Middle East

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat a Statement on the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Statement is as follows:

“On the ground, it is unimaginably bleak. Horrifying images and accounts will be seared into the minds of colleagues across this House. They are almost impossible to put into words but we can and must be precise with our language because, on 22 August, the UN-backed IPC mechanism confirmed what we are witnessing: famine—famine in Gaza City and famine in its surrounding neighbourhoods, now spreading across the wider territory; famine which, unchecked, will spiral into widespread starvation.

This was foreseen: it is the terrible conclusion of the obstacles we have warned about for over six months. Since 1 July, over 300 people have died from malnutrition, including 119 children. More than 132,000 children under the age of five are at risk of dying from hunger by June 2026. This is not a natural disaster; it is a man-made famine in the 21st century. I am outraged by the Israeli Government’s refusal to allow in sufficient aid. We need a massive humanitarian response to prevent more deaths, with crucial NGOs, humanitarians and health workers allowed to operate and stockpiles of aid on Gaza’s borders released. In the past three months, more than 2,000 Gazans have been killed trying to feed their families, and Hamas itself is exploiting the chaos and deliberately starving Israeli hostages for abhorrent political purposes.

I know that these words of condemnation, echoed across legislatures all over the world, are not enough, but be in no doubt that we have acted where we can. We have restored funding to the UNRWA; we suspended arms exports that could be used in Gaza; we signed a landmark agreement with the Palestinian Authority; we stood up for the independence of international courts; and we have delivered three sanctions packages on violent settlers and far-right Israeli Ministers for incitement. We have suspended trade negotiations with the Israeli Government, and we are at the forefront of the international community’s work to plan for a stable, post-conflict peace. We have provided over £250 million in development assistance over the past two years.

Today we are going further. I can announce an additional £15 million of aid and medical care for Gaza and the region. We continue to work alongside regional partners, including Egypt and Jordan, to enable the UN and NGOs to ensure that aid reaches those most in need. Brave medics in Gaza tell us that essential medicines are running out and they cannot operate safely; that is why we are funding UK-Med, whose field hospitals have treated more than 600,000 Gazans, and that is why we are funding the World Health Organization in Egypt to treat thousands of evacuated Gazans.

Meanwhile, as my right honourable friend the Home Secretary said earlier, we are working with the World Health Organization to get critically ill and injured children into the UK, where they will receive specialist NHS treatment. The first patients are expected to arrive in the UK in the coming weeks. Extracting people from a war zone is complex and dangerous, and it relies entirely on Israeli permissions. I am pressing for that to happen as quickly as possible. We are also supporting brilliant students granted FCDO Chevening and other scholarships to escape Gaza so that they can take up their places for the coming academic year.

I recognise that this touches only the edges of this catastrophe. We all know that there is only one way out: an immediate ceasefire, the unconditional release by Hamas of all hostages, and a transformation in the delivery of aid. We know it, our US and European allies know it, and our Gulf partners know it. I am working night and day with them to deliver a ceasefire and a wider political process to deliver long-term peace. To make a ceasefire last, we need a monitoring mechanism, the disarmament of Hamas and a new governance framework for Gaza. That is the focus of our intense diplomacy in the region.

In contrast, further Israeli military operations in Gaza City will only prolong and deepen the crisis. Together with our partners, we demand an immediate halt to this operation. Each week brings new horrors. Last week’s double strike on Nasser Hospital—one of Gaza’s last remaining major health facilities—killed 20 people, including five journalists. I remind Israel once again that international law requires the protection of healthcare workers, journalists and civilians. These actions will not end the war and they will not bring the hostages home, let alone make them safer, as hostage families have recognised. They will sow despair and anger across the region for generations.

In the West Bank, the Israeli Government are tightening their stranglehold on the Palestinian Authority and continue to approve illegal settlement construction, just recently in the E1 area east of Jerusalem. That would erect a physical barrier to a contiguous Palestinian state, and it must not happen.

