Patricia Ferguson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  I welcome the contribution by the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) this evening and that of the Foreign Secretary last week. Having supported the cause of the Palestinian people since the early 1990s and having a keen interest in Jewish culture and religion, I was particularly eager to visit the countries for myself to better understand the situation. I did so in May this year with Members from across the Chamber, and I am very grateful to Yachad for organising the visit. I declare an interest in that regard. Like most Members, I have read and thought a lot about the events of 7 October—the attack on the kibbutzim and the music festival, the murder and kidnapping of so many people, and the treatment of those held hostage. Those were dreadful events, each and every one of them, but to visit a kibbutz and to hear how the attack unfolded there—armed paragliders descending on the kibbutz in the early hours of a Saturday morning, and the murder and kidnapping of its members—was frankly shocking. It also took the IDF more than 24 hours to get to those people, and even longer to safely escort them to safety, and that was heartrending. The actions of Hamas on that date and beyond were monstrous. The woman who showed us around the kibbutz lost her home and her son, a father of three, on that day, but when we asked her what she does now, she told us that she does what she has always done: she goes into schools to talk about peace. Many Israelis we spoke to expressed similar hopes; they have great hope that the elections next month will make a difference and that a public inquiry into the events of 7 October should be held, as the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) suggested. Israelis are right to be saddened, angered and outraged by those events, but their Government’s response against the people of Gaza has been disproportionate and is a stain on the conscience of the world. However, the problems did not begin in 2023. Indeed, my late father was stationed in the middle east during the second world war. He loved the region, but was depressed by what he saw then and by what unfolded in subsequent decades. I am proud that this Government have recognised the state of Palestine, and I am even more proud that we are now committed to banning the sale of goods and services from settlements. I am also proud that we have taken such a strong leadership role internationally to get to this point. The international effort is crucial if there is to be progress. However, let us be under no illusion. When we talk about settlements, we are not talking about small villages with rudimentary services and a rural lifestyle. Many are large industrial towns with successful industries and excellent public services, most are strategically placed to prevent a Palestinian state from ever being contiguous, and all of them are illegal. E1 is potentially vast, and it is just the latest addition to that policy, which is not new. In Hebron, the second largest city in the west bank, a settlement was created in the middle of the city in 1968, and as a result the city centre is a ghost town. We see on our televisions and online the extreme actions of the settlers, and I will come back to that, but we should not underestimate for a moment the sheer grind that Palestinians in the west bank experience each and every day as they try to go about their lives—checkpoints, roads that are off limits to Palestinian cars and commercial activity, or just off limits to Palestinians full stop. The village of Khirbet Zanuta in the south Hebron hills was home to some 250 Palestinians who were forced off their land by settlers after a campaign of harassment and intimidation.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  Indeed, I agree with my hon. Friend. We heard of examples of that when we visited this year, and it is of course deliberate. It consists of incidents such as she describes, but also of people peering in windows and polluting watercourses used usually by the women of a village. That kind of behaviour is just not acceptable. The villagers of Khirbet Zanuta won a Supreme Court ruling that they could return to their village, and many of them did, but they were forced out again. This time, the settlers bulldozed the village, including its school, which had been built in part with UK taxpayers’ money. At Umm al-Khair, we saw how settler outposts had expanded directly alongside the village and heard about the death of Awdah Hathaleen in July 2025. Awdah was shot dead by Yinon Levi, a settler already sanctioned by the UK Government. Despite video evidence —and I mean really strong video evidence—no charges have ever been brought and no prosecution has taken place. We visited the American co-ordination centre in Kiryat Gat, and I have to say that was quite an unreal experience. There are military personnel from about 20 countries working on aid delivery, monitoring the ceasefire and planning the reconstruction of Gaza. We discussed with an Israeli army officer the distribution of aid in Gaza, and our concerns about the designation of many items as potentially of dual use and as a consequence banned from Gaza. This included items such as tent poles, therapeutic toys for children and cochlear implants for children. We also met the Norwegian Refugee Council. Its assessment of the volume and effectiveness of humanitarian aid could not have been more at odds with what we heard at Kiryat Gat. Whatever the facts of the matter are, it is clear that the humanitarian situation is still dire and that life for Palestinians in Gaza is a question of survival rather than living. With little in the way of healthcare and education, it would be helpful if the Minister closing the debate could indicate whether we will expand our support for Palestinian students wishing to study in the UK, and for injured and sick Palestinians struggling to access healthcare. It is a sad fact—actually, it is not sad; it is horrifying—that Gaza has per capita the highest number of child amputees in the world, many of whom have not had access to proper treatment, rehabilitation or appropriate prosthetics. We must do more to help. The way ahead will not be easy, but the only way forward is for a safe and secure Israel to be able to live with a safe and secure Palestine as its neighbour. Hopefully, that aim will be helped by the election of a new Government in just over a month, and the continuing efforts of the Government and their international partners. I was struck by something my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Matthew Patrick) said in his speech. I was reminded of a comment made at the time of the Good Friday agreement, which is—I will close on this—that you don’t make peace by talking to your friends.

