Israel and Palestine

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

Throughout all the difficulties, there has been a solid, constant refrain that there has to be a two-state solution, with both Israel and Palestine living in peace behind secure borders. If the hon. Lady reads the speeches made at the United Nations by many of the countries to which she refers, I think she will draw hope from their consistency.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Over Christmas, I heard from a constituent whose sister and her sister’s four children are stuck in Gaza. If there were a ceasefire, it might be easier for them to leave Gaza. If the UK were prepared to offer humanitarian visas to relatives of UK citizens who are in Gaza, it might be easier for them to leave. What is the Minister’s message to my constituent, her sister and her sister’s young children who are trapped in Gaza?

[Mr Mitchell]

It is difficult for me to comment on a specific case but, if the hon. Gentleman wishes to discuss it with me after this urgent question, I would be happy to see him. He will know that 300 British nationals have been able to leave, thanks not least to the hard work of the brilliant young men and women who are working in the emergency centre at the Foreign Office in London. A small number remain, but we are working literally night and day to make sure we do everything we can to look after our citizens and their relations.

Israel and Gaza

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady is right to say that there have been far too many civilian casualties in this fighting and that a more surgical approach is required. That is very much what the Prime Minister and the British Government have called for. We will continue to work towards a more sustainable cessation of hostilities and a sustainable ceasefire in the way that I have described.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office website advises people who might be travelling to Ukraine:

“If you travel to Ukraine to fight, or to assist others engaged in the war, your activities may amount to offences under UK legislation and you could be prosecuted on your return to the UK.”

Why is there not a similar statement on the advice for travel to Israel?

[Mr Mitchell]

Because the two situations are not analogous.

Oral Answers to Questions

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

The UK has been working in close co-operation with the US since negotiations began in November 2022, and it supports our approach. The UK, the US and Mauritius have all made clear that protecting the base on Diego Garcia, including by preventing foreign malign influence, is a top priority. We will ensure that any agreement achieves that. It is in our national interest and that of our partners, and it is vital for regional and global security.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The Government are preparing to disregard international law with their Rwanda Bill today. They seem to continue to want to disregard international law in the case of decisions handed down by the International Court of Justice and other international bodies with regard to the Chagos islands. If the UK Government will not live up to their international obligations and the findings of international bodies, how with any credibility can they ask other countries to do the same?

[David Rutley]

We are working closely with the relevant Government—with Mauritius, as I have said—to take forward those negotiations. They are being taken forward in good faith, notwithstanding the need to protect our national, regional and global interests at the same time.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights and UN Convention on Genocide

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I join the warm congratulations that were paid to the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) on securing the debate and the support that he had from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and, of course, the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell), to whom we all send good wishes. All three of them have very long-standing commitments to global justice and to the defence and protection of human rights around the world. It is fitting to be having the debate in the week when the 75th anniversary of both the universal declaration of human rights and the UN convention on genocide will be marked. This is an important time for reflection, both on how far we have come and, as others have said, how far we still have to go.

A number of events in and around Parliament have marked these anniversaries. There was an excellent showcase event on Wednesday hosted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and several all-party parliamentary groups. I know that the all-party parliamentary group on international freedom of religion or belief hosted a similar event. Many organisations have also produced very important briefings in advance of the debate, and I hope to draw and reflect on some of them.

This is an issue of deep concern to residents in Glasgow North. It is a constituency of really considerable social and economic diversity, but the constituents are united in their support for justice, peace and respect of human rights around the world. In fact, it boasts not one but two Amnesty International groups. I have regular correspondence and in-person meetings and lobbies with not just Amnesty members, but other constituents from similar organisations who are equally passionate about these issues. I am very proud to be able to speak on their behalf.

