Speeches by Ballinger.

“Are there blockades in place at the moment?”

“So your position is that, despite the UN reporting that over 90% of people in Gaza faced food insecurity last week, it is acceptable to conduct the blockade because there was lots of aid delivered in the past?”

“With other members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I was in Ukraine before Easter, and there were three separate air attacks while we were in Kyiv. Fortunately, the air defence in Kyiv is particularly good, but that is not the case elsewhere in the country. Could the Secretary of State say more about how we are suppo…”

“Does my hon. Friend agree that many of the people who operate in the background do so on the behalf of our foreign adversaries—countries like Russia and Iran—who outsource this sort of work to sow division inside our society? We should work with the Government as hard as we can to tackle that.”

“I was devastated to hear of the expansion of military operations in Gaza this week, alongside the aid blockade in the region. That is a clear breach of international humanitarian law. The Minister has said that he urges Israel to respect IHL. If Israel continues to ignore the international community on that, what concr…”

“Can the Minister confirm that the confirmation of the legal status of the base on Diego Garcia will strengthen our influence in the Asia-Pacific and put us in a strong position to counter the influence of China?”

“Thank you, President Zourabichvili. Carrying on from Blair’s questions, I wanted to ask first about the Georgian Dream party. You were supported by Georgian Dream back in 2012. Could you say a little bit about how that party has developed over the last 13 years?”

“In your view, why was there such a pivot from being a very pro-European party to being suddenly a pro-Russian party?”

“Thank you, Madam President. You talked about the foreign influence law and the US-inspired law on foreign agents. Could you say a little more about the impact this will have on civil society and the media in Georgia?”

“As others have said, today is the anniversary of the deaths of James Kirby, John Chapman and James Henderson—three former servicemen. We further heard about the 15 aid workers who were killed last week. UN Under-Secretary-General Tom Fletcher has described them as having been killed one by one and buried in shallow gra…”

“I recently visited Somers Forge in my constituency—it is the 10th oldest SME in the United Kingdom, and has been supplying defence equipment since the Battle of Blenheim in 1704. It was great to meet with its team, and see the important work that it does. Does my hon. Friend agree that our defence industrial strategy w…”

“We are talking about procurement. Just this week I met Members of the European Parliament in Brussels to talk about our collective response to Ukraine. One of the challenges that Somers Forge in my Halesowen constituency faces is the struggle with European supply chains and the trade barriers between the UK and Europe.…”

“My question was really around whether we are doing anything to show leadership, rather than supporting international efforts that are happening. Do you have any thoughts on how the UK can show that we are at the forefront of trying to find a long-term solution?”

“Just as a quick follow-up on a point that you made earlier when you referenced the importance of the Abraham accords, I just wondered whether you are taking any steps to push for UK leadership on those. For example, might you consider having a special envoy for the Abraham accords from the UK?”

“With all the breaches of international humanitarian law, the ICJ rulings and the other challenges with Israel that we are going to hear about later in the Committee, is it appropriate for us to be pursuing a trade deal with Israel? The Government have just announced a trade envoy to undertake that. Are we not going too…”

“We were in the West Bank a couple of weeks ago and saw, as many others have reported, some of the extremist actions by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in Area C. Schools were being burned, mosques were attacked and livestock was being stolen. It is a particularly awful situation. It feels like the UK’s response o…”

“What has the UK’s response been to the International Court of Justice’s ruling in July that the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories were illegal?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) for organising this debate. I declare an interest as the chair of the APPG on conflict prevention, conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Last month, I had the privilege to visit Israel and the west…”

“Continuing on Syria, we have also seen recent attacks by the IDF on sites throughout the country, which many of us would agree would be quite destabilising at a time when the Syrian Government are making these positive steps and saying the right things to the international community. Have the UK Government made any rep…”

“Thank you, Minister, for your statement in the House yesterday. We are obviously hearing about the terrible attacks that happened last week, in which many Alawites have been massacred, but at the same time we are hearing positive news about the Government in Syria, with the SDF co-operating with HTS and the PKK potenti…”