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To ask Her Majesty’s Government what additional support they
are providing for key services for Palestinian refugees,
including schools, health, and emergency food and cash
distribution, following the decision by the government of the
United States to cut funding to the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
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The Minister of State, Department for International
Development (Lord Bates) (Con)
My Lords, we are consistently a major donor to UNRWA, having
so far provided around £50 million in 2017-18 based on the
agency meeting rigorous performance indicators. We
contributed more than expected for this financial year to
help to manage UNRWA’s funding gap in December. We are
working closely with UNRWA and other key donors to do all
that we can to maintain essential services for Palestinian
refugees.
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(Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. I am reassured
that the Government are working hard on closing the gap, but
cuts of $50 million to $60 million are bound to have severe
impacts on the ongoing work of UNRWA with women, children
and, indeed, men. Will we do everything possible to make sure
that these cuts do not have to take place? Will we recognise
that cuts of that kind, coming so soon after the President’s
precipitant action on Jerusalem, must inevitably raise
anxiety and unrest about the level of commitment to the
Palestinian people required of us by the Balfour Declaration?
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As the noble Lord will know from his immense experience in
this area, the Government and officials are having meetings
with their opposite numbers in the United States, seeking to
understand the position in relation to that. As we understand
it, a tranche which was due to paid of about $65 million was
withheld, the basis for which can vary depending on who you
talk to. Part of the reason from the US is that it wants to
encourage more international donors to step up to the plate
to help to fund UNRWA—and, on that point, I think that it has
something to say. The largest bilateral donors are Germany
with $76 million, Sweden with $61 million and the United
Kingdom with $60 million, while the United States
contribution last year was $364 million. It is a huge
contributor to UNRWA and, as well as the international
community rightly challenging the importance of the
humanitarian assistance from the United States, we should
recognise the significant contribution that the United States
makes to UNRWA’s important work.
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(Con)
My Lords, at his next meeting with the American Secretary of
State, will the Foreign Secretary encourage him not to build
the American embassy in Jerusalem but rather to renew the
funding to the agency referred to in this Question?
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The Prime Minister has already made her position very clear.
On 6 December she said:
“Our position on the status of Jerusalem is clear and
long-standing: it should be determined in a negotiated
settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and
Jerusalem should ultimately be the shared capital of the
Israeli and Palestinian states. In line with relevant
Security Council Resolutions”.
That is why we took almost unprecedented action at the UN
Security Council in supporting the Motion, and at the UN
General Assembly. We regard the idea as unhelpful to the
peace process.
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(Lab)
It is very clear that the reaction of the US authorities is
obviously in relation to the UN General Assembly resolution;
that was made clear in one tweet that was issued. If the
State Department is saying that UNRWA requires reform, would
not it be a good idea to engage positively with the State
Department and see what kinds of reforms were necessary to
ensure continued support for the Palestinian people?
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UNRWA is providing essential healthcare to 3 million people
and education to half a million children. We recognise that
UNRWA could do some things better; UNRWA recognises that it
could do some things better. We took up a mechanism last year
whereby we introduced a performance review element into our
funding of £50 million. That may be a way forward for others
to act—but it is for the United States and other donors to
step up and act as they choose.
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(LD)
Does the Minister agree that it is likely to be preferable
for Palestinian children in Gaza to be taught in UNRWA
schools rather than Hamas-led ones? In the light of that,
will the Government put pressure on the United States to
encourage it to restore full funding for the UNRWA schools,
which I hope the Minister has seen in operation, as I have?
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We have high regard for the work of UNRWA in Gaza; we have a
no-contact policy with Hamas. We are supporting the
Palestinian Authority as it seeks to re-engage and take
responsibility in Gaza. We also work through UNICEF on the
ground, providing water and sanitation. I support the noble
Baroness’s views on UNRWA schools very much. They have been
visited and audited by a number of Members of this House and
found to be of a very high standard. We want to encourage
that.
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(Con)
My Lords, last year President Mahmoud Abbas of the
Palestinian Authority pledged that he would not stop paying
salaries to imprisoned terrorists and their families, even if
it cost him his presidency. Does the Minister agree that
there cannot be peace until the Palestinian Authority truly
renounces violence and stops glorifying terrorism against
Israelis?
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The United Kingdom Government support the Palestinian
Authority financially, on the basis that it has a policy of
saying that it will recognise the State of Israel and accept
its responsibility to clamp down on speech designed to incite
hatred and division. That is a condition of our funding;
there is no question of any funds from the United Kingdom
taxpayer going to support terrorists in prison. Our funding
goes via a list of teachers and health professionals,
carefully vetted by the EU, to enable them to provide care
for people in great need in that area.
