Matthew Patrick MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Twinning offers an important opportunity to hear that dialogue and to make sure that we are not shutting out the people who are directly impacted. I certainly support that. At next year’s Yom Kippur, I dearly hope that we have an opportunity to look back on a year of progress. I hope that the threat of E1 settlements has ended, and with it, the violent expansion of settlements across the west bank that terrorise Palestinians. I hope that extremism no longer has any influence on the Government of Israel. I hope that the everyday leadership of Israelis and Palestinians, and of Jewish and Muslim communities, inspires people towards peace and towards love. I hope that the Palestinian Authority, often considered the best hope of leading the Palestinian people, end once and for all the abhorrent practice of paying terrorists each and every month based on the level of destruction and death they wreak upon the Jewish people. I hope that the Palestinian people and Palestinian children are not taught using textbooks that say I am to be hated because I am Jewish. I hope that those children are not brought up to believe that hating Jews is as necessary a life skill as learning maths or science. I hope that Hamas, an evil who have inflicted untold damage on the people of Israel and the people of Gaza, are no more. I hope that in their place is a leadership who see aid as an opportunity to feed their people and to build out infrastructure that might make the everyday life of Gazans better. I hope, as I have called for in this Chamber many times in the past, that Israel has increased the flow of aid into Gaza so that people have no worry about from where they might find their next meal or dose of medicine. I hope that those in Gaza who have stolen more than £1 billion of public money to build an underground terrorist tunnel network and ply it with weapons become marginalised voices, recognised for the malign influence that they are. I hope that the current Iranian regime, which exports terrorism right across the globe, including here in Britain, and without whom this conflict could never be sustained, is over. I hope that in its place are a Government who treat all the people of Iran—man or woman, gay or straight, Jew or Muslim—as equal people deserving of love and respect. I am an optimist. I cannot give up on the idea of a two-state solution, but—it is difficult to say this—I understand why some people have. I have spoken to lifelong peace activists in Israel who decided that the depravity of 7 October, and the celebrations that followed it, showed them that they would be fools to believe they could share peace with people who want them dead. I also understand that someone growing up in Gaza knowing war, hunger, destruction and death similarly might not see an alternative path. They may not see their neighbours as partners towards peace. However, my optimism does not dismiss these views, or simply wish that they would go away; my optimism is a belief that we can change course. It has been done before. In this House, we are rightly proud of what we achieved in Northern Ireland through the Good Friday agreement. That was anything but easy. Prejudices ran deep. Terrible injustices were inflicted upon people, and hurt reached into every corner and every community of Northern Ireland. More of the same was not an option, but that required change and courage. It placed a demand on those who wanted peace—an uncomfortable demand to see and pursue an alternative that hardly seemed possible. We can learn from them. It starts with us here, with understanding, with compassion, with humanity and dignity in everything we do. It requires us to listen, sometimes to views that we do not always like, and sometimes to people who are not “on our side”. It starts with ending a culture, here in the UK and around the world, in which we take sides on this issue as if it were a football match. That is not a path to peace. If we fail to start from the idea that even in the most intractable and bloody conflicts, children and non-combatants should be kept safe, we will never find that path. If we want to play our role, in this place, in building a two-state solution, we must not see this as a debate needing more heat, but as one needing more light. Where there is anger—understandable, justifiable anger—we must work to ensure that the words we speak do not entrench that anger and, in so doing, block any future chance of progress. The UK and our allies owe that to the people of Israel and Palestine, those who are doing the hard work of trying to find peace in the most difficult of circumstances. We owe them our solidarity. The alternative is that we risk looking back, in a year, at another missed opportunity.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  I know that my hon. Friend speaks with great experience, and I am sure that those on the Front Bench have heard what he has said. Any opportunity to fund the people who, day in day out, are making the future of peace still possible is one that we must take. As I was saying, we owe them our solidarity, because the alternative is to look back, in a year, at more missed opportunities with more anger and more hate, and with peace ever further away. I do not want that on my conscience, so I commit myself to learning those lessons.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  This weekend was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. Jewish families wished one another “Shana Tova”. They dipped apples in honey, in the hope that the new year ahead will be sweet. As Rosh Hashanah closed, families started a 10-day journey through to Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. It is a day when we seek forgiveness for our failings and vow to do better. Today is the first of those 10 days. It is a period of profound seriousness, and a chance to reflect on the past and to ensure that the future is brighter. Last year, on the high holy day of Yom Kippur, Jihad al-Shamie went to Heaton Park synagogue armed with a knife to murder Jews. As he stabbed one worshipper, he shouted, “This is what they get for killing our children.” It is no wonder that this is a sensitive time and a sensitive debate for the Jewish community, because as Mr al-Shamie’s actions show, there are those who would cloak their antisemitism in concerns about the actions of Israel—those whose murderous intent and racist ignorance is dressed up as a moral crusade. I choose to reflect on the past year, and I hope to use that to help build towards a brighter year ahead, because surely that is what each and every one of us in this House is here to do—to chart a way forward. Our job is not to amplify grievance, or to give in to hopelessness, but to do the hard yards of understanding, and the perhaps even harder yards of playing our role in getting us to a better place.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Seasonal Scampi Fishers · Hansard source

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  As the hon. Gentleman will know, we totally support our fishing sector, and I am interested to hear more about that proposal. If the Immigration Minister is speaking with the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby, I will, of course, try to be part of those meetings to hear whatever I can hear.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Seasonal Scampi Fishers · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is a powerful campaigner on this issue. The Secretary of State and I recognise the importance of fishing industries across the United Kingdom, and the Secretary of State visited Kilkeel earlier this year with Minister Muir, where this topic was raised. Immigration changes are designed to ensure that our domestic workforce has access to good jobs, and the Secretary of State has written to the Home Secretary about the issue.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Seasonal Scampi Fishers · Hansard source

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  As I have said, we have written to the Home Secretary about these issues, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will be making her case very powerfully as well. It is our duty to work with businesses across the UK to ensure that they are ready for these changes. We want our fishing industry to thrive, and we want people here to benefit from those good jobs.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Manufacturing Supply Chain · Hansard source

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  I certainly agree with my hon. Friend; many opportunities are arising from the defence growth deal, on which I have worked closely. Many businesses, small and large, across Northern Ireland have dual-servicing capability and they have a real opportunity here. We are supporting them every step of the way.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Manufacturing Supply Chain · Hansard source

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  I worry that the hon. and learned Member is in danger of talking down Northern Ireland and its incredible business opportunities. We are here to champion it. If issues arise from the Brexit that he and others championed, we do our very best to ensure that trades flow smoothly.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Manufacturing Supply Chain · Hansard source

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  I take every opportunity to champion Northern Ireland’s brilliant manufacturing sector, and whether it is Denroy, Airbus or Thales, or even Harland & Wolff, which has just announced that it is bidding for a major UK-Dutch shipbuilding deal, there is a lot to champion.