• 8 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement, which will come as a welcome addition to the debate. I was proud when this Government took the historic decision to recognise the state of Palestine. However, the very prospect of a single unified Palestinian state is, as we have heard, under enormous threat from the expansion of illegal settlements in the west bank. Having visited that area with Members from across the House earlier this year, the sheer scale of the E1 settlement makes it clear that Israel is determined that there should be no possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that anyone—and I mean anyone—who believes in a just and lasting peace in the middle east must also oppose illegal settlement expansion and the violence that so often comes with it?

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree with the hon. Member. I know that there have been such examples in Gaza, too. I raised that in a Westminster Hall debate almost two years ago, and I was reassured by the Minister that none of those drones are being produced in this country, which is at least a start. It is also clear that sexual violence is being used as a method of intimidating and humiliating women and girls in Palestinian villages. Some 70% of displaced families cite sexualised violence as the decisive reason for leaving their homes. Some 41 new settlements in the west bank were approved in 2025, and smaller unauthorised outposts are becoming an increasing feature on the landscape. Let us be clear: the settlements we are talking about are an integral part of the Israeli economic system. European imports of settlement products outweigh imports from Palestine, and we cannot as a country allow that situation to continue.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  I absolutely share that outrage, and I will mention it later in my contribution. We cannot as a country allow this situation to continue. We are out of step with so many of our European partners. We have declared Palestinian statehood, which is great, but we owe it to the people of that state to ensure, in whatever ways we can, that it can function as a state. Increasingly, we are seeing the economy of these settlements moving from agriculture into tourism, real estate, financial services, construction, transport, digital platforms and logistics. Any action we take must be applicable across the entire range of goods and services, and must cover any goods and services that facilitate, support or benefit economically these illegal settlements. A ban that simply covered agricultural products, for example, would just encourage the movement of activity into those other areas. We know that existing restrictions on trade have been neutralised, in effect. The Israeli Government operate a reimbursement scheme in respect of EU customs duties, and settlement goods are often being routed through Israel for repacking. As colleagues have said, what we need is an outright ban on the importation of settlement goods and on advertising such goods, too. If we cannot do that, we should ban Israeli goods until they can prove that they do not come from settlements. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central said, if not now, when?

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for securing the debate and speaking with so much passion about an issue that concerns us all. The ever-increasing number of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal—each and every one of them. Their purpose is clear: they are a means by which the Israeli Government can encourage land grabs, separate one Palestinian village from another, prevent the villagers accessing water and other utilities, and make it more difficult to map out a contiguous Palestinian state. They are also a way of intimidating Palestinians who find themselves surrounded by these fast growing and well-defended settlements. The level of violence instigated by the settlers has increased; more than 1,700 settler attacks causing causalities or property damage have been recorded across 270 Palestinian communities in the west bank in 2025 alone. On a recent visit to Israel and Palestine, our delegation saw the scale of the encroachment, the plans for further, larger settlements, and heard about examples of violence and intimidation for ourselves. We visited the village of Umm al-Khair, where Awdah Hathaleen was shot and killed last summer. Eyewitnesses and bodycam footage suggests that the perpetrator, who has never been charged, was a settler already sanctioned by the UK Government. While we sat in the open, speaking with villagers and playing football with the children, an IDF vehicle stopped outside our meeting and two, fully armed soldiers got out, had a casual look as they passed and slowly walked on, before returning the way they came. That was a minor incident, but let us imagine that it was our life, and we knew that the people living at the end of the street wanted our house and our land, and would do whatever it took to get it, with the full backing of their Government.