Chamber and committees

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what support it is providing for humanitarian assistance in Gaza. (S6O-04841)

I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for that response. Last month, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs—OCHA—Tom Fletcher, made an immensely powerful contribution at the UN Security Council. He described Israel’s plans for aid distribution as

“a cynical sideshow. A deliberate distraction. A fig leaf for further violence and displacement”.

Just this week, his colleague Jonathan Whittall described the situation. He said:

“What we are seeing is carnage. It is weaponized hunger. It is forced displacement. It’s a death sentence for people just trying to survive.

It appears to be the erasure of Palestinian life.”

Will the cabinet secretary join me, the UN and many others in condemning Israel’s deliberate starvation of the people of Gaza, the shameful killing of hundreds of Palestinians who are simply waiting for food, and does he agree that the job of getting aid to starving people in Gaza should be done by UN agencies and trusted non-governmental organisations, not by mercenaries masquerading as humanitarian workers?

Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. That is not only my view but the view of hundreds of legal experts in genocide studies. Every state has an obligation to prevent genocide. Although the UK is the state party to the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, we in Scotland must do what we can to ensure that we are in no way complicit in that genocide or in the continued illegal occupation of the West Bank.

In the light of that, will the minister make it clear that no taxpayer-funded contract from the Scottish Government will aid those war crimes? Will he confirm that the Government will undertake an immediate review to consider what action it can take to ensure that any company that operates in illegal settlements or is in any way complicit in the genocide in Gaza is prevented from bidding for future Scottish Government contracts?

To ask the Scottish Government how it ensures that public procurement aligns with its obligations under international law. (S6O-04782)

Wait a minute—come on.

I thank the cabinet secretary for her comprehensive response. The loss and damage fund is a great example of how Scotland has shown global solidarity with the global south, which has shouldered the heaviest impacts of climate change.

The cabinet secretary might be aware of the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund’s call for debt cancellation, a new debt framework and a debt justice law, so that some of the poorest countries in the world can spend their money on making their countries more climate resilient, not on debt payments to wealthy creditors. Although I appreciate that direct responsibility for that matter might lie with other ministerial colleagues, will the cabinet secretary commend SCIAF for its excellent cancel debt, choose hope campaign? Will she ensure that the Scottish Government meets SCIAF and explores what action Scotland can take to ensure that debt does not continue to cripple the world’s poorest?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what actions it is taking to help tackle climate debt in the global south. (S6O-04607)

I thank the Green Party for bringing this important debate to the chamber. Let me say from the outset that I support its calls to end all arms sales to Israel and agree that not a penny of public funding should be going to arms companies, including those in Scotland, that supply weapons or munitions to Israel.

Some have suggested that we are at the beginning of a new world order. I suggest that it more closely resembles disorder than order. We are living at a time when one of our closest allies—which was on the same side as us in world war 2—was, on Monday this week, in the United Nations, on the side of dictators in Russia, North Korea and Belarus. It seems that, whether you choose to invade Ukraine or kill 18,000 children in Gaza, you can now do so with impunity. In the absence of any rules-based order, anarchy will ensue. I suggest that anarchy and chaos in a world with more than 12,000 nuclear warheads poses a real existential threat to humanity.

For those who still believe in a rules-based order—as I suspect all of us in the chamber do—now is the time to ensure that we are, at a minimum, complying with international law and supporting its equal application across the world. That is only one reason why I support calls to halt all arms sales to Israel.

Let me remind members that Israel is a nation that is currently headed by a man who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes including using starvation as a method of warfare. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also wanted for crimes against humanity including murder, persecution and other inhumane acts. How can we possibly claim to be a bastion of democracy and a standard bearer of international law and human rights when we are supplying weapons to the man who the highest court in the world has demanded face trial for war crimes? We must choose accountability, not complicity.

I just touched on what I think is the legal case for why we should end arms sales to Israel. Let me end my contribution by mentioning the moral case. The Conservative amendment mentions Israel’s right to self-defence but nothing about the Palestinians’ right to self-defence. There is no right to self-defence for those such as my wife’s 95-year-old grandmother, who was kicked out of her house in 1948 alongside more than 700,000 other Palestinians. Their homes were given away by the British and their land occupied by Israel. There is no right to self-defence for those who have lived under armed occupation for decades and who continue to see the eradication of their land and the erasure of their culture and their identity as a people.

Is there anyone who sincerely believes that Israel’s retaliation to those horrific attacks on 7 October 2023 has been proportionate in its self-defence? Was Israel defending itself from five-year-old Hind Rajab when it massacred her with 335 bullets? Was Israel defending itself from two-year-old Laila al-Khatib when an Israeli sniper shot and killed her while she was eating dessert with her grandparents? Was Israel defending itself from four-day-old twins Ayssel and Asser when killing them in an air strike while their father was registering their births?

That is not self-defence—it is slaughter, and our arms companies, our Governments and our nations must play no part in it.

I am pleased to hear that the cabinet secretary is writing to her UK counterpart to seek a meeting and that she will propose that that issue be on the agenda.

Let me from the outset acknowledge the incredibly difficult job that prison officers up and down the country do. The overwhelming majority do the job well. However, in any organisation, there will be individual and institutional failures, and on occasion, those failures will have a devastating impact.

Last year, I wrote to the then Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, asking that he give serious consideration to lifting Crown immunity for the Scottish Prison Service for breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. I was not given a courtesy of a response. Can the cabinet secretary confirm that, during her meeting, she will urge the UK Government to seriously consider lifting Crown immunity to ensure that, if there are criminal failures in the Prison Service, those responsible are able to be held to account and are not protected by Crown immunity?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide further details on the implementation of its social isolation and loneliness strategy, “Recovering our Connections 2023-2026”, particularly in relation to urban areas. (S6O-04146)