One of the most important aspects of the declaration is its universal nature; it applies to everyone, everywhere, equally. Fundamental human rights are just that: they are fundamental, essential and an intrinsic part of human dignity and freedom. They can be denied, or they can be only partially or not even fully realised, but a right in itself cannot be taken away. A prisoner of conscience, arbitrarily detained in a dictatorship, still has a right to freedom of speech under articles 9 and 19. A child experiencing severe malnutrition in a famine-hit country still has a right to food and clean water, just as a homeless people here in central London or in Glasgow North has a right to a roof over their head—both those scenarios come under article 25. A refugee and asylum seeker today in the United Kingdom still has a fundamental right both to seek asylum and refuge and to work, even if the UK statute book says otherwise.

The universal nature of human rights means that we are all affected. If one person is denied their rights; if one person is not able to live in true and full human dignity; then in some way all our rights and all our collective and individual dignity is diminished. It is to our shame that so many people experience denial of their rights around the world. It is our responsibility, and indeed in this place our special duty and privilege, to work for a world in which everyone’s rights are respected and realised.

I have a few examples. The United Kingdom Government are right to recognise the challenge that China presents to established economic and governance systems around the world. Many of the consumer goods and services that we take for granted here in the UK and other western countries are dependent on labour and produce from China. Far too often, there is a risk that that labour has been forced and used as a means to persecute ethnic and religious minorities. A number of my constituents have had to flee China in fear of their lives because they practise the disciplines of Falun Gong or Falun Dafa. To their immense credit, from their homes in Scotland, they take action to call out the oppression of their fellow practitioners in China today. They would very much like to hear the Minister joining those condemnations, along with condemnation of the treatment of Uyghur Muslims and certain branches of Christianity, not least the locking up of Catholic prelates and clerics, and indeed the general intimidation of anyone who dares to criticise the Chinese Communist party.

It is also my privilege to chair the all-party parliamentary group on Eritrea, a country often described as the North Korea of Africa. I hear that phrase particularly from citizens of Eritrea itself who have fled to the UK in the most difficult and dangerous circumstances. Despite the incredibly high rate of asylum grants to people from Eritrea by the UK Government, the Government now want to be able to deport to Rwanda anyone from Eritrea who arrives by irregular means. But there is no safe and legal route for anyone who has spoken out against the regime in Asmara to leave that country, let alone to arrive in the UK. The UK Government effectively want to ban asylum claims from one of the most oppressive regimes on the planet.

I invite the Minister, perhaps along with the new Illegal Immigration Minister, the hon. and learned Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), to meet some of the young Eritreans who I met here in Parliament on Tuesday and hear their testimonies about the brutality that they have escaped—arbitrary detention, the arrest of family members, forced conscription and torture—and then explain to them why the UK Government’s position is that they are not welcome here and should go back to France, a country where they do not speak the language. The Ministers might also like to listen to their concerns about the Eritrean regime continuing to gather intelligence on their activities here in the UK, and the methods that it uses to levy a 2% tax on the income of expatriates.

Among the organisations at the IPU’s marketplace on Tuesday was ABColombia, which I have worked with both before and since being elected into this House, and with which I had the privilege of visiting Colombia back in 2018—I know that the hon. Member for Rochdale takes a keen interest in the situation in that country as well. Many of the communities there that face challenges to their human rights experience these less at the hands of the Government and more often as a result of the actions of multinational companies. For example, AngloGold Ashanti wants to displace peasant farmers in the Cajamarca region by opening what its marketing sales makes sound like a small artisanal gold mine. In fact it is called La Colosa, and would involve essentially blowing the top off a mountain, with all the attendant risks to land, water quality and the way of life for people living in hundreds of surrounding square kilometres.

In the north of the country, the multinational Glencore has chosen to sue the Colombian Government for millions of dollars because the constitutional court made a decision to prevent the expansion of its Cerrejón coal mine, which would violate the fundamental rights of the Wayúu indigenous peoples. It is more important than ever that the UK Government seek to find ways to incorporate the Ruggie principles on business and human rights into appropriate legislation and regulations, so that companies based in the UK or that trade on the London stock market are held to the highest possible standards.

One of the biggest themes of the 75th anniversary of the UDHR has been the role of people who defend human rights. A human rights defender could be anyone: a journalist, activist, lawyer, health professional, teacher or other community leader who works to defend human rights and expose injustice.