In July, I described before the UN General Assembly our intention to recognise the state of Palestine later this month unless the Israeli Government take substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza and commit to a long-term sustainable peace. This commitment responds to the current crisis but stems also from our historic responsibility to the region’s security, reaching back over a century to the Balfour Declaration. As I said last month in New York, I am deeply proud that it was a British Foreign Secretary who helped establish a homeland for the Jewish people, but the same declaration promised that

‘nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights’

of the Palestinian people. Those rights are more under threat than at any point in the past century.

To those who say that recognition rewards Hamas or threatens Israeli security, it does neither. Recognition is rooted in the principle of a two-state solution, which Hamas rejects. We have been clear that any Palestinian state should be demilitarised. Indeed, President Abbas has confirmed that in writing to President Macron. We see no contradiction between the two-state solution and our deep commitment to Israeli security because security comes from stable borders, not indefinite occupation.

Before I finish, I would also like to update the House on Iran. On 28 August, the UK, along with France and Germany, triggered the snapback mechanism under UN Security Council Resolution 2231. This means that, if no new agreement is reached within 30 days, the sanctions that were lifted under the Iran nuclear deal—the JCPOA—will come back into force. These wide-ranging sanctions include a full arms embargo and restrictions on its nuclear, missile and drone programme. This was not a decision that we took lightly. For years, we have worked with international partners to stop Iran developing a nuclear weapon. The 2015 deal was meant to do just that, but Iran has repeatedly undermined the agreement. Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is now 45 times over the limit set by the JCPOA. Despite this clear escalation, we have made every effort over years of negotiations to bring Iran back to compliance; those efforts have continued in recent months. I have urged Foreign Minister Araghchi to de-escalate and choose diplomacy.

In July, we offered Iran more time if it agreed to return to negotiations with the US and restore full access to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Last month, I warned Iran that time was short and we would have little choice but to trigger snapback. I regret to inform the House that Iran has not complied with its legal obligations, nor chosen the path of diplomacy, so we had no choice but to act. I have long been clear that I will not allow snapback to expire without a durable and comprehensive deal. It would be unacceptable to allow the issue to fall off the UN Security Council agenda, despite the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear programme. But Snapback is not the end of diplomacy, as Secretary Rubio has also recently underlined. Iran can still meet our conditions. It can restore full IAEA access, address our concerns about its stockpile and enrichment, and return to negotiations. Alongside our partners, I will continue to urge Iran to choose this path.

In the worst of times, this Government will continue to take all the steps we can to alleviate suffering, to help bring regional conflict to an end, and to create the conditions for long-term peace and security. We will not rest until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, the hostages are returned and a flood of aid reaches those in desperate need. Despite the obstacles before us, we will work with partners to preserve the two-state solution. I commend this Statement to the House”.

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[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. Since this is my first occasion to speak in the Chamber since my predecessor, my noble friend Lord Newby, retired as leader of our group, I put on record my appreciation to him and express how much all of us on these Benches admired how, in tumultuous and ultimately successful times, he led us for the most recent nine years.

While this Statement is justifiably focused on the terrible humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the inhumane treatment of the Israeli hostages, I put on record my dismay that the world’s worst humanitarian crisis—worse than Ukraine and Gaza combined—carries on in Sudan. One hundred Sudanese civilians have died today of hunger. I hope the Government will bring forward a Statement, as penholder in the Security Council for Sudan, with an update soon.

Now there is famine in Gaza too. Avoidable, manmade famine should have been an impossibility in 2025. Manmade means deliberate. It means that women and children are dying of hunger primarily as a result of the political and military decisions of men, increasingly detached from the humanitarian needs of civilians. In Gaza, the provision of wholly inadequate supplies of food from the GHF has become a killing zone, and the IDF operations in Gaza now mean that there is no safe area. Indeed, the most dangerous areas are those that have been defined as safe. The casualty levels pay testament to this. The images of the emaciated hostages treated so brutally by Hamas terrorists were responded to by the families of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum so powerfully and movingly, as they also speak of their opposition to the continuation of the violence and the tactics of the Netanyahu Government.

