Hamish Falconer MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

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

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her kind words about both me and officials in the diplomatic service, who have worked tirelessly. As I said in response to another hon. Member, I had hoped that we could make this announcement even sooner, but it is through no fault of those in the hard-working British diplomatic service, who have done everything they can to ensure that we make the most impactful sanctions announcement possible.

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

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  My hon. Friend has rightly focused on the important questions that are at issue, such as how we can maintain the viability of a two-state solution. That is the only route to peaceful harmony, with two states side by side, and it is on that objective that our efforts are focused.

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

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  My hon. Friend has extensive experience of international coalition building and of taking steps against those who support corruption or who, as in this case, breach human rights. I can confirm that we will work with our friends and allies to try to preserve a path to a two-state solution at the conference next week, in the way that he sets out.

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

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  I recognise that the right hon. Gentleman has made these points with some force for the past year, but I would caution him against being quite as cynical as he is. We are doing everything we can. We recognise that what we have announced today will not be a remedy to the situation we find ourselves in, as I have just said to one of my predecessors, the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison). However, I encourage the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) not to cast such cynicism around the Government’s motives. This Government care deeply about what is happening in Gaza. We are so incredibly frustrated by the scenes that meet us and everyone on the Benches behind me. I say gently to the right hon. Gentleman that he has no monopoly on the morality of the situation.

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

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his commitment to these issues and for his important question. As the House will see, the UK has led with 26 of our allies on a statement on humanitarian issues, and with three leaders from the UK, France and Canada, and today with five others in relation to the sanctions on those two men. I can assure the House that we will work with a range of our partners in different formats in order to achieve the objectives that I know are felt so keenly right across the house.

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

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  I have answered the question about the approach to the conference. I have sought to be as clear as I can with the House about the importance of conducting diplomacy not on the Floor of the House, but with our allies and friends, in advance of such an important moment as next week. That is the approach that we will take.

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

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  The settlements are not bound by the trade preferences between the UK and Israel, and products must be properly labelled. They attract different tariffs and should be traded as such. Where there are breaches of those regulations, they should be investigated.

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

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  I will not rehearse the arguments on recognition, but I know that so many hon. Members, myself included, have met hostage families who view the events with terrible dismay. I will not put words in their mouths from the Dispatch Box. Their views are varied, their distress and their anger are palpable, and we have them in our thoughts every day.

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

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We have delivered that message with our 26 partners on aid and we have been clear that, unless the situation changes, further actions with the leaders of France and Canada will flow. I will not repeat my answers about the conference next week, but I thank him for the important focus that he puts on the humanitarian situation.

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

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  My hon. Friend has a long interest in the communities of the region, and I recognise the emotion in her remarks. We have talked this evening about sanctions, about recognition and about aid. Hope will not feed the hungry people of the Gaza strip, and we will not cease until proper aid provision is provided to all those who need it in the strip. I will not repeat the answers I have already given about recognition.

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

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  Let me be really clear for the House: we are not selling arms—not bombs, not bullets—for use by Israel in Gaza. We have a carve-out in the F-35 programme in order to maintain the programme, which we and so many of our allies benefit from, but where F-35 parts were directly being sold to Israel, that trade is suspended. We are not providing the weaponry that is being used in Gaza. I reassure my hon. Friends that I and the Government do not think that the actions we have taken today will be the golden answer to getting aid into Gaza. They will not be the golden answer for securing a ceasefire. We will continue to work on all those fronts until we achieve progress.

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

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  I thank my hon. Friend for the question, and I recognise the strength of feeling in Pembrokeshire, Lincoln and so many other places. I will not repeat for him the manifesto commitment on which we were both elected. I am sure his interest, like that of so many in this House, will be on the conference next week, and we are of course talking with our friends and allies about our approach to it.

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

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  My hon. Friend points to his long record, with which I am familiar, of pressing these points. He is right to say that a two-state solution clearly requires two states. It is vital that nobody, not in Israel or anywhere else, forecloses that possibility.

