The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Wood of Anfield) (Lab)

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Callanan and Lord Purvis, for their comments. I will answer their questions in a minute, but I think it might be helpful to give a little bit of context that will help me provide some of the answers they are looking for. This Government think that the situation in Palestine is a moral emergency. We all know—we can see with our eyes—what the Israeli Government have inflicted on the people of Gaza. It is an outrage. There is increasing evidence that war crimes appear to have been committed in Gaza, and we are witnessing unprecedented violence, including settler terrorism, in the West Bank. What the Foreign Secretary announced yesterday was a decision not to stand by and let this happen. We are going to be stronger in standing up for what is right and bolder in the action we take. What is striking is that all parties—the Liberal Democrats, Conservative and Labour, at the very least, but others as well—support the two-state solution, as the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, eloquently stated at the outset of his remarks: freedom, security and self-determination for both Palestinian and Israeli people. This action is designed to defend this policy at a time when the already diminishing prospects for that solution are under serious threat. That is why we have concluded that Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful, in line with the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion in 2024. That is why we have brought in the various sanctions regime measures that the Foreign Secretary talked about yesterday. I am happy to talk about those in more detail in a minute in response to some of these questions. Turning to the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, it is striking that he started his remarks by supporting our policy but is unwilling to support the means by which we prosecute our policy at a time when it is needed most. He asked whether our actions would undermine influence. How Israel responds is a matter for Israel, just as our foreign policy is a matter for us. We have very strong and continuing security co-operation with Israel. That will continue. It is in the interests of our country, Israel, the wider region and the West in general. The noble Lord also asked about support. We have support most notably from the Palestinian representatives of the people whom these measures affect most. We also have support directly from France and Canada, which aligned their policies yesterday, the day that the Foreign Secretary announced our new approach, and 12 other countries, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said, which are going to support economic measures to pursue the same goal. The noble Lord asked about legislation for sanctions. It is a good question. There is a series of separate things. We are taking immediate action under existing legislation to target individual settlers—an action that the Conservative Government also took against individual settlers a few years ago. We are going to extend the global human rights regime to include violations of humanitarian law. We expect that to be brought into force in the next few weeks. In the longer term, as the noble Lord said, it will take six months or more to develop a new, targeted approach to companies that assist or profit from the expansion of settlements. There are challenges in bringing that about. There is no doubt about it. There will be tough cases, particularly as we are committed to protecting the integrity of trade with green-line Israel. But we are confident that we have a sophisticated sanctions regime, with various institutions that have played a part in applying sanctions elsewhere. I have taken decisions in my short time in this job with regard to Russia, for example. We have sophisticated co-ordination between HMRC, OTSI, OFSI and other bodies that we are confident can deliver a manageable regime. The noble Lord asked about timing in advance of the elections. The elections, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said more eloquently than I could, are a matter for the Israeli people. Our responsibility is to our country and to advance a policy that defends the commitments that are shared not just across parties but, we believe, across the country. On Hamas, let me be absolutely clear that there should be no place for Hamas in the future governance of Palestine. We have taken strong action on the proscription of Hamas. We will continue to take strong action against Hamas in funding and also against individuals. At the moment, the priority is to support the United States’ 20-point plan. That is a crucial plank for achieving the restoration of order and peace in the region. However, we will not hesitate to use the powers we have to target Hamas individually and collectively in the future. The noble Lord asked about the Chief Rabbi’s comments. I have huge respect for the Chief Rabbi, but I disagree with his conclusion. Antisemitism is a scourge not just in our country but elsewhere. It is something that everyone should take hugely seriously and do the utmost to stamp out, but the Government have to be able to take decisions about the foreign policy of another Government. They have to have the freedom to do that. As the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, again eloquently said, we should all condemn eliding the distinction between British Jews and the responsibilities they have and the Israeli Government and the responsibilities they have. We should deny that connection. I turn now to the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, who supported much of yesterday’s announcement, and I am very grateful for that. He is right to point to the number of countries that have co-ordinated in aligning themselves with the Foreign Secretary’s new approach yesterday—and he is also right to point to the cross-party routes of action against settlers. The quote from Lord Carrington shows that action against settlers is not a new part of Labour Government policy; it is a consistent theme that goes back to distinguished members of both parties, and other parties, for a very long time. I, too, have visited areas where—let us be honest—settlers have wreaked havoc and caused misery and destruction. I went with the Foreign Secretary, when he was leader of the Labour Party, to the E1 area, where we met and dined with a Bedouin community who had been there for decades and were being forcibly expelled by settler violence. The noble Lord put his finger on the key rationale here: once you take a position on the legality of the occupation, as we have done, our trade policy aligning with that is not just an extra but a duty. That is the policy that was announced yesterday, and it is why we are targeting not only those who perpetrate settler violence but also, in future, individual companies that will seek to assist settlement expansion and profit from it. He is right also to point to the need to ensure Hamas is not involved in future Palestinian governance arrangements, and to say that the UK needs to play a strong part in supporting good governance in Palestine. My noble friend Lord Barber plays an important part as an envoy on Palestinian governance, and we have a range of support measures that we will continue to provide. On the last point about sanction circumvention, the noble Lord is absolutely right that a regime that is not easily evaded needs to be devised. The regime will be based on postcode declarations, an established mechanism that is used elsewhere. There is a combination of activity by HMRC, the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation and the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, which have worked together in many ways for a long time. They will continue to do so to ensure that this regime is as watertight as we can make it.