The Minister knows, because I have stated it on many occasions, that these Benches have called for the recognition of Palestine as a state for 45 years—17 years before Hamas was formed, so it cannot possibly be close to being seen as a reward for its actions. We welcome the position of the Government but did not share the conditionality, which was out of the hands of the Palestinians. That said, recognition could come in less than three weeks, but the Government must now indicate that the conditions they have set are not being met.

Indeed, the recent statements by Netanyahu mean that it is impossible they will be met. He and the extreme Ministers in his Government are moving to expand military campaigns in civilian areas, illegally expand territory and widen the area for settlements in the West Bank. If the UK recognises Palestine, as we hope it will, it must surely be honoured as an act that is vital, urgent and needed to prevent the 1967 borders from being reduced and removed altogether. Bulldozing and occupying civilian areas in that border area is a war crime. Collective punishment is a war crime. Weaponising food and medicines is a war crime.

That is why we believe that the UK should sanction these extreme Ministers and Netanyahu, that there should be no arms sales to the Israeli Government at all and that the Government should now conduct and publish an urgent human rights assessment, as allowed for in the UK-Israel trade and partnership agreement. The grim reality is that, unless there are specific, deliberate and measurable interventions, eloquent statements and diplomacy will not be an effective means to end the suffering and it will continue. The civilians who are starving should not have to wait.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I thank both noble Lords for their contributions. I thank particularly the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, for reminding us of the situation in Afghanistan. He is right about the plight of people there, and I expect we will make further comments on this in the next few days. As he asked me to do, I am very happy to redouble and never stop calling for the immediate release of those hostages, who should be returned today and who were so cruelly and barbarically removed from their families, as well as for the return, tragically, of the bodies of some of those who were taken. I met the hostage families and made them a promise that I would continue to do that. I am very happy to do so until the day that they are all home, where they belong.

Hamas’s role should end. Hamas is a terrorist organisation. It should have no role in the future administration of Palestine. When we are asked our view on this and about why we are working with the Palestinian Authority, our view very strongly is that it is essential that there is a group of leaders able to administer and lead responsibly in a Palestinian state. If you do not believe that, you do not truly believe in the viability of a two-state solution, and this Government do believe in that.

When it comes to aid, we have spent just over £200 million in the last period on aid. We will continue to do that. We made more announcements over the weekend of some specific commitments on maternity care. I remind noble Lords there are still 120 babies being born each day in Gaza. I cannot imagine the difficulty of giving birth in such circumstances, particularly without medical assistance, including anaesthetics. That is the situation we are in, and we will continue to provide aid for as long as that is necessary. The difficulty, as noble Lords understand, I think, is that there remain obstacles to getting aid to where it is so desperately needed. We continue to call for and encourage the movement of that aid.

On the timing of the announcement on recognition, yes, that did happen once we had risen for Summer Recess, but it was an announcement not of recognition itself but of an intention to recognise in a certain situation at the end of September. So it was known that there would be opportunity for us to debate that. I regret that we have had to get to this position at all. I have stood here many times and said that recognition should be part of the peace process. I had hoped that recognition could take place in far more positive circumstances, as part of a negotiation, perhaps. That is not where we are; recognition is not taking place against that backdrop. We will make an announcement on the basis of international law if the time comes, as seems increasingly likely. But Hamas does not want a two-state solution. It is not going to want to listen to our conditions; it is not interested in peace; it is a terrorist organisation. Our recognition of that is something that I know the noble Lord shares, so it seems a little odd to ask us why we are not having some sort of dialogue with Hamas.

On the source of data, I accept we do not have sufficient data to be able to make the kinds of assessments that we would want to in other circumstances. It is not good enough that we are relying on the information that we are; it should be better. But the ability to have more accurate information, to have third-party corroboration and to have journalists able to report is prevented by the decision of the Government of Israel. It leads us to rely on the information that I know the noble Lord finds so unsatisfactory. This could be remedied and I only wish that it could be.

