Extracts from Attorney
General questions
(Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock)
(SNP): The United Kingdom Government are going above and beyond
to ensure that British arms are readily available in Israel's
arsenal to bomb Gaza. The Attorney General is refusing to give
out the legal advice, based on the long- standing Law Officers'
convention, yet the circumstances for up to 1.6 million people
are now between life and death. What steps is she taking to
ensure that Britain is not complicit in the destruction of a
nation and its people?
The Solicitor General (): I can assure the hon.
Gentleman that the Attorney General keeps all these matters under
close review, and will ensure that any legal advice is properly
obtained and acted upon.
International
Humanitarian Law: Israel-Palestine Conflict
(North Tyneside) (Lab): What
recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on
compliance with international humanitarian law in relation to the
Israel-Palestine conflict. (902704)
(Oldham East and
Saddleworth) (Lab): What recent discussions she has had with
Cabinet colleagues on compliance with international humanitarian
law in relation to the Israel-Palestine conflict. (902705)
The Attorney General (): As all Members know,
the Law Officers' convention means that I cannot disclose outside
Government whether or not I have provided advice, or the
specifics of such advice, but it is no secret that we continue to
call for international humanitarian law to be respected and for
civilians to be protected.
: It is more than three months
since the International Court of Justice issued its interim
ruling on the Gaza conflict and set out steps that Israel must take in
order to protect civilian life. The Netanyahu Government have, as
yet, failed to comply with that ruling, but our Government have
still not come out publicly and urged them to do so. Will the
Attorney General take the opportunity today to call
on Israel to take the
steps ordered by the Court?
The Attorney General: This Government firmly respect the role and
the independence of the ICJ. Its ruling, or order, called for the
immediate release of the hostages and referred to the need to get
more aid into Gaza, and that is exactly what the Government are
also calling for.
: The ICJ ruling also
declared that there was a “plausible right” to be protected from
genocide, and following the urgent question to the Deputy Foreign
Secretary on Tuesday I cited United Nations international law
relating to that. When there are concerns about a potential
genocide taking place, those are the circumstances in which the
sale of arms should be withdrawn. Can the Attorney General tell
me, and my constituents—as this is a massive issue for thousands
of people across the country—exactly when the Government will
come out and recognise both international law and the risks that
we take in breaching it?
The Attorney General: This Government believe very firmly in
international law. On 9 April, the Foreign Secretary announced
that our position on export licences was unchanged. We publish
data on our export licensing decisions transparently and on a
quarterly basis.
Mr Speaker: I call the shadow Attorney General.
(Islington South and
Finsbury) (Lab): We have heard questions about the International
Court of Justice, but I want ask some questions about the
International Criminal Court. Its chief prosecutor said last week
that
“all attempts to impede, intimidate, or improperly influence”
the Court over its investigations of war crimes in Gaza must
“cease immediately”.
He was forced to issue that demand after a letter signed by 12
United States senators warned the ICC:
“Target Israel and we will
target you.”
That letter threatened sanctions not just against the ICC's
officials, but against its employees, associates and
families.
Will the Attorney General join me in condemning those Republican
senators for their outrageous actions? Will she also join the
chief prosecutor in agreeing that anyone who threatens the ICC
simply for doing its job is undermining the very impartiality and
independence on which its international mandate depends?
The Attorney General: I thought that the ICC's statement was
worthy of note, and I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for
bringing it to the House's attention. In his statement, the
independent prosecutor was also keen to point out that he
welcomed active engagement by Governments and other parties on
the work in which he is clearly engaged around the world to
ensure that international humanitarian law is respected and war
crimes are not committed. He is a British prosecutor, and we in
this Government are proud to work with him; we have been very
proud to support him in his work in Ukraine, for example. There
are ongoing investigations of what is going on in Israel and Gaza by more
than one international court at present, and I think it is
difficult to speculate on specific outcomes.
(Argyll and Bute) (SNP):
The Attorney General will be aware of the Government's grounds of
defence in the ongoing case of Al-Haq v. the Secretary of State
for Business and Trade, in which the FCDO lawyers admitted that
the
“inability to come to a clear assessment on Israel's record of
compliance”
with international humanitarian law “poses significant policy
risks”. What is the Attorney General's assessment of that
submission? Given the FCDO's concerns about Israel's compliance
with IHL, what has she said to her Cabinet colleagues who are
worried that the issuing of arms export licences could make the
UK Government complicit in breaches of international humanitarian
law and the arms trade treaty?
