Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Gray and Rishi Sunak

Wednesday 17th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I said last week, in our party candidate selection is done locally.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister agree that a remote rural hotel is the wrong place to house asylum seekers or refugees from their point of view? Will he therefore join me in thanking the Home Secretary for announcing yesterday that the Wiltshire Hotel outside Royal Wootton Bassett is to be returned to its proper purpose in April?

Israel and Gaza

Debate between James Gray and Rishi Sunak

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are working with our partners to bring humanitarian support to the region. Again, today we announced a significant increase in our humanitarian funding for the region, which comes on top of what is strong support already. We will continue to talk to partners about how best to ensure that humanitarian aid finds its way to the people who need it.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I warmly commend the Prime Minister for the strength and clarity of his statement and for his support for Israel, his condemnation of Hamas and his deep concern for the humanitarian situation in Gaza. I also thank him for being so strongly supportive of the Jewish and Israeli communities in Britain, but is he aware of an organisation called Palestine Action, which has this weekend listed a series of companies and the directors of those companies whom it believes to be legitimate targets for terrorist action? Will he now name this outfit, Palestine Action, and condemn what it is doing, and will he ask the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to act without further delay to deal with it?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. I am sure he will understand that arrests are an operational matter for the police, but obviously what he has said, on the face of it, sounds concerning. The police have powers, under the Terrorism Acts of 2000 and 2006, to arrest people who are supporting either terrorism or proscribed terrorist organisations, and I would expect them to use the full powers available to them to prosecute people under the law.