I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said about the noble Lord, Lord Newby. It was good to hear him make those remarks, and obviously we wish him well in his new role, with his new look, I see, this evening. I am glad too that he talked about Sudan because, as he rightly says, that is by far the biggest humanitarian crisis on the planet at the moment and shows little sign of improvement. I was on the border there myself earlier this year, and the situation there and the accounts that we are hearing are desperate. We have taken the decision to protect our aid to Sudan and his suggestion that we should make some sort of statement as to our assessment of the current situation is very helpful. I will take that back.

We have long said that we believe that we ought to recognise the state of Palestine. The noble Lord asked why it is happening now and about conditionality. As I say, we feel that if we do not do this now, the whole concept of a two-state solution becomes jeopardised, given the situation on the ground.

I agree as well that the futility of these statements is becoming increasingly sickening and I only wish that there was more that we could do that would have an effect on the ground. I deeply regret that our words are not heeded or listened to sufficiently by the Government of Israel, but that does not mean that we do not use our voice when we can to say what we think is right, and that is what this Government intend to continue to do.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I too welcome the proposed actions of His Majesty’s Government. I know that many other noble Lords will wish to intervene in this; I will keep my questions very brief.

There are two areas that the Minister has not touched on. The first is with respect to the denial of visas to the Palestinian delegation, who now do not have the possibility of attending the UN session when the state of Palestine is recognised. Have HMG thought of any alternatives? Canada is a country that is about to recognise Palestinian statehood and perhaps one alternative would be for the countries that propose to do so to convene in Canada with the Palestinian delegates to assure them of support.

My second point is about the Government’s assessment of when the International Court of Justice is likely to rule on the case on genocide initiated by South Africa and heard last year. It seems to me it is sitting on its hands a little bit and I wondered whether the Government could suggest that some kind of expedited procedure might be necessary when we have so much at stake in terms of the number of deaths on both sides of that equation.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

On the issue of attendance at the UN General Assembly, it is obviously an issue for the US to decide who enters the country, but it is not right to deny Mr Abbas the ability to take part in the event in New York. We will make that clear, but ultimately it is up to the US to make that decision.

I note what the noble Baroness says about Canada; it is an interesting suggestion which I had not previously heard. I know the Canadians have the G7 as well, so I do not know what consideration they may have given to that.

As to the timing of the ICJ, I am not aware that we are able to speed that up in any way, but I hear what the noble Baroness says about her desire to see progress.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I am appalled by the policies of Mr Netanyahu and his coalition partners. I used to know Mr Netanyahu when I worked in the Foreign Office and I am in no way surprised that he is acting in the way that he is. That said, if the Government recognise Palestine as a sovereign state—territories which have none of the usual characteristics of a sovereign state—surely Hamas and associated terrorist organisations will claim the credit for such recognition. Are the Government comfortable with that prospect?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Hamas should not claim the credit, but what it claims and what is true will be very different. It may well make statements to that effect, but they are not true. We are being as clear as we possibly can be that this is about protecting the viability of a two-state solution; that is our sole motivation here. Hamas is an appalling organisation; it has no role in the future administration of any state, and it should release the hostages immediately. Until that happens, it is very difficult to see how we get any sustained peace.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I welcome what the Minister said about Sudan, because over the last two years, Israel and Gaza have been mentioned in Parliament 10 times more than Sudan, where famine has killed more than 500,000 children. Israel, unbelievably, has even been discussed more than twice as much as Russia and Ukraine and almost twice as much as the NHS, immigration and asylum, issues for which our Parliament and the Government are actually responsible. This is a terrible situation, but what does the Minister think explains this? Does she agree with me that people should be very careful about singling out Israel at a time when hatred against Jewish people is running at record levels?

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[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I do not know why Sudan does not get the attention that it should. It is a problem. Perhaps it has to do with media access and presence in that region, or perhaps there are other reasons. I do not know, but I regret it and wish we could spend more time considering Sudan. We held a conference earlier this year with the desire to see progress there. It is incredibly difficult, but we are doing everything we can and I thank the noble Lord for making that point.