The Attorney General: As the hon. Gentleman knows, I cannot give
my specific legal advice. I cannot share that with the House—it
is for the Government alone—but I can say that the Foreign
Secretary has reviewed the most recent advice from the IHL cell.
That has informed his decision that there is not a clear risk
that the items exported from the UK might be used to commit or
facilitate a serious violation of IHL. It leaves our position on
export licences unchanged, but that position is kept under
review.
Extract from Business
Questions
(Manchester Central)
(Lab/Co-op):...Despite serious and fast-moving developments in
Israel and Gaza, the
Government, again, did not come to the House to make a statement
this week. It was only through your granting an urgent question,
Mr Speaker, that Members could raise issues. We want an urgent
ceasefire and the assault on Rafah stopped. After much delay, the
Government rejected the Procedure Committee report on holding
Lords Secretaries of State accountable, yet there is clearly
widespread support across the House for its recommendations.
Rather than the Government simply rejecting them, should the
Leader of the House not seek the view of this House and table a
motion on the accountability of the Foreign Secretary to this
House as soon as possible? Whether on the middle east, China or
Ukraine, there are hugely important matters to be raised...
The Leader of the House of Commons ():...Even the defection from
the Government Benches of one of Labour's sternest critics cannot
disguise the fact that Operation Radish is not going well. Not
everyone has got the memo. The shadow Leader of the House talks
about the important election results last week. Has she noticed
that the first act of the new Mayor of the West Midlands was to
turn his attention not to investment or infrastructure, but to
Israel and Gaza? Ditto
for the Mayors of West Yorkshire and London, with the latter also
stating “equivalence” between the Head of State of Israel and a terrorist
organisation.
The anti-nuke shadow Foreign Secretary is currently trying to
walk back from calling a candidate for the presidency of the
United States a neo-Nazi-sympathising KKK sociopath. The hon.
Member for Ilford North () sought to smear a decent candidate for Mayor of
London as a white supremacist. Object to ULEZ and you are a child
killer. If you are a woman advocating for your rights and
dignity, you are a bigot. Want to strengthen our borders? You are
a racist. If you have made money through hard work, you can't
possibly get Britain. That is today's Labour party—just as it has
always been.
The politics of the PLP is more the politics of the PLO and the
JCR: more comfortable in university tented encampments and on
picket lines than on the international stage; more interested in
thought policing than actual policing. Labour has not changed—not
its behaviour or its record. It is still high crime rates, high
waiting lists, higher taxes, higher levels of poverty, less pay,
less opportunity, less money for the NHS and less freedom. The
British people can see what is going on. They like their radishes
in salads, not in No. 10...
Sir (Worthing West) (Con): My
right hon. Friend indicates in provisional business for the week
after next the remaining stages of the Holocaust Memorial Bill.
She is familiar with early-day motion 711.
[That this House notes the First Special Report of the Holocaust
Memorial Bill Select Committee, HC121, on the problems with the
current proposal and the restrictions faced by the Committee
considering the hybrid Bill; respects the conclusions and
recommendations on page 20; agrees with the list of matters
related to the current proposals for a Holocaust Memorial and
believes these need updated attention on deliverability from the
Infrastructure Commission, from the National Audit Office on
likely capital costs and recurrent annual costs, from the
Chancellor on future funding control, and from the police and
security services on maintaining unfettered public access for use
of Victoria Tower Gardens while protecting the Memorial; asks His
Majesty's Government and the Holocaust Memorial Foundation agency
to commission the views of the property consultants on a
comparison of the current proposal by Sir David Adjaye in
Victoria Tower Gardens with viable alternatives, to commission
the full appraisal and to hold a public consultation on the
selection of site; and further asks His Majesty's Government to
commit to having this or an amended proposal considered first by
the local planning authority before considering whether to call
in the application, noting that an open-minded observer could
doubt another minister in the Levelling Up department should be
asked to make an independent decision on an application by the
Secretary of State.]
Will she arrange, at least seven days before the House returns to
the Holocaust Memorial Bill, for there to be answers to the
questions on recurrent costs, the total capital costs, the amount
of money going to education and how much the cost of the project
has risen in the last year?
