19:28 Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)

In the climate talks in Paris today, the Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, shared a handshake. That could possibly be the start of a dialogue between the two sides, and it is dialogue that is needed, rather than what the Secretary-General of the United Nations has referred to as the continued enclosure of the Palestinians behind walls. We have to find our way towards a solution, and I believe that this country, with its long history in the middle east, could play its part in that. With goodwill on both sides, we may yet see a resolution of that most persistent of conflicts.

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19:44 Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)

Across the middle east, we see a number of themes. We see great demographic change. We see a growing population of young people, without the economic growth to give them the jobs they need. That means they become discontented, and that social grievance can lead to changes in Government. Probably, with the benefit of hindsight, we would say that it is what underpinned the Arab spring, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell said, nobody really predicted. In addition, we are seeing changes to the economic structure of these countries: agriculture is changing, food security is diminishing, food prices are rising in the cities and desertification is taking place, possibly as a result of climate change—who is to say? I am not expert enough to call it. That is certainly leading to greater urbanisation, which is accelerating some of those changes to the employment of young people and the social structures that lie within it.

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21:21 Bob Blackman (Conservative)

Then we had the Arab spring, which had a great swath of democracy at its heart. Everyone dreamed that it would be the beginning of a great movement for change. Sadly, wherever we got democracy, we have now seen dictatorship, war, civil war and further interventions right across the region, and we need to look at that. We have seen the refugee crisis that has erupted as a result of the civil war in Syria, but that is as nothing to the refugee crisis that will be generated unless we address climate change. The region will become uninhabitable, water will be non-existent and food will be impossible to obtain, and we will then bear enormous consequences as a result. It is therefore appropriate to examine that as a particular issue.

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