Israel and Palestine

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I thank my noble friend for that question. She comes to these matters with great expertise. She has asked a number of questions—not only Oral Questions but Written Questions—on a regular basis. I can assure her that we take these matters incredibly seriously. There has been a worrying increase in violence in the West Bank. In 2012, nine civilians were killed; in 2013, 27 civilians were killed; and the number of civilians who have been injured is also on the increase. Last week I raised these matters with our officials and only yesterday—Sunday— our ambassador spoke with the national security adviser and again put our concerns before him.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, it is true, is it not, that in recent weeks the international community has taken a dim view of the occupation of one country by a neighbouring country and that this has led, quite properly, to a flurry of international activity, reference and the activation of sanctions? Yet, given that this question quite rightly refers to occupied territories which have been occupied now for more than 40 years, am I right in thinking that that there is no sense whatever of the same level of urgency and commitment being given to liberating these occupied territories as there is when similar events occur in other parts of the world?

[Baroness Warsi]

It is important that I try to focus on this Question. I understand why people try to read across to other matters, but successive government policies on the Occupied Palestinian Territories have been clear. Successive government policies about the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, with agreed land swaps and a settlement for refugees in Jerusalem as a shared capital, have been the same. There is a Kerry framework agreement on which we hope progress will be made and we hope that that will be done by around the end of April. We are supporting and continue to support that, and we hope that it will yield some positive results.