Brendan O'Hara MP: speeches

Speeches

• 18 Nov 2025 · Gaza and Sudan · Hansard source

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  This morning, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on international law, justice and accountability, I hosted a briefing for parliamentarians on the crisis in Sudan, at which Nathaniel Raymond of the humanitarian research lab at Yale described El Fasher as a slaughterhouse, where 60,000 people have been murdered in just three weeks. Those same Yale scholars now forecast that by Christmas, the RSF will be in Tawila, where hundreds of thousands of civilians could face a similarly appalling fate. Everybody at the meeting agreed that what has been missing is the Prime Minister’s personal leadership on this issue. Will the Foreign Secretary encourage the Prime Minister to become personally involved and show that vital international leadership which could prevent Tawila becoming another slaughterhouse?

• 30 Oct 2025 · Sudan: Protection of Civilians · Hansard source

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  The massacre at the El Fasher hospital by the RSF is utterly barbaric and marks a new low in what was already a horrific conflict. Where is the international community in all this? What has happened to our duty to protect civilians from such atrocities? When was the last time that the Government carried out a joint analysis of conflict and stability in relation to Sudan? In the light of these events, are there plans to undertake another JACS assessment? Are the Government, as they did with Gaza, undertaking an assessment of the risk of genocide in Sudan?

• 29 Oct 2025 · Gaza and Hamas · Hansard source

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  Overnight, more than 100 Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli airstrikes. Once again, innocent civilians are suffering a collective punishment, this time imposed for breaches of the ceasefire by Hamas. Unless this Government believe that all Palestinian civilians are Hamas and are therefore legitimate targets, the Minister must unequivocally condemn these attacks on innocent civilians. Will he unequivocally condemn those attacks and call them what they are: an egregious breach of international humanitarian law?

• 23 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Given that the Cabinet Office advises the Government on establishing public inquiries, will the Minister meet the families of the senior military and intelligence personnel who were killed when an RAF Chinook helicopter crashed on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994? The families have gathered compelling evidence suggesting that the Ministry of Defence was aware that the Mk 2 Chinook in which they were travelling was not airworthy. They are petitioning the Government to establish an independent, judge-led public inquiry. Will the Minister meet the families or at least advise a relevant Cabinet colleague so to do?

• 23 Oct 2025 · Fishing and Coastal Growth Fund · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) for securing this urgent question. The aggregated coastline of my constituency is greater than that of France, so the fishing industry plays a crucial part in its economic wellbeing. Having barely survived the disaster of Brexit, this latest decision by the UK Government is another kick in the teeth to those fishing communities. We are all agreed that this formula is fundamentally unfair, so did the Secretary of State for Scotland come to the Minister’s Department at any point and specifically urge her to reverse this decision—yes or no?

• 22 Oct 2025 · Scottish Independence Referendum · Hansard source

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  11. What his policy is on the holding of a referendum on Scottish independence.

• 22 Oct 2025 · Scottish Independence Referendum · Hansard source

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  I, too, welcome the Secretary of State to his place, although it seems that his appointment has not been universally welcomed. Indeed, I hear that the Daily Record , having asked his Labour colleagues for their opinion, feared an asterisk shortage. One particularly caustic comrade said: “If I had a pound for everyone who liked Douglas, I would have 50p.” But rest assured, Mr Speaker, his appointment was welcomed with open arms on the SNP Benches, and I have to admit to having a grudging admiration for him as someone who cares not about the opinion of other people. But with Labour tanking in the polls, and independence the majority view in—

• 10 Sept 2025 · Qatar: Israeli Strike · Hansard source

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  The figure is 15%.

• 10 Sept 2025 · Qatar: Israeli Strike · Hansard source

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  Israel’s bombing of Doha was the action of a state that knows it can act with complete impunity. Once again, the Netanyahu regime has shown that international law simply does not apply to it, and as long as this Government ignore the overwhelming evidence of the genocide in Gaza, so that they can profit from the sales of weapons to Israel, that situation will continue. Will Minister tell us—unless this is just another example of the performative condemnation that we have seen so often from this Government—what exactly the consequences will be for Israel for this egregious attack on Qatar?

• 7 Jul 2025 · Government Performance against Fiscal Rules · Hansard source

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  A year ago we were promised radical change, but the only radical change appears to be in the Labour party itself, which has decided that if you are poor, old or disabled, it will be you who will bear the brunt of the cuts and on whose backs the books will be balanced. So were the fiscal rules always predicated on going after the most vulnerable and the weakest and those least able to organise and fight back, instead of taking on the rich, the powerful, the multinationals and the tax avoiders?

