Brian Mathew

I heartily agree with the hon. Lady. The centre’s work for the FCDO included the world’s largest open-source monitoring of incidents across Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. It is the only programme in the UK that collects, verifies and analyses human rights and conflict incidents in Israel and the occupied territories. The closure of the monitoring programme will mean that the Foreign Office will lose access to a database of 26,000 and counting incidents in the middle east, stretching back to 7 October 2023. The database also helps FCDO teams decide whether arms export control licences to Israel should remain suspended, and it is used by officials discussing whether international humanitarian law—for example, rules on proportionality—is being breached. The head of the Metropolitan police’s war crimes team in the counter-terrorism unit underlined the importance of CIR’s work in helping the Metropolitan police to consider war crimes allegations, including the unlawful shooting of minors in Gaza. I hope the Minister can clarify whether these cuts have been reversed. For the Government to be operating blind at this time would be extremely concerning. Furthermore, this issue casts light on the importance of the FCDO’s work and the self-defeating nature of the Government’s cuts to our aid programme, which those in my party, and I suspect many Members across the Chamber, condemn.