People are rightly concerned about what they see. It feels very close to home. There are many people in this country who have family connections to Israel and to Gaza specifically, and I do not in any way ascribe any kind of other motive to those raising these concerns. I note the concern in the noble Lord’s question about antisemitism here in the UK. It is possible, and it is our responsibility, to show that we can have concerns and that we can criticise and be appalled by some of the actions of the Government of Israel, but vehemently protect, in the strongest possible terms, the necessity of Israel—an ally of ours—to succeed, to be safe and to be a prosperous country long into the future. That is what we want to see.

I regret that, too often in this debate, you are forced to pick a side. You either believe in the viability of Israel or in the Palestinian cause. I do not feel like that. If you say you support a two-state solution, you have to mean it. That is, two states living safely, securely and prosperously, side by side.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a reason Sudan is not mentioned as much and the horrors taking place there are not given the attention they deserve. It is because Sudan is in Africa—that is why—and Africa is not seen as having the same strategic importance as the Middle East.

However, Africa—southern Africa in particular—can teach us one very important thing. At the height of the struggle in southern Africa, when white people and black people seemed to be at loggerheads in a way that would never be resolved, there was active promotion by successive British Governments of dialogue between all the communities in southern Africa. What more action can His Majesty’s Government take to promote dialogue between Christians, Jews and Muslims in that region, and between Palestinians and Israelis? It must be possible to be both a friend of Israel and a friend of Palestine.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I think it is. I was in South Africa in 1994, just before the elections. I remember that time of huge optimism but also of great fear in certain parts of the population. I recognise completely what my noble friend says. Sometimes, we look back and forget just how desperate things got in South Africa at various points and the things that were done.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to feel that sense of optimism now, either about Sudan or the situation in Gaza. I fear that there is a Government who are deliberately acting in a way that they know is leading to enormous suffering and death in Gaza. This can be prevented very quickly. If dialogue is needed, dialogue is what we should have. It would be very good to move forward in a way that takes us to a place where there is a process and a structure to negotiations, and where the UK—or any country that is able to—is able to bring parties together. Perhaps that means our friends in the region; it does not have to be some of the usual partners who lead this, but dialogue is the only way, ultimately, that this will be resolved. The problem today is one of desperate need and starvation in that population.

[Baroness Alexander of Cleveden (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to follow the remark just made by my noble friend about the lessons from southern Africa; I would not presume to be any more expert than he is on that matter. Of course there was a place for promoting reconciliation and dialogue, but there was also a place for sanctions against a pariah regime, and that brings me to my question for my noble friend the Minister.

I want to focus on what is excluded from this Statement. The Minister helpfully told us that this is “a man-made famine” and that she is

“outraged by the Israeli Government’s refusal to allow in sufficient aid”.

In the light of the Government’s outrage at man-made famine, why are they not including any new sanctions against the Israeli Government or their members, who have promulgated the terrible acts that we have seen over recent weeks? Given that there are no new sanctions in today’s Statement, can we be reassured that further sanctions remain under active consideration as a response to the humanitarian outrage and man-made famine that this Statement identifies?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

As the noble Baroness should know, we do not comment on future sanction designations.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I totally endorse what has been said about Sudan. I was there a year ago and am in almost weekly contact with people there at the moment. But I am slightly worried about the terms in which we debate some of these matters, such as Gaza and Ukraine. The crisis in Ukraine did not begin on 24 February 2023; the crisis in Gaza and the Middle East did not begin on 7 October 2023. Our attempts to simplify the conflict, perhaps for conceptual reasons, do not always help us. It is immensely complex, it goes back a long way and 7 October cannot be the justification for everything that follows. Does the Minister agree?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I agree in that, obviously, the situations that the right reverend Prelate refers to are deeply rooted in history. Many of us understand and study this and appreciate what he is saying, but I cannot respond to anything that mentions 7 October without saying that that most hideous of attacks changed the nature of that conflict. It was always going to lead to a response from Israel. What is happening now, though, is beyond what anybody anticipated would happen as a consequence of that heinous attack, but nothing should diminish the appalling events of that day. The accounts and footage from that day that many of us have seen will haunt us forever. Perhaps if there were similar accounts and footage from Sudan that were as visible to us all now, we would at least be having a different set of conversations. But I agree with the right reverend Prelate about complexity and the need to understand the historical origins of these conflicts.