I remember meeting some of the human rights defenders in Columbia. That phrase—to me, anyway—conjured up an image of grizzled campaigners who had been doing that their whole lives. But what struck me was how remarkably young some of those people were, and how prepared and willing they were to take incredible risks to their wellbeing and future livelihoods to speak out in defence of their communities.

As Amnesty International and others have said, around the world such people are being increasingly stigmatised, intimidated, attacked and subject to unjust prosecutions. One of the particularly salient cases they highlighted was that of Ahmed Mansoor, who has been imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates after speaking out about the detention, torture and unfair trials of other dissenting voices. While much of the world’s attention is currently focused on Dubai as it hosts COP28, will the Minister say whether the UK’s delegation will raise Ahmed Mansoor’s case with the UAE Government or, indeed, whether anybody else visiting that part of the world might also do so?

Several of us here have been able to meet and hear testimony from other human rights defenders who visited Parliament earlier this week, including those supported by Freedom from Torture, Survivors Speak OUT, and the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York, which also has projects across the UK. Many of them echoed those calls for mandatory supply chain due diligence to protect human rights and the environment in the production of the goods that we all take for granted.

I was also asked to raise the decision by the UN Security Council to adopt a UK-drafted resolution lifting the arms embargo on Somalia. What reassurances have the Government received that a fresh flow of legitimate arms to Somalia will not be used by the regime against peaceful protestors and human rights defenders in that country?

As almost everyone has said, we cannot have a debate today about human rights and working to prevent atrocities without discussing the tragedy unfolding in Palestine—a tragedy that has led the United Nations Secretary-General, for the first time during his term of office, to invoke article 99 of the UN Charter, which empowers him to call to the attention of the Security Council a situation that may threaten

“the maintenance of international peace and security.”

The message that I have heard from thousands of constituents in the past two months—from totally unprecedented numbers, as I suspect is true for many of us here today—is that there must be an immediate and lasting ceasefire on both sides. Aid must be delivered, the process of rebuilding must begin, and there must be a just and peaceful political process that delivers a settlement agreeable to all, in line with the global consensus on, and support for, a two-state solution. There must be accountability for the atrocities perpetrated on, and since, 7 October.

The UK Government should be prepared to co-operate with the International Criminal Court’s exercise in gathering evidence of potential breaches of international humanitarian law. They must also be explicitly clear that they are not supplying weapons to the region that will end up being used to commit such breaches. More broadly, as the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) said very powerfully, the Government need to step up their efforts to prevent such atrocities from happening in the first place.

Despite the pledges that were made in 1948, genocide has repeatedly been perpetrated. The lessons of the holocaust have clearly not been fully learned, whether it is the killing fields of Cambodia, the slaughter of the Tutsi in Rwanda, the massacres in Srebrenica or the atrocities committed against the Yazidi people by Islamic State/Daesh in 2014. Monitoring organisations identify as many as 20 emergencies worldwide where persecution and killings may be meeting the definitions of genocide.

The UK Government have to adopt a whole-of-Government approach to adopting an atrocity prevention strategy, and they should look again at proposals for a genocide prevention response Bill, such as that recently introduced in the House of Lords. The hon. Member for Strangford was right to draw attention to how persecution of religious communities is a particular part of the growing trend of mass intimidation, persecution and, indeed, killing, around the world, and the extremism that appears to be driving that.

It is shameful that we should end up having this debate on the day after the United Kingdom Government announced proposals in their own legislation to override so much of the global human rights framework. By their own definition—found in two of their own Bills this year—their approach to people who come to the United Kingdom seeking refuge and asylum might not be, and in fact probably is not, compliant with their duties under the European convention on human rights. My constituents in Glasgow North do not support this Tory Government’s approach to people who arrive here from many of the countries discussed today. They flee war, oppression and persecution, and then find themselves being oppressed and their rights to claim asylum being denied in the very country where they are seeking sanctuary. We will oppose the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill next week, just as we opposed the Illegal Migration Act 2023. The day will come soon when Scotland can have its own independent migration policy, and make it clear that refugees are welcome here.

