Nicholas Soames – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2015-10-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many of the recommendations of the 2011 report on Palestinian children in military custody, funded by his Department, have been carried out.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

Since the publication of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office funded independent report on Children in Military Custody in June 2012, there has been some progress on the issue of children held in military detention.

Officials from our Embassy in Tel Aviv held roundtable meetings with Israeli officials, most recently on 19 May. These meetings confirmed that progress is being made including a pilot to use summons instead of night-time arrests, changes to standard operating procedures on methods of restraint, and steps to reduce the amount of time a child can be detained before seeing a judge. Officials from our Embassy in Tel Aviv continue to push for further progress with Israeli officials.

On 2 June, the Minister of State, my noble Friend the right hon. Baroness Anelay of St Johns met the Israeli Military Advocate General and the Israeli Ambassador to London where the issue of child detention was discussed. She made clear that while we welcome improvements, we continue to push for the full implementation of changes and to encourage further changes in practice.