minister tell us a bit more about the evacuation of injured children to the UK? My understanding is that of all the children evacuated from Gaza, only 0.03% have come to the UK so far. Clearly, we need to do more. If the Minister has time, could he also talk about the need to evacuate scholars—the people of the future for Gaza—to the UK? One of my constituents had been told that she could come, but her family—her children—could not. She has now been told that she cannot come either, because she cannot get a visa.