• 7 Jul 2025 · Actions of Iranian Regime: UK Response · Hansard source

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  Last week, in the most tawdry and cynical fashion, a decision—born in anger and driven by revenge—was bulldozed through this House. I wonder: while the Government were discussing proscribing Palestine Action, did the Minister or any of his Foreign Office colleagues advise that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could also be added to the proscribed list? If they did not, why not? Perhaps he could explain to the House why his Government consider the IRGC to be less of a threat to our national security than Palestine Action.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Alaa Abd el-Fattah · Hansard source

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  I recall the right hon. Gentleman, before he became Foreign Secretary, asking the previous Government what “diplomatic price” Egypt had paid for the arbitrary detention of Alaa, before demanding that “serious diplomatic consequences” should be put on Egypt should it not release him. Alaa’s mother is now 278 days into a hunger strike and is critically ill, so let me ask him this: since he became Foreign Secretary, what diplomatic price has Egypt paid, and what serious diplomatic consequences can he point to that Egypt has been forced to pay since July last year?

• 23 Jun 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  We have now been here for an hour, and still the Foreign Secretary appears incapable of saying whether he supports or condemns America’s actions or whether he regards them as legal, and nowhere in his statement does the role of international law even merit a mention. Will the Foreign Secretary now take this opportunity to tell us whether he believes that America’s unilateral action was compliant with international law?

• 16 Jun 2025 · Iran-Israel Conflict · Hansard source

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  Let us be clear: there are no good guys in this conflict. The concept of pre-emptive self-defence does not exist in international law, and nor should it. Israel’s decision unilaterally to retaliate first has made the region—indeed the world—a much more dangerous and unstable place. To what extent does the Foreign Secretary believe that the impunity that Israel has enjoyed for previous acts of aggression and war crimes was a factor in Netanyahu’s decision to retaliate first?

• 10 Jun 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  Although we welcome the sanctioning of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, that should have happened a long time ago, and we now need to go much, much further. Further to the previous question, today’s announcement highlights the absurdity of the Government’s position. The Foreign Secretary recently described those Ministers’ views as “repellent” and “monstrous” and today’s statement accepts that Israel is guilty of human rights abuses and is in flagrant breach of international law. On what basis—legal or moral—can the Government continue to supply F-35 components, knowing that the end user will be a regime that they themselves have condemned for espousing repellent and monstrous views, and which they now accept is guilty of human rights violations and is in flagrant breach of international law?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  When the Chancellor slashed the winter fuel allowance last year, she told us that it was necessary, urgent and the responsible thing to do. It turns out that it was not necessary, urgent or the responsible thing to do after all, so is the Minister going to apologise to the millions of pensioners who were put through the wringer so cruelly and unnecessarily? I think he knows that they deserve an apology from this Government. Having performed one U-turn, will the Government now do the same for the country’s poorest families and abolish the two-child cap?

• 4 Jun 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q3. The Prime Minister has repeatedly told this House that it is not for him or his Government to determine what is and is not a genocide. That position is no longer tenable, because at the High Court recently, the Prime Minister instructed his lawyers to argue that in Gaza,“no genocide has occurred or is occurring”.The truth is that his Government have made a determination; the question is whether he has the courage of his convictions. Will he repeat from the Dispatch Box what he told his lawyers to argue in the High Court—that he believes that no genocide has occurred or is occurring in Gaza?

• 20 May 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  May I repeat the question asked by the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer), which went unanswered? Last week, 65 members of nine political parties in both Houses wrote to the Prime Minister, asking him to publish the most recent genocide assessment—the one that persuaded him to send his lawyers to the High Court to argue that “no genocide has occurred or is occurring”. Will the Government now publish that assessment, so we can all understand how on earth they arrived at the conclusion that the horrors we have witnessed, day in, day out, for months in Gaza do not constitute a genocide?

• 14 May 2025 · Gaza: UK Assessment · Hansard source

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  I have just returned from the High Court this morning, where Government lawyers will argue, in defending the continued supply of F-35 components, that the evidence available does not support a finding of genocide, and that there is a “tenable view that no genocide has occurred or is occurring”. It appears that the Government—whether they have told the Minister so or not—have already made a determination, and that explains why they have no intention of asking for an independent assessment of whether a genocide is likely. The Government know that if they did ask for one, it would reveal an unpalatable truth that would prevent them from supplying Israel with the weapons that it needs to continue its merciless onslaught. It really is as grubby as that, isn’t it, Minister?