: I thank my hon. Friend for
his question. As I always do, I shall ensure that the Ministers
in charge of the Bill have heard his specific requests and that
the business managers take his asks into account.
(Gateshead) (Lab): I thank the Leader of the House for
the business statement and for announcing the Backbench Business
debate for Thursday 16 May. If awarded time on 23 May, we would
propose debates on UK arms exports to Israel and on
potholes and highway maintenance. Those would be the two debates
immediately before the Whitsun recess. Although all Chamber slots
until the Whitsun recess are now pre-allocated, we would still
welcome applications for Thursday debates in Westminster Hall,
where the new time seems to be working quite well.
Can we have a debate in Government time on the vexed question of
leasehold reform? In my constituency, developers are selling, or
proposing to sell, packages of property freeholds to third-party
companies and denying leaseholders themselves the chance to buy
the freeholds of the properties that they live in. This is a
really complex legal question, but an awful lot of leaseholders
do not have the wherewithal to fight the property development
companies and third-party companies buying such investment
portfolios. Taylor Wimpey is a company with an interest in
development in my constituency that is currently doing this. Can
we have a debate in Government time to try to sort out this vexed
question?
: I thank the hon. Gentleman
for his helpful advert for the Backbench Business Committee. He
raises the very important matter of a particular aspect of
leasehold. He will know that the Secretary of State for Levelling
Up, Housing and Communities is very focused on these issues. If
the hon. Gentleman wants to give me specific examples, I will
ensure that the Secretary of State has heard the detail of his
case.
(Rochdale) (WPB): I have
always said that the Conservatives made a mistake in overlooking
the right hon. Lady, and she has shown that again today. In that
regard, can she help me with what I think is a narrow but
important problem? Both Front-Bench teams support the
continuation of arms sales to Israel but the great
majority of Back Benchers, even on the Conservative side, would
like the opportunity to vote otherwise. That has been
stopped—stymied—in the past. I hope that she can find a way for
the House to freely express its attitude to this question. The
Government, and the Labour Front Benchers, might get a rude
awakening and a big surprise.
: I thank the hon. Gentleman
for his concern, but I have not been overlooked—I am Leader of
the House of Commons.
The hon. Gentleman has found the answer to his own question: he
has just been able to freely express his view on this matter. As
he knows, there are strict rules regarding our arms exports,
which are also scrutinised by a Select Committee of this House.
That is the Government's policy, and if those lines are breached
and there is evidence of that, that policy will kick in.
Extract from Commons
debate on BBC Mid-term Charter Review
Sir :...It is at the heart of the
BBC's priorities in theory, but not in practice. Ofcom is
insufficiently independent, and it is understood that there are
deep concerns about the entrenched ties between its content board
and the BBC—which still persist—and, therefore, a lack of
accountability. A mere 56% of the public now believe that the
corporation is impartial. The BBC refuses to engage with
complaints that do not refer to single programme items, and there
is a lack of comprehensive research into audience perceptions of
bias.
I noticed an important letter in The Daily Telegraph on 23
January this year from , a distinguished Cross-Bench
peer and King's counsel who was a governor of the BBC from 2002.
Regarding the publication of the mid-term review in January, she
wrote that
“Complaints are seen by the BBC as very sensitive matters,
threatening the independence of the editors: witness the lengths
to which it has gone to keep secret the Balen Report on its bias
against Israel ”
She argues that
“The best way to handle complaints would be to appoint an
independent ombudsman from outside the media industry, supported
by experts on the topic at issue.”...
...What the corporation desperately needs is more political
diversity. One of the problems is the BBC's hiring policy, which
should be seeking out journalists, researchers and programme
makers with divergent views if they are genuinely to present
commentary on a fair and unbiased basis. Despite Director-General
Tim Davie's avowed intent to reform the BBC and maintain a proper
reputation for impartiality, that has not happened. This can be
seen, for example, by the total failure—I have myself mentioned
it frequently in the press—to restrain the likes of Gary Lineker
from making political statements on the issue of small boats, and
getting away with it scot-free. The same applies to outrageous
examples of aggressive interviewing, far beyond objective
questioning, that have recently centred on the
Hamas-Israel conflict. This was the subject of
an important debate led by my right hon. and learned Friend the
Member for Northampton North (Sir ) in Westminster Hall only a
few weeks ago...
