Contribution
I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of his statement. Let me also express my sympathy for the people of Afghanistan who are suffering as a result of last night’s major earthquake.
Since the House last met, the awful conflict in the middle east has continued to see lives lost, with intolerable suffering. Hamas continues to refuse the release of all remaining hostages, despite the best efforts of those trying to broker peace. The hostages are now approaching 700 days in captivity, and the whole House will have been sickened by the harrowing clip of the emaciated hostage Evyatar David, which was released by Hamas over the summer. The humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire, and we are all familiar with the reports that we have seen daily on news channels. The inhumane suffering, the recent airstrikes and the inability to provide food for civilians simply cannot go on. We all want an urgent and sustainable end to this conflict. We want to see the release of the hostages from terrorist captivity, and to see aid for the people of Gaza.
There are key questions for the British Government to answer. The British Government are in a position to help influence those outcomes, but are they actually fully leveraging their ability to do so? The Government’s frequent statements have so far not moved the dial closer to a sustainable end to the conflict, and, as the Foreign Secretary himself has said, we are not in a position to see any alleviation of this horrendous situation. Diplomacy is about putting in the hard yards to find solutions, not just about giving statements, and I therefore want to ask the Foreign Secretary three specific questions.
First, are the Government taking any new specific action to tighten the screws on Hamas and pile more pressure on them to release the hostages? Should we expect more measures to further degrade Hamas’s ability to finance their campaign of terror? Why are the Government not leading international efforts to produce a credible plan to do exactly that, with an agreement from all the key regional partners and players with an interest in peace to see Hamas leave Gaza? Secondly, can the Foreign Secretary update the House on precisely where we stand and what Britain is contributing to the efforts of the United Nations and our regional allies to broker the release of hostages, and to an end of the conflict? Are we intimately involved, and are we sending in the UK expertise to help, given that we have great expertise when it comes to brokering negotiations of this kind? Thirdly, while we note the Foreign Secretary’s announcement yesterday about support for women and girls, the Government have yet to make essential breakthroughs on aid.
Ministers must obviously work around the clock with everyone—with all our partners, including the Israelis and multinational institutions—to unblock the situation by coming up with practical solutions, even new solutions, on which all sides can focus when it comes to getting medical and food aid into Gaza. That must provide a significant increase in food and medical supplies reaching civilians while also addressing Israeli concerns about aid diversion, because those concerns are constant. Is the UK working with the multilateral bodies to try to mediate in the divisions and breakdowns of trust that have emerged with the Government of Israel? Is the Foreign Secretary considering schemes similar to those implemented by the Conservative Government, such as the floating piers that, working with the United States and Cyprus, we put in place off the coast of Gaza to get aid in? We need pragmatic and practical solutions to get food and medical supplies to innocent civilians in Gaza.
Let me now turn to Labour’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state. The Government announced that huge shift in British policy just days after the House went into recess. We all support a two-state solution that guarantees security for both Israelis and Palestinians, but the Foreign Secretary must know that recognising a Palestinian state in September will not secure the lasting peace that we all want to see. Recognition is meaningful only if it is part of a formal peace process, and it should not happen while the hostages are still being held in terrorist captivity and while Hamas’s reign of terror continues. Can the Foreign Secretary explain his plan to go ahead with recognition while hostages are still being held, and while Hamas, who have predictably welcomed and been emboldened by this move, continue to hold on to power in Gaza? What practical measures are we proposing to remove Hamas from Gaza?
The Foreign Secretary must realise that recognition will not secure the release of the hostages or get aid into Gaza immediately. We must always consider what tools of leverage we have in respect of future peace processes and negotiations that could actually help to establish a two-state solution and peace in the middle east. How will this unilateral action help to advance the best shot that we have at achieving a two-state solution, which is the expansion of the Abraham accords and Saudi normalisation, through which we could also calibrate our actions?
As for the question of the middle east more broadly, the appalling behaviour of the Iranian regime has gone on for too long, and the regime has brought the initiation of the snapback process on itself. The Iranian people deserve much better. Tehran must never obtain a nuclear weapon, and Conservatives remain clear about the fact that the recent US strikes were necessary. Can the Foreign Secretary tell us whether he believes that Iran has the capability and the intention of recommencing its nuclear programme, and whether his assumption is that the snapback process will be seen through to completion? Can he tell us whether or not he welcomes Israel’s actions regarding the Houthi leadership in Yemen, and can he update the House on how the UK will use this moment to further degrade the Houthis’ ability to carry out the attacks and strikes that we have seen recently?