(Non-Afl)
[V]...I want to ask some questions about the old trade association
agreements made in 1995 between the EU and other countries.
Israel in particular springs to mind. I have been
told, after Questions to the Government, that the terms of the old
EU association agreements have been adopted in the new agreement
between the UK and Israel. This trade agreement
was signed as long ago as August 2019 with, as far as I know, no
parliamentary scrutiny at all. The terms of the new agreement, as
in the old one, include Israel’scommitment to
observing human rights and democratic principles, and adopt,
“as a main objective, the encouragement of regional cooperation
with a view to the consolidation of peaceful coexistence and
economic and political stability.”
Those are fine words.
The Government of Israel allow the constant
humiliation and persecution of the Palestinian people under
occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. Land is stolen, crops are
destroyed, water is restricted and almost always polluted, and
electricity is rationed to a few meagre hours a day. Children are
harassed and badly treated in prison, and many have been killed;
in fact 3,000 children have been killed in the last 17 years.
Homes are demolished and families made homeless. I could go on
and on, as noble Lords know. Is this Israel’s
adherence to the terms of the new trade agreement? Is this how it
respects human rights? We can no longer fall back on the European
Union for a decision—not that it ever took a lot of action. The
monitoring of the terms of the agreement is now our
responsibility and ours alone. Will the Minister tell the House
how this monitoring is to be done?
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and
Industrial Strategy and Department for International Trade
() (Con):...I know that last time a
similar Bill was debated, noble Lords did so in the absence of
any real-world example of how the continuity programme would
work, but we are in a different position now. We have ensured
that Parliament has had the opportunity to fully scrutinise all
continuity trade agreements, and of the 20 we have signed so far,
noble Lords have held three debates on six of them, and not one
attracted a Motion to Regret. To clarify a point that the noble
Baroness, Lady Tonge, made about the UK-Israel
continuity agreement, it went through the CRaG process and
concluded that process in March 2019...
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