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

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  I will not speculate too far on hypotheticals, but I am, of course, a British Minister; I take decisions on behalf of the British Government. We will act alone where we have to, but we act whenever we can with our friends and allies, as that is the way we have the greatest impact.

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

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  My hon. Friend speaks with the painful authority of one who has clearly taken a great deal of time to get to know someone who is facing truly dreadful circumstances in Gaza. I am grateful to all those, on my Benches and beyond, who take part in such engagement and share it with me. I recognise how heavily the responsibilities weigh on us, both constituency Members and, of course, those of us in the Government. It is not simply inefficiency that makes me counsel the House repeatedly not to focus on air and sea routes. We do keep them under regular review, and we discuss them with our partners, particularly our friends and allies in Jordan, who have conducted important airlifts of aid into the Gaza strip. The reason I counsel the House in the way that I do is that I see so many of these cases, and I am so conscious of the aggregate demands. If we can get aid safely into Gaza in a way that is consistent with humanitarian principles, of course we will do so. I can reassure my hon. Friend and his constituent that we keep that under regular review, but I must be honest with the House and say that it is road routes that will meet the scale and the manner that are required.

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

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  My hon. Friend has been adamantly committed to these issues. He sets out all the right objectives, and I confirm to him that I take on board that message.

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

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words. The steps that we have taken have been concrete, but he is right that there remain terrible risks of famine and other circumstances that befall people when adequate aid is not allowed in. When proper water and sanitation is not provided, the risks of further humanitarian catastrophe are considerable. We will continue to press those points with the Israeli Government, alongside our friends and allies.

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

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  I know how strongly my hon. Friend feels about these questions, and how strongly Luton feels about them—as do so many in Lincoln, Burnley and elsewhere. I will take that message.

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

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  I recognise the strength of feeling among constituents throughout the country, including those in the city of Lincoln. We go into the two-state solution conference clear in our commitment to the Palestinians’ inalienable right to a state that is safe and secure, alongside Israel, and we are talking to our friends and allies about the best method of securing that.

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

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  I have heard the powerful interventions from my hon. Friend and many others across the House on the questions of recognition and settlement goods. The question around settlement goods is one of differentiating between Israeli goods—that is, those from within green line Israel—and those from illegal settlements. Illegal settlement goods are not eligible for the same trade provisions as those from within green line Israel. To breach that labelling requirement and so not be clear where the goods are produced is a breach of the relevant regulations.

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

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  That is a vital question. The hon. Lady knows that journalists and most aid workers are not able to operate in Gaza, which provides considerable uncertainty about the events happening there. We are calling both for journalistic access and the access of aid workers and, vitally, for those people to be protected. More aid workers and many more journalists have been killed than anyone in this House could accept. We want people to be able to go in to deliver aid, to report freely and to be protected through deconfliction mechanisms.

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

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  I called on Hamas to return to ceasefire talks when reports reached us that they were not doing so. I hope that those ceasefire talks are successful, and I of course repeat my call for hostages to be released. We have been clear about the blockade of aid, but I must once again reiterate that it is the land routes on which we must be completely focused; the land routes from Egypt, from Jordan and from Israel itself must be opened at the scale required to get the aid in.

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

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  I have spoken about the perilous decline of the situation in the west bank and, indeed, the events of the past two weeks. I have also spoken about the importance of co-ordinating with allies, so I do not think that I have anything further to say about the timing of the announcement.

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

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his commitment to these issues. I will not add to the answers on recognition that I have already given, nor will I speculate further on where future sanctions might be targeted.

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

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  As my predecessor, the right hon. Gentleman can, of course, counsel me, and I am grateful for his support on the measures we have taken. As I said to another of my predecessors, the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), I recognise that sanctions are not a remedy: this will feed no Palestinians. I hope it will deter, but we have no guarantees that it will save any Palestinian lives. However, we think these are important statements of principle and actions that demonstrate not just to the two individuals, but to Israeli society, where we stand on these questions.