Perhaps looking to the future is a good note to begin to end on. Yesterday, many of us will have met inspiring young activists who came to Parliament from across the country to talk about the climate emergency and the need for climate justice. The rights of the planet itself and the rights of future generations should not be forgotten as we mark the anniversaries of the human rights declaration and the genocide convention. I thank Darcey and Isobel from The Holy Cross School in New Malden, who took time yesterday to explain many of the works of art and design on display in the Attlee Suite. They captured their generation’s response to the climate challenge and the need for action now, by this generation of politicians and global leaders, to ensure a just and equitable distribution of the planet’s resources for everyone who lives here, now and in the future.

This has been a valuable opportunity to reflect on 75 years of the global human rights framework, and the many challenges and barriers to fully realising the vision first set out in 1948. That vision is shared by many of our constituents and championed by many of the Members present, especially those who secured the debate. The Government, and indeed the official Opposition, must understand that this is where true consensus in modern politics can and must be found. Pandering to ever more extreme views that seek to minimise the importance of fundamental human rights, or that seek to other or even dehumanise sections or groups within society, is not a route to effective and stable governance, but to ever-more discord and trouble. We have a responsibility both to everyone on the planet today and to future generations to live up to the declaration of our post-war predecessors, and to keep on striving for a day when human rights truly are universal.

Gaza: Humanitarian Situation

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

The hon. Lady makes a painful allusion to the view of Save the Children; a large proportion of our increased aid budget is going to UNICEF to support children who have been affected. We would all like a de-escalation and ceasefire, but while Hamas remain intent on perpetrating another atrocity, like the one on 7 October, it is hard to see how there can be any other response than the military response of Israel defending its sovereignty.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has issued a call for evidence regarding possible breaches of international humanitarian law in Israel and Palestine. Is the UK Government in a position to contribute—indeed, will it be contributing—to that investigation?

[Leo Docherty]

Not at this stage, but we will continue to take note.

Israel and Hamas: Humanitarian Pause

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman speaks with wisdom about the position of civilians. All of us hope that the loss of life among innocent civilians can be minimised, but I would point out to him that the Israeli Government have an absolute right to go after the murderous terrorists of Hamas who perpetrated the dreadful events of 7 October.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I have heard from a number of constituents in Glasgow North who are concerned that weapons either manufactured in the UK or sold by UK companies are being used in this conflict. Can the Minister say how regularly the UK is assessing its obligations under the arms trade treaty to ensure that arms are not being transferred when there is a risk of their being used to commit or facilitate breaches of international humanitarian law?

[Mr Mitchell]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, the British rules for the export of arms, scrutinised by the Committees on Arms Export Controls, provide for the toughest regulations anywhere in the world. If he ever believes that those rules have been infracted in any way, he should of course inform the requisite authorities.

International Development White Paper

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of AMR, and we certainly aspire to be a global leader in that area. As he knows, I spoke about AMR when I was in New York earlier this year, and we are guided specifically by Sally Davies, the master of Trinity College Cambridge and former chief medical officer, who is an expert on this matter. AMR is now the world’s third biggest killer after strokes and heart attacks, and we will be prioritising it in the way that my hon. Friend suggests.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

There is a welcome change of tone in the White Paper—the language about partnership, for example, will not be unfamiliar to those of us who have worked with the Scotland-Malawi partnership for many years. However, in all the “Britain is great” language, I cannot see much recognition of the incredible work that has been done over many years by the devolved Administrations, particularly the Scottish Government, who have ambitions further to the UK Government’s on the empowerment of women and girls and, indeed, loss and damage. Can the Minister confirm that the work of the devolved Administrations in international development, and particularly the work of the Scottish Government, is recognised, accepted and valued by the UK Government, given that they count that spending towards the ODA target?

