UK-Israel Trade

Debate between Peter Grant and Mark Harper

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Peter Grant]

No, I am afraid I do not have a great deal of time.

Although trade in general between the UK and Israel is to be welcomed and promoted, we should not get things out of context. Israel accounts for less than 0.5% of UK exports—it will not fix the huge absence of trade that we will have if discussions with the European Union go wrong. We could increase exports to Israel by a factor of 10 and it would still be only a relatively minor trading partner compared with the European Union and a number of others.

We must try to negotiate an equivalent of 40 trade deals in just a couple of years, if we are lucky—possibly not even that long. I must take to task the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), who said that the Trade Bill will replicate all the current trade deals in British legislation. No, it will not. The Trade Bill will convert EU legislation into UK law, but the only way that the UK can replicate its trade deals with the 40 countries in question is if those 40 countries agree to that. This Parliament cannot unilaterally agree to extend a trade deal after we have left the European Union, and the European Union cannot do that on our behalf.

Although we can speak positively about trade with Israel in general, there are two aspects of that trade about which I cannot speak positively. As the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) mentioned—I was very disappointed by the response he received—trade with the Occupied Palestinian Territories should not be treated as if it were trade with Israel. Indeed, at the moment, under the EU agreement with Israel that cannot happen, and when Gordon Brown was in office, he said that it would be an offence to take goods from the occupied territories and sell them marked as produce of Israel. I want the Minister to give an absolute assurance that after we leave the European Union, nothing will be done to land a deal with Israel that will make it easier for goods that have been produced illegally in the illegally occupied territories to be exported here. We should regard those goods as the proceeds of crime.

[Mr Harper]

On that specific point, the hon. Gentleman seems to be mushing two things together. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) was talking about settlements, which is one issue, but the hon. Gentleman seems to be saying that we should not trade with any businesses based anywhere in the occupied territories. That sounds like a recipe for putting out of business every Palestinian-owned business, and subjecting them all to economic devastation. Is that really what he is saying?

[Peter Grant]

To clarify, I am talking about trade with areas that are under illegal occupation by Israel, and where Israel has illegally occupied parts of Palestine. I do not think that “settlements” is the correct term; this is an illegal occupation, and we should not be looking to trade with any business carried out under the illegal Israeli settlement or occupation—call it what you will. Plenty of other Palestinian businesses in Gaza and the rest of Palestine would welcome our trade, if only the Israelis would let that trade get through to Gaza.

Another area that has not yet been touched on but must be mentioned is the UK’s massively increasing weapons sales to Israel. UK arms sales licences to Israel have increased by 1,100% in two years, and in 2017 the value of licences awarded was £220 million. Israel is about our 45th biggest export customer, but it is our eighth biggest arms export customer. Consider what the Israel defence forces have been using some of those small arms to do over the past two or three months—it is time for those arms sales to stop.

I do not deny, and I would never argue about, the right of Israel to exist or defend itself against aggressors, and I would never argue about the fact that Israel faces an aggressor in some of the more militant elements within Palestine. However, children being shot with high velocity sniper rifles; medics whose only weapon is a first-aid box being shot from a distance with high-velocity precision rifles by highly trained and skilled snipers—those are not acts of self-defence, those are acts of unlawful killing and should be called out as that. The United Kingdom should not be selling weapons to anybody who is still under investigation for such crimes.