• 14 May 2025 · Ministerial Code: Compliance · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) for securing this urgent question. It is not the first time that she has had to raise this issue during her parliamentary career. It appears that whoever is on the Government Benches conveniently forgets everything they said when they were on the Opposition Benches. The Leader of the House will recall the former shadow Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Walsall and Bloxwich (Valerie Vaz), warning the then Tory Government: “Parliament must be told first: we are not irrelevant.” —[ Official Report , 19 March 2020; Vol. 673, c. 1169.] That warning is as true for this Labour Government as it was for the previous Tory Administration. Is what we are witnessing a case of acute amnesia or simply a belief that it is now their turn to treat Members of the House with contempt?

• 13 May 2025 · Gaza: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source

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  Last week the United Nations issued a report describing the situation in Gaza as “one of the most ostentatious and merciless manifestations of the desecration of human life and dignity”. The Government have always insisted that it is not for them but for the courts to determine what is and what is not a genocide, but the Minister will know that the genocide convention also puts a legal obligation on states to act to prevent a genocide. Does he believe that the UK has fulfilled its legal obligation under that convention to prevent a genocide in Gaza?

• 13 May 2025 · Point of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On 20 March the Foreign Secretary said in relation to the conflict in Gaza: “There are atrocities on both sides”. —[ Official Report , 20 March 2025; Vol. 764, c. 529.] On 24 March, I wrote to the Attorney General asking how and when His Majesty’s Government arrived at that determination. I further asked the Attorney General about the legal implications of the UK selling weapons to Israel directly or indirectly, and whether he believed it legal to supply those weapons when the Government had decreed that Israel was guilty of atrocity crime. On 8 April I received a letter from the Attorney General’s Office saying that he did not consider this to be his responsibility and that my letter had been passed to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. It is now 13 May, seven weeks after I first wrote to the Attorney General, and I still have had no reply. This is not new, Madam Deputy Speaker. The record will show that I had to raise a similar point of order in November, when neither the FCDO nor the Attorney General’s Office responded to my letter about the Foreign Secretary’s interpretation of the genocide convention. Can you advise me on how I can get a reply to my questions, and how we as Back Benchers can have confidence that the Government will answer Members’ questions, even those that they wish had not been asked?

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  Madam Deputy Speaker, allow me to veer ever so slightly from my promise to remain within the scope of the Bill in order to answer the hon. Lady’s question. I think I joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament when I was 16, before I joined the SNP. I have been a lifelong opponent of nuclear weapons. When I stood in my constituency in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2024, I made no bones about my position on nuclear weapons, and my constituents voted for me. She suggests that this is a massive issue, but it is not an issue for the people of Argyll, Bute and—now—South Lochaber. I would gently point out that my position is also the position of the Labour party in Scotland. I will conclude. The introduction of a regional immigration policy to reflect the needs of the circumstances at the time has worked in Australia, Canada and other parts of Europe, and there is no reason, other than a complete lack of political will, why that cannot happen here. We have heard a lot of quotations from the Migration Advisory Committee, and it would be remiss of me not to quote it myself. It has said that “the current migration system is not very effective in dealing with the particular problems remote communities experience… If these problems are to be addressed something more bespoke for these areas is needed.” It said that six years ago. Here we are, six years on, and while we have had a change of Government and a change of Secretary of State, we have seen absolutely no progress on this issue. Indeed, I dare say that what we have heard today is the Labour party backtracking on it. Allow me to finish by saying this: we need a bespoke immigration policy in Scotland. We have been done in by the insanity of Brexit. We are reeling from what has happened to us and the impact it is having, particularly on our rural communities. Everyone can see that, but there is intransigence on the part of the Government to recognise what is in front of their nose. I fear for them that the people of Scotland will recognise that when it comes to Scotland and the needs of Scotland, we do not figure particularly highly on this Government’s agenda.

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  I have rarely in my life been more popular. I give way to the hon. Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm).

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) cannot respond to the hon. Gentleman, so allow me to do so: what amendment? What is he talking about? He has got no idea. To return to the point, the UK Government, having taken that away from the rural communities in Scotland, now have a responsibility to provide a solution. If they will not do it, for ideological reasons, the least they can do is allow the Scottish Government to do it, because we cannot go on this way. I am not surprised that all we have seen from Labour Members is them lining up to kick the Scottish Government and the SNP. That is politics; and, to be fair, they would be as well taking every opportunity to do it, because they will probably not last for long. By 2047, the proportion of working-age people in Scotland will be smaller than it is now, and the number of people of pensionable age is expected to rise. That is a huge threat, not just to our economy but to our ability to provide public services. Of course, there is no magic bullet, and nobody has said that about this Bill, but what it proposes is a hugely important tool in the toolkit.