Andrew Pakes

Can I put on the record my comments about our two hon. Friends, alongside those of everyone else in the House, apart from the Conservative Front-Bencher, who I do not think said any words about them in her commentary? We are rightly talking about our two hon. Friends, but this incident shines a much wider light not just on our rights as parliamentarians, but on the rights of journalists, charity workers and others to enter Israel and the west bank. We have talked a lot about their being refused entry to Israel, but this is actually about their entry in order to gain access to the west bank through their only entry point into it. What more can the Minister do to ensure that the learning, the sharing and the visits to the west bank will continue if the Israeli Government are embarking on a system of shutting people out? Does the Minister agree that this whole debacle—the whole sham we have seen in the last few days—has been a distraction from and made much harder the real job we need to do, which is to take on the crimes of Hamas, get the hostages out, get a ceasefire done and speak up for the innocent Palestinians who are suffering day by day because of the actions not being taken by the Israeli Government?