Foreign Affairs Select Committee

We have got Michael Walker from Novara Media.

emily thornberry mp for islington south needs no introduction really um chairman of the foreign affairs select committee uma kamaran mp and also foreign office minister luke egghurst labour mp for north durham alice stratton mp for hitchin and he's in the treasury and i'm kate ferguson i'm chairing so without further ado i think i'll go over to luke and luke what are the public thinking

So there are two reasons I'm particularly pleased to be doing this event today.

The first thing is the past two years of doing this event, I think it's fair to say that I've been giving a rather gloomy picture and the news today is somewhat better.

And consistently in the two years that I've been elected, foreign policy issues have been at the top of my inbox, if not at the top of my inbox.

I appreciate it's a London, inverted commas, hipster constituency, but actually it's a melting pot of cultures, of ages, of races, and everyone was feeling it.

And look, before I was a minister, I was a wayward backbencher and the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee at the end here, and I was an underling of Emily's and the Foreign Affairs Committee, and loads of us spoke up and out about it at the time.

And today you would have heard our Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, say we got it wrong.

Do you think he's right?

Well, I'm interested in the work that the Foreign Affairs Select Committee are doing because they are undertaking a specific inquiry in relation to Russia, which I think will be hugely informative.

Callum, do you think that sort of approach would be helpful?

Yes, I think it's necessary, Ben, and something in fact we've been debating and discussing here at the Lib Dem conference just this weekend, uh, the idea that we need to have a more resilient nation, and we need to talk to people, quite frankly, about the nature of the threats that, that Mark has set out, many of them, um, so-called hybrid threats.

He's a former soldier who served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He was military assistant to the top soldier in the country, the chief of the defence staff, and he chaired the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

But in other ways, he's a surprise.

He, unlike most front-bench Tories, voted remain in the Brexit referendum.

In around 10 minutes' time, we have the Labour MP for Hales, Owen, Alex Ballinger.

He's a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

Dr Luke Evans, Conservative Shadow Energy Security Minister and MP for Hinkley and Bosworth, former GP.

Ros Morgan, Chief Executive of the Heart of London Business Alliance.

I think it's you.

Anyway, coming up on Cross Question in the next hour, we have the Labour MP for Hales Owen, Alex Ballinger.

He is a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

Dr Luke Evans is a Conservative Shadow Energy Security Minister and MP for Hinkley and Bosworth, former GP.

The Israeli government has been accused of turning a blind eye to what is described by the UN as ethnic cleansing, with a report last week estimating at least thirty-three thousand Palestinians have been forcibly displaced in the last eighteen months.

The sanctions, which will ban settlement goods, were announced in partnership with France and Canada, and Labour's Dame Emily Thornberry, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, says it's about time.

I'm delighted that we've finally decided to do the right thing on this, but we stop all trade with the occupied territories, which the Israeli government is deliberately building on as fast as it can in order to try to, as to use their own words, "snuff out any chance of a Palestinian state."

The reaction from Israel was immediate and furious with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar accusing Miliband of spreading an outrageous lie and announcing a series of measures in retaliation, including the closure of the UK's consulate in East Jerusalem.

This is something that the House of Commons has been demanding for over a year.

It's something the Foreign Affairs Select Committee demanded.

It's something that, on Sunday, Chatham House, the independent think tank, were demanding that the government do something on.

And you don't assemble a coalition of, what is it, 11, 12 countries, as well as Britain, Canada, France, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden.

Israel has now announced its own retaliatory sanctions prompted by the British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband unveiling an import ban on goods from settlements as well as trade restrictions on any companies involved in expanding the settlements.

This morning, Sally Sara spoke to Alex Ballinger, a member of parliament for the governing Labour Party in the UK and a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, and she began by asking him this.

Alex Ballinger, why did the government take this action now?

now?I think we've seen for, for a long time over the last two or three years the deteriorating, um, situation in the West Bank.

But we do need to be clear that, um, these are legal settlements that are on land that is, um, designated, reserved for a future Palestinian state.

The ethnic cleansing that, uh, Israel is engaged in is wrong and the UK will always take action to stand up for international law and I hope, um, the people of Israel can recognize that a- and it won't damage that relationship that we have with Israel overall.

Alex Ballinger is a member of Parliament for the governing Labour Party in the UK and a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee there.

there.You could say the theme of political and military conflict ran right through Radio National Breakfast this morning.