Afternoon summary
Rachel Reeves has confirmed that some winter fuel payments will be reinstated in time for this winter after weeks of uncertainty over the government’s decision to make a U-turn on scrapping the benefit. But the government will not be restoring winter fuel payments for all pensioners, Torsten Bell, the pensions minister, told a committee this morning. He said:
Directly on your question of is there any prospect of a universal winter fuel payment, the answer is no. The principle most people, 95% of people, agree, that it’s not a good idea that we have a system paying a few hundreds of pounds to millionaires, and so we’re not going to be continuing with that. But we will be looking at making more pensioners eligible.
Jeremy Wright, a former Tory attorney general, has told MPs that he has changed his mind over the timeframe for the recognition of Palestine, telling MPs he believes the state should “urgently” be recognised. Speaking during a statement on Gaza in the Commons, Wright said:
The policy of successive UK governments has been that the United Kingdom will recognise the state of Palestine when it’s conducive to the peace process, and to the ultimate realisation of the two-state solution. Up to this point I have accepted the argument that the minister and his predecessors have made, that that moment has not yet come.
But hasn’t the balance shifted decisively? With the succession of moves to greater territorial change in the West Bank by increased settlement activity and by increasingly blunt and very frequent statements by members of the Israeli government that we are going to restrict Palestinians to a subset of Gaza, or restrict Palestinians from Gaza altogether.
That’s what has changed my mind, such that I now believe it’s necessary for the UK, hopefully in conjunction with others, to recognise the state of Palestine urgently. Why has it not yet changed the government’s mind?”
Wright was one of dozens of MPs, from all sides of the Commons, who used to statement to criticise the government for not doing more to oppose what Israel is doing in Gaza.
For a full list of all the stories covered here today, scroll through the key events timeline at the top of the blog.
Corbyn says UK has been complicit in war crimes in Gaza, in speech calling for public inquiry
Jeremy Corbyn said that the UK had been complicit in war crimes in Gaza in his Commons speech earlier calling for a public inquiry. (See 3.59pm.)
He said that, while the last Labour government originally resisted calls for a public inquiry into the Iraq war, eventually it had to set one up. When it reported, he apologised as Labour leader for the what Labour government had done, he said.
He said history was now “repeating itself” and that “genocide” was happening in Gaza.
Over the past 18 months, human beings have endured a level of horror and inhumanity that should haunt us all: entire families wiped out, limbs strewn across the street, mothers screaming for their children buried under the rubble, human beings torn to pieces, doctors performing amputations without anaesthetic, children picking grass and dirt from the ground thinking they might find something edible to eat. The survivors face lifelong mental health consequences which will go on for generations.
Home by home, hospital by hospital, generation by generation, we are not just witnessing, we are witnessing a genocide – this time, live streamed all over the world.
Today, the death toll in Gaza exceeds 61,000 and at least 110,000 people, or one in 20 of the entire population, have been severely injured.
Corbyn said that the UK had been complicit in all this.
Britain has played a highly influential role in Israel’s military operations. First, Britain has been supplying weapons to Israel, weapons that have been used to bomb the people of Palestine.
This, of course, started with the previous Conservative government, but has continued with the current Labour government. In fact, between October and December 2024 alone, more arms export licences were granted than were approved by the previous government for the whole of 2020, and 2023.
In September the government suspended some licences, but continue to allow supply of F-35 components to the global pool. The foreign secretary has accepted the fact that F-35 jets are being used in violation of international humanitarian law, yet at the same time admits those parts go into the global supply chain and could therefore go to Israel.
They know full well the implications. By justifying the continued licencing of these parts, our government is admitting its complicity in what are quite clearly war crimes. I find this truly astounding.
Corbyn said an inquiry was needed because of the government’s “evasion, obstruction and silence” in response to questions about the government’s support for Israel
Transparency and accountability are the cornerstones of democracy. The public deserves to know the scale of the UK complicity in these atrocities.
He said an inquiry would consider questions like: what arms have been sold to Israel; where have they been used; have the Americans or Israelis been using the RAF Akrotiri, the airbase on Cyprus; what video footage does the UK have from the war zone; what intelligence has been given to Israel; and what legal advice has the government had about genocide.
Corbyn ended saying:
Today, we teach children about history’s worst war crimes against humanity. They’re asked to reflect about how those crimes ever came about. Our future history books will report with shame those that had the opportunity to stop this carnage but failed to act to achieve it.
