Syria

Baroness Tonge Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on securing this debate. Last week I was in Lebanon, visiting refugee camps there, and I want to take this opportunity to highlight the plight of the Palestinians among the millions of refugees fleeing Syria.

I met people whose families had fled Palestine during the Nakba in 1948 and found shelter in Iraq but 10 years ago had had to flee Iraq as well, following the war waged against Saddam Hussein. They had made their homes in Syria, where they were very well treated by the Government, until rebel groups infiltrated the Yarmouk camp and catastrophe occurred once more. They were refugees again, for the third time in a generation. They are now trying to live in Lebanon. Their entire support is coming from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency—UNRWA—because they are not allowed to work by the Lebanese Government; they are not given work permits. They live among other Palestinians in converted sheds and animal shelters, which I visited, that UNRWA and the NGOs have managed to make just about habitable. They have no means of support and have been dependent on monthly cash handouts from UNRWA to cover food costs and rent. Unrest is developing very quickly in the camps because UNRWA has had to tell the refugees that these cash handouts will have to stop at the end of June because it has run out of funds.

UNRWA was set up as a temporary organisation in 1948 to help refugees from the Nakba. It is still struggling to cope 60 years later. The UK is the third-largest funder of UNRWA, and we should be proud of what we have done, but we need to address this shortfall in funding before unrest spills over into serious violence and fighting in Lebanon itself. Can the Minister tell us what the Government intend to do to avert this cash shortage? For instance, will pressure be put on the Gulf states to help? Finally—she will expect me to say this—will she not admit that the creation of a secure homeland for the Palestinians is now more needed than ever, and that our Government should encourage this by recognising the state of Palestine? This would be a huge contribution to peace in the wider Middle East.