Debt in Africa

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on securing what I think has been a very thoughtful and surprisingly theological debate, at a very timely moment in the context of the UK Government publishing their new White Paper. That White Paper presents a very welcome change of tone and perspective on issues of global development. I hope that the language of aid being a giant cash machine in the sky is consigned to the past, and that we can focus on moving forward in a much more constructive and consensual tone. I think that that has been reflected in the debate today.

The same is true of the memories of the Jubilee Debt Campaign, which of course had very deep theological roots of its own, given the biblical concept of a jubilee. I might say again at the end that this is a concept that we perhaps need to come back to. Like the hon. Members for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), I worked with very committed campaigners, some of whom are now constituents, who wrote to whoever their MP was back in the day and who continue to write to me all these years later, because they are so passionate and so motivated. It was such an effective campaign in so many different ways. It went from being Jubilee 2000 to the Jubilee Debt Campaign, and it is now known, as we have heard, as Debt Justice. That is part of a wider movement for a fair economy, for corporate justice, and for climate justice.

It is interesting that whenever the word “justice” is used in the White Paper, it is in the technical, juridical sense relating to a country’s justice systems, rather than in the sense of striving for just, equitable and more peaceful solutions to the challenges that face the modern world. As everybody has said, debt is now one of those biggest challenges. Africa’s debt is at its highest level in over a decade. That is frustrating and disappointing, given all the work and effort that went into setting up the mechanisms for Jubilee 2000 and the Make Poverty History campaign. Progress and huge strides were made for a variety of reasons. Some of those were beyond individual control—such as the likes of the pandemic—but some were very much within our control, such as the way in which multilateral organisations have continued to work, avoidable conflict and, of course, the impact of climate change and the need to respond so quickly, leverage finance and look around to wherever that finance can come from.

That has led to a change in the structure and composition of the debt. Previously, the debt was owed to official creditors, high-income countries and multilateral lenders like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, but now we see China holding a huge proportion of that debt and private creditors making up an increasingly large proportion, as well. At the moment, the debt is not subject to the kinds of structures that were put in place around the millennium, and the effect of that is that the cost of servicing the debt has also increased, and so developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa paid about $84 billion simply in debt servicing in 2021, with countries in the middle east and north Africa paying a further $45 billion. We have heard the expression “doom loop” on a number of occasions, from a number of Members, because that just builds and compounds and then has all the effects that a number of Members spoke of so powerfully, affecting the infrastructures of the countries.

The hon. Member for Slough and I were both in Malawi this year—I refer to our entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—with the all-party parliamentary group on malaria and neglected tropical diseases. Malawi is one of those 21 African countries we heard about that are in, or at high risk of, debt distress. Its external debt effectively tripled between 2009 and 2021, and we can see the impact of that simply in the country’s inability to get moving; there is a need for infrastructure, and it is simply unable to leverage the resources.

As the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) so powerfully said, we absolutely want countries to be able to realise the true potential of their riches. Africa is not a poor continent, and African countries are not poor; they are rich in resources and human potential, and yet that potential is not properly realised because they are not in a position to properly and fairly leverage that and they are tied to debt, especially unfair debt. As the hon. Member for Rochdale said, there is this idea of super-abundant extraction of resources through punitive interest rates and unfair deals, which simply compounds that cycle. The DRC should be the richest country in the world. Almost every single person in this Chamber walks around with a little piece of the DRC in our pocket, and yet it is one of the poorest countries in the world and, like so many other countries, it is saddled with debt.

We need fair trade, fair taxation, and a just and sustainable use of the continent’s resources. The responses that have been put forward so far clearly are proving to be inadequate. The analysis has shown that different mechanisms, such as the debt service suspension initiative that was set up in 2020 as a result of the pandemic, have not been fully utilised. The countries that applied to that scheme had an average of just 23% of their debts suspended. The remaining mechanism beyond the DSSI announced in 2020—the common framework for debt treatments—is also incredibly slow; only four countries have so far applied, and none of them has effectively seen any of its debt being cancelled.

