Palestine - UNRWA and the right to work

International

Author

Laurence

Published

July 20, 2024

I spoke about Israel and Palestine on Friday.

You can watch the intervention below:

In my former role, as an official of the GMB trade union, I extended solidarity to trade unionists affected by the conflict, and helped raise thousands of pounds for Medical Aid for Palestinians. One of my first acts as an MP was to ask the new Government if it would resume the UK’s funding of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

I was glad to hear the new government confirm that:

It would restore the UK’s funding to UNRWA - the only agency capable of delivering aid at scale in Gaza.
Ministers had ordered a fresh and ‘comprehensive review of Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law,’ which will include the question of arms exports.

Ministers are blocked from seeing the advice provided to their Conservative predecessors. It is right that a new process be followed, and it is important that it concludes quickly.

I used my question to raise an issue that might not otherwise have been debated - the position of Palestinian workers. Before the war, more than a fifth of Palestinian workers in the West Bank were employed in Israel or the settlements.

Around 160,000 jobs have been lost after the Israeli government blocked legal routes for Palestinians to work in Israel. This policy contributes significantly to poverty and political instability in both Gaza and the West Bank.

I welcome the reassurances that the new Government has taken up the issue of labour rights alongside the need to end the settlement programme, which represents both an injustice and a fundamental threat to the prospects of a long-term peace settlement.

The Government’s position has changed significantly as a result of the general election. Political pressure must now be applied internationally for an immediate ceasefire, the release of hostages, and for progress towards a two state solution.

The text of the exchange can be found below:

Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)

I welcome the Foreign Secretary and his team to their places, and strongly welcome the decision announced today to restore funding for UNRWA, which will be recognised by many people in south Birmingham as an important step—among many others—towards ending the horror that we see today in Gaza. The Israeli Government’s decision to end the legal routes for Palestinians to work in Israel has played an important role in the entrenchment of poverty and political instability in the West Bank, alongside the illegal settlements programme. Will the Foreign Secretary make representations on this important matter, recognising that both the Israeli Histadrut and the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, as pillars of civil society in both nations, have an important role to play in the establishment of a lasting peace?

David Lammy (Foreign Secretary)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question, which gives me an opportunity to talk about what I saw on the West Bank. The situation is febrile—it is anxious. There is tremendous hardship because of the withdrawal of those funds. It is phenomenally tense, and against that backdrop, people are watching their land being taken from them before their eyes. As such, the representations that my hon. Friend has asked me to make are absolutely the representations I made when I spoke to the leadership in Israel, because this simply cannot continue, and we must act to stop it.