Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)

What he said was wrong. As to whether different decisions would have been made at an earlier point, I cannot answer. Maybe the point at which to have made a different decision would have been the point at which he was awarded citizenship, but this Government were not responsible for that choice. Once citizenship has been given, to remove citizenship—abhorrent though the things he said clearly were, and he has rightly apologised for them, I am not clear that they would have been sufficient cause to deprive someone of their citizenship, even though we fundamentally disagree with what was said. I think the noble Lord can appreciate the complexities around that. On the issue of aid agencies and personnel, the Israeli Government are requiring the disclosure of the names of individuals working for aid agencies. We disagree with that. Other people will agree with it, but we do not. We think that is the wrong way to conduct access for aid agencies. We just think the Government of Israel are wrong on this point, and we will continue to make that case to them and explain why. These agencies are very effective at getting aid to people who need it desperately. The depth of need is still there. Things have improved somewhat—the latest IPC assessments of hunger show that things have improved a bit—but an awful lot more still needs to happen. Thousands of traumatised children are having difficulty with speech and language at school, accessing education and healthcare, and getting sufficient quality food. These are all things that I know everyone in this Chamber would want to see resolved, and we think the best way to do that is to allow the agencies to do their job.