Crucial to all of this, as we have heard from some of the contributions, is the lack of co-operation from private sector creditors, both blocking the progress of the countries that are applying and discouraging other countries from applying for those relief processes in the first place. Responsibility has to fall to the UK Government for a large part of this. There has to be multilateral initiative, and there have to be easier and fairer ways of accessing, financing and writing off or restructuring debt; but getting to the heart of this issue of how private companies are able to extract and apply debt is absolutely crucial. Even though the UK Government are not a massive creditor these days, some 90% of the bonds issued by countries eligible for these debt reliefs are governed by English law. The Government say in the White Paper that they want to pioneer new approaches to debt, so they should listen carefully to the proposals being put forward.

I was saying to a colleague earlier today that it is unlikely that legislation will come out of the White Paper, as it is really a statement of Government policy, but here we are in Westminster Hall a couple of hours later talking about firm proposals for legislation on the back of it, put forward by the Debt Justice campaign—the hon. Member for Putney spoke about those. They would have a number of practical effects, including easing the debt restructuring process by undermining the ability of minority creditors to hold out on agreements, easing financial settlements for debtor Governments in distress, increasing the speed of restructuring processes, reducing uncertainty for debtor countries and creditors, enabling borrowing Governments to access capital markets more quickly, and addressing the power imbalance between the single debtor country and often a large number of creditors.

It would be interesting and useful to hear the Minister commit at the very least to consult on what such legislation might look like and speak about how it could be taken forward practically. Of course, it would have to be taken forward in parallel, because there would not be much point in the UK legislating if all the debts transfer to another jurisdiction—New York is the other very popular area for binding these kinds of contracts. It would have to be an international initiative.

I wonder whether we need to think in the even longer term. The White Paper is supposed to take us to the sustainable development goals in 2030. The year 2000 was a jubilee year, which is a biblical concept—debts were written off and everybody had a fresh start—and Pope Francis has designated 2025 as a holy year of jubilee for the Catholic Church, but perhaps we need to think in the longer term about where we will be in the middle of the century. Will we continue in this doom loop, or will we seize the opportunity now to make progress towards the sustainable development goals and go beyond them to create a fairer, more just and more equitable system? Tackling pervasive debt absolutely has to be a part of that. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and others said—this is in the Debt Justice campaign material—people struggle with huge amounts of debt in the United Kingdom and other western countries. As the hon. Member for Leicester East said, we effectively end up in hock to incredibly powerful companies, and that affects the dignity of countries as a whole and the dignity and power of individuals.

If we do not rise to the challenge, the other goals—everything else in the White Paper and the sustainable development goals—will remain exactly that: goals and targets. They will never actually be realised because the money will continue to spiral and line the pockets of people who already have more than enough at the expense of people who do not even have enough to get by.

That is the challenge before us. This has been an incredibly thoughtful and useful debate, and I hope, in the new spirit of consensus that the Government have set today with the publication of the White Paper, that the Minister and the Labour spokesperson will respond appropriately, and that we can find just and sustainable solutions to the challenge of debt in Africa.

Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Member has set out with great eloquence the issue before us, and it underlines the absolute necessity to get back on to a political track as swiftly as we can.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The Minister continues to say that he wants the Government of Israel to respect international human rights law, but last week he said that the Government could not make a determination whether that was happening. He said it would be for courts and lawyers to determine, so which courts and which lawyers, and how and when should a determination be made about whether Israel is complying with international humanitarian law?

Occupied Palestinian Territories: Humanitarian Situation

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will explain to our friends on Birmingham City Council the reason the Government and indeed his own Front Bench take the view that they do about a ceasefire, but he is right that the critical thing at the moment is to focus on the humanitarian pauses, which are designed to get food to those who need it. Nothing is more important in this context than that.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The Minister said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) that he wants the Government of Israel to comply with international human rights law and that he encourages them to do so, but he did not answer my hon. Friend’s question: have the Government made an assessment of whether or not the Government of Israel are complying with international human rights law?

[Mr Mitchell]

It is not for the Government to make such an assessment; it is for lawyers and a court to do so. The critical thing is that Britain makes it clear that all countries must abide by international humanitarian law and the rules of war.