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Middle East

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their observations. There is a global risk of instability in oil and finance markets. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, that tonight would not be the best occasion for a post mortem or finger pointing. That would not be useful at all. I start with the noble Lords’ questions about the evacuation. The efforts of the Ministry of Defence and the Royal Navy have been quite exceptional. I pay tribute to them in this House this afternoon. My right honourable friend Adam Ingram has taken the role of overall military co-ordination, and Brigadier Jacko Page is on the ground ensuring that the arrangements work. I have mentioned that two destroyers are offshore; each can take about 350 people on deck. The aim would be to get people to Cyprus in a 12-hour crossing. HMS ““Illustrious”” and HMS ““Bulwark”” are, as I have said, going towards the eastern Mediterranean. Between them, they can lift many thousands of people; they are huge vessels. I hope noble Lords will allow me to say only that there are other ships on the way, not how many. We believe that the bulk of this force will be offshore by Wednesday evening. We are trying to arrange for coaches to get people from designated points to the dockside. That should be a secure arrangement, which is one of the reasons a military team is scoping it all. We are in close touch with a large number of people. We cannot tell exactly how many British citizens were in the Lebanon when this started—that applies to those with dual nationality in exactly the same way as single nationality. The numbers could exceed 10,000. We do not know the numbers of other nationalities for which we have undertaken some responsibilities, such as the Australians and Canadians. Briefly, a large number of vessels are queuing to get in. The port sides are damaged. In some cases, the vessels—aircraft carriers, for example—have extremely high sides. You cannot simply put up walkways. Getting people off the quayside and on to these ships will be a difficult logistical task, but work is going ahead rapidly. There is no panic; the Royal Navy being visible offshore has given a good deal of reassurance, including to people to whom I have been speaking in the past 24 hours. I hope I made the point that there is a lot of coordination with other nations. To move on to some wider political issues, the Government, and the Governments of other countries, are aware of the rapid armament of Hezbollah. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that Hezbollah and Hamas engage in terror: they are terrorist organisations that pursue policies of terror, which puts stability in the region at great risk. It would be foolish to think otherwise. However, despite the fact that they do so, it is vital that the Israeli Government respond in a way that is not disproportionate. The G8 called on Israel, "““to exercise utmost restraint, seeking to avoid casualties among innocent civilians and damage to civilian infrastructure and to refrain from acts that would destabilise the Lebanese Government””." Plainly, any further destabilisation will make the whole process worse. One of the consequences of any further destabilisation will be that it will be more difficult to resume any kind of peace process. I agree with both noble Lords that the greater the instability created by that route, the less likely it is that Israel will live in security with its neighbours. I do not see that there can be any disagreement about that. However, it needs to be understood that rockets cannot be continually fired into a territory over long periods of time without people in that community saying that they expect their government to defend them, just as any government would defend them. I do not find appealing the argument about proportions on both sides. It is not a relativistic argument; people should stop killing civilians. Both noble Lords asked about assistance to the Palestinians. We are working to provide money through a mechanism that we believe to be reliable. We have been contributing growing amounts through the temporary international mechanism since 17 June and another £12 million was pledged recently. We believe we must support the Palestinian people and help to provide for their basic needs. On 25 April, DfID announced a payment of £15 million through the UNRWA, and the United Kingdom has given £147 million to the Palestinian people since 2001. Our intention is to try to make sure that the aid continues and that the mechanism is used effectively. It is also essential that the connection to the Israeli grid, which has now begin, continues. It supplies some power, but it is not enough. Damage to the power station has resulted in everything that was described by the noble Lord, Lord Howell. Pumping sewage and many other services are critical for ordinary, decent life and we look to see the repairs to that system completed as fast as possible. In the mean time, it is right that connections to the Israeli grid should be made to improve the input of power, which currently varies between three to 18 hours a day. I do not accept that the G8 was just words. An unusual group of people came together and agreed on a forceful statement, which would not necessarily have happened in other circumstances. All these things suggest the desirability of an early debate, and it is for the business managers of the House to consider that. I am not averse to it, which I hope adds a word of encouragement without disrupting the work of the business managers. I believe that a good, open, frank debate on this matter would be extremely useful.