Oral Answers to Questions

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The short answer on the details of the initiative is no, because it requires the United States to take the lead. That is not because other countries like us are not willing to play our own active part, but because the United States is in a unique position in the world to help bring Israel into a two-state solution. I will be going to Washington next week and discussing the question with the United States. The Secretary of State has changed and there have been many other changes of personnel in the US Administration, and I have put it to them that this should be the single highest priority for new momentum in American foreign policy, even with all the other challenges we face in the world today.

[Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

For five and a half years now, the Quartet has followed a largely economