Gaza City

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Lord Soames of Fletching (Con)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we will hear from the Conservative Benches next, and then from the noble Lord.

[Lord Soames of Fletching (Con)]

My Lords, given the general consensus that the displacement of the Palestinian people is in itself a war crime, will the Government now take the opportunity to place before the House all the assistance that we give to the State of Israel now, so that harder decisions can be taken on what sanctions must be imposed to prevent this further appalling activity?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

We continue to engage with Israel, and I think that is right, because that is the right way to have some influence, difficult though that undoubtedly is at the moment. We have taken the decision to withdraw arms licences to Israel, and even before we did that, less than 1% of the arms used by Israel in this conflict would ever have come from the UK. We have made sanctions decisions against members of the Israeli Cabinet, and we continue, of course, to consider further measures as may be necessary. For now, the focus is on the UN General Assembly in a matter of weeks, where a very significant position may be taken on Palestinian recognition. We will not be commenting on future sanctions designations. I take the noble Lord’s question as a request for more transparency and information. I am struggling to work out exactly what he wants to know, but if there is something specific, I will use every endeavour to provide that for him.