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

My Lords, I think we all see the appalling humanitarian crisis. I welcome the Government’s intervention in terms of the medical support they are providing and propose to provide via this Statement. However, I wish to go back to the issue of recognition and an earlier point made about why there are no conditions or prerequisites on the Palestinian Authority—and not simply regarding a level of balance on the release of hostages being a precondition, which has been highlighted.

We have seen, for example, that the Canadian Government—with which our Government have often been in lockstep—have made a number of preconditions on the Palestinian Authority around democratic reforms before they will consider recognition. Why have the UK Government not made that a precondition of recognition?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

For the Palestinian Authority, it is not a condition of recognition, as the noble Lord knows, but we are working with the Palestinian Authority to bring about the reforms that we think are necessary to enable it to administer a state in the future. We do not claim that it is ready to do that now. However, as I have made clear, the decision around talking about recognising Palestine at the UN General Assembly is around preserving the viability of the two-state solution. People can disagree about whether that was the right or wrong thing to do. We feel that this is not the circumstance in which we wanted to recognise Palestine; we wanted it to be part of a much more positive process and to have included the negotiations that noble Lords have said that they want to see leading towards a lasting settlement. That is not where we are, as we all know. We have taken the decision now, because we felt that unless we did, the prospects of the future state would be further jeopardised —and look at what is happening with E1 too. We have not done this in the circumstances that we would have wished, but I agree with the noble Lord on the need to see further reform of the Palestinian Authority.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, the head of the World Health Organization has said that July was the worst month for cases of acute malnutrition in children in Gaza, affecting nearly 12,000 children under the age of five, all as a result of a manmade famine. In the light of this and the further bombardments of Gaza City, is it not time the UK took firmer action through the maximum licensing of sanctions, including on Netanyahu; ending all exports of arms, including surveillance support; and withdrawing conditions on the recognition of the Palestinian state?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

We are only, I think, three weeks away from the UN General Assembly, when the decision on recognition will be communicated. As I have said before, I cannot comment on the designation of future sanctions, but I observe how extraordinary it is to impose sanctions on individual members of the cabinet of a country with which we have such long, close historic ties.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, as my noble friend has said, since late May 2025, Israeli forces have reportedly killed some 2,000 Palestinians and injured more than 15,000 at or near aid distribution centres in Gaza, where women, men and children are compelled to seek minimal provisions for their families as a result of Israel’s policy of failing to allow aid in properly and creating, as we have heard, a famine. Despite the export of arms suspension, can my noble friend the Minister say why the Government are still permitting the transfer of F35 components to Israel through the international pool, knowing that these aircraft may be used in operations causing significant civilian casualties?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The issue with F35s is that their components are provided on a pooled basis. My understanding is that, if we stopped their provision, there are other situations in which there would be an outcome that we would not want to see.

I really agree with my noble friend on the issue of the provision of aid and the way that the Israeli Government have chosen to go about it. When this idea was first suggested, we expressed our concerns. We said that we did not believe that aid could be distributed safely or at sufficient scale to meet the need—and it has not. This was foreseeable; it was predicted; it was avoidable. It is fixable. We could get the aid in very quickly now, but we need the Government of Israel to agree to that. I think there is more aid getting in than there had been at various points, but still nowhere near enough. Once you have famine starting, it is not simply a case of “Get some more aid in and all will be well”. The effects take some time, and given the medical attention that is now needed, I fear that we are about to see the cascade effect that happens when you enter famine. As others have said, you also see the increased prevalence of diseases, which are no respecters of borders. This is a dire situation, where we need the food and medical supplies to enter Gaza as quickly as possible.