I agree with my hon. Friend’s comments. One thing that is causing immeasurable upset to my constituent, Dr Hadoura, and to many other Palestinians in the United Kingdom is that they are in contact with Palestinian families in other countries and seeing them getting their loved ones out of Palestine. They know that the UK Government say that they cannot do anything about it, but they see other countries’ Governments being able to do something. Those Governments might have reasons for not wanting to publicise it or for it to be too widely known, but they are willing to go beyond the legal minimum to get people out and reunited with their families.
The last letter I got from the Foreign Office Minister finished by saying:
“ I recognise this will be disappointing news”—
disappointing? Disappointing?—
“but wanted to relay it as soon as possible, so that your constituent can take informed decisions about his family’s next steps.”
Incidentally, it was clear in my letter that Dr Hadoura was a she, not a he. That made me convinced that this was a cut-and-paste job from another letter and that they had not even bothered to tailor it to the individual constituent. And relaying it to me “as soon as possible” meant sending me a letter two months after I had contacted the Minister. By contrast, on Friday last week, within the space of about two hours, my office had two emails and two phone calls from the Foreign Office wanting to know what today’s debate was about. What does that tell us about its priorities? That it was more urgent to sort out which Minister would respond to the debate than to agree to meet Members of Parliament to try and find a way of stopping people dying unnecessarily.
But it was the bit after that in the letter that I found callous beyond belief: it had been sent so that my constituent, Dr Hadoura, could take “informed decisions” about her “family’s next steps”. Precisely what decisions are available to Dr Hadoura, to her family and to the 1.8 million others? What on earth are they supposed to decide about? There are no options. There is no survival plan for those families in Gaza because it is becoming impossible for anyone to survive there. An earlier Government response suggested that they should all apply for visas to travel to the United Kingdom. What a really great idea! It is impossible for them to apply for a visa in Gaza. Where are they going to apply to? Who still has a consulate operating in Gaza? If they try to travel somewhere else in Gaza to get a visa, there is a very high risk that they will be shot. If by some miracle they manage to reach the Egyptian border—remember, the only borders they have are with Israel and Egypt—the border guards will say, “Have you got a visa to travel somewhere else? No? Get back to Gaza, then.” And the whole thing goes round in a circle. They cannot get a visa without getting out of Gaza, and they cannot get out of Gaza without a visa. The Government fully understand that, and they are not prepared to issue visas from here, which, as has been mentioned, they have done for people fleeing from other parts of the world.