Clare Short: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the Minister for Borders and Immigration plans to reply to the inquiry from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood of 23 October 2008 on behalf of Momodou Saidyjah, reference J1146013.
Clare Short: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when a reply will be sent to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood's email to the UK Border Agency of 30 January 2009 on behalf of Amina Mohammed Osman (Home Office Reference Number 01064728, acknowledgement reference B3194/9).
Clare Short: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the implications for UK policy of the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legal consequences of the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories; and if he will make a statement.
Clare Short: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to take into account the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on Israel's wall in the West Bank when implementing the human rights provisions of the EU-Israel trade agreement; and if he will make a statement.
Clare Short: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when she expects a reply to be sent to the letter of 8 January 2009 from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, to the UK Border Agency regarding Sainey Manneh, Home Office reference number M1300980/3, acknowledgement reference B463/9.
Clare Short: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when she plans to reply to the inquiry from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, of 23 October 2008, on the status documents of Mr Hassan Abdille Abdi, HO Ref. A130106Z.
Clare Short: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when a reply will be sent to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood's letter of 16 December 2008 to the UK Border Agency on behalf of Said Bouzinab (Home Office reference B493071, acknowledgement reference B41558/8).
Clare Short: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development when he plans to reply to the letter from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, dated 9 October 2008, on the engagement of his Department's offices in Uganda with the Kingdom of Bunyoro Kitara.
Clare Short: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the merits of suspension of Israel's application for membership of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development until allegations of war crimes during Israel's military operation on Gaza have been fully investigated; and if he will make a statement.
Clare Short: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when she expects a reply to be sent to the letter of 23 October 2008 to the UK Border Agency on behalf of Rizwan Aslam (Home Office Reference Number A1264393).
Clare Short: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when she plans to reply to the letter of 27 November 2008 from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, sent on behalf of Mojtaba Abedini (Home Office reference number A1161546, acknowledgement reference M22818/8).
Clare Short: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when a reply will be sent to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood's letter of 28 November 2008 on behalf of Gordon Ferguson of the Kaupthing Banking Group.
Clare Short: I think that the figures that the Minister has just given about rockets between June and December are wrong and, as I said in my speech, my source is an Israeli human rights group. I have also seen an exchange in which the spokesman for the Israeli Government agreed that the rockets stopped between June and December. I ask the Minister to re-examine her assertion. I think that she will find...
Clare Short: Under the ICC—it was the new Labour Government who signed up to it in 1998—a state that has not signed up to the authority of the ICC can be dealt with by a reference to the international court and the prosecutor then makes inquiries. That is the way in which Sudan and Darfur were dealt with, and that is the right procedure, but the Government appear to be ignoring that and waiting for...
Clare Short: I am grateful for the opportunity to report to the House on my recent visit to Gaza. Also, I wish to press the Government to do more to uphold international law. It is my view, and that of many others, that if international law were upheld, there could and would be two states in Palestine, and we could look forward realistically to peace, but Israel constantly flouts international law, and...
Clare Short: I agree absolutely with my right hon. Friend. I will come to that point and make that argument. It is the duty of parliamentarians and the public in the UK, and across Europe, to hold our Governments to account. The fact that they do nothing to enforce international law is a green light to Israel to keep breaking international law. The people of this country, particularly young Muslims, are...
Clare Short: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the two-states idea is the answer, but it is eroding on the ground and no one is doing anything—including our Government and the hon. Gentleman's party's Front Bench. No one is standing by international law, which says that the lands occupied in 1967 cannot be incorporated into Israel and should be the basis for a Palestinian state. That is the answer,...
Clare Short: First, may I remind the Foreign Secretary that there was a ceasefire before, and the consequence was that Israel tightened and tightened the siege, then it started the bombing in early November that broke the ceasefire? Secondly, there is no peace process, because Israel keeps breaking the Geneva convention, building more settlements and the wall, and the roads are subject to closure. We will...
Clare Short: The EU has a trade treaty with a human rights conditionality that gives Israel privileged access to our markets. Should we not just invoke the conditionality? That is serious leverage, and we should use it.
Clare Short: I want to use the six minutes available to me to report on a recent visit that I made with European parliamentarians to Gaza, and to try and correct some of the propaganda and untruths that have been spread across the airwaves and that have been repeated here in the Chamber today. We visited in early November, and we found Gaza to be besieged, with people suffering acute shortages because...
