Neil Duncan-Jordan

Because you have called me last, Madam Deputy Speaker, I owe my hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) a pint, so thanks very much! You were not to know, of course. Last week, the Foreign Secretary firmly committed the UK Government to supporting the call for accountability for what has happened in Gaza and the west bank. It is on that matter that I wish to reflect, because last month an Israeli prosecutor announced that he would not pursue criminal proceedings for the murder of my constituent John Chapman, an aid worker from Poole who was killed by the IDF in April 2024 while working with World Central Kitchen, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham). The officer responsible for the strikes claimed that the workers were identified as targets after a brief encounter with armed guards presumed to be from Hamas. That has been found to be a baseless accusation. The IDF, operating a policy of “guilt by association”, then attacked the aid convoy. The IDF conceded that the murder of the aid workers had been the result of an “erroneous assessment that Hamas military operatives were present in the vehicles”, but concluded that that did not give rise to a reasonable suspicion that a criminal offence had been committed. The IDF is getting away with the murder of John and his six colleagues, including two other British citizens. It is an absolute disgrace. The Minister said in his opening remarks that it would be for the courts to decide on this, but I think that the IDF has got an effective “get out of jail free” card. The world that we leave to our children is not set in stone; it is one that our Government and their allies help to shape. It is shaped by every action and every failure to act set the boundaries of acceptability—what is tolerated and what is condemned. These choices mould norms, establish red lines, and decide whether the world becomes safer or more dangerous. The Foreign Secretary’s step last week was one such choice—it takes us closer to upholding human rights and democracy—but the killing of John and his colleagues cannot go without accountability, and I would welcome information from the Government about the steps that they will take to secure justice for him and his family. That is the very least that they deserve, because if international law is to be meaningful, justice must prevail and someone must be held responsible. The Government must set out a pathway to a comprehensive arms embargo with the state of Israel, because it is clear that these weapons are being used to commit war crimes. They are turned on aid workers such as my constituent, including British citizens, and they are used recklessly without any accountability. Challenging this is how we become a world leader for peace, and I urge the Government to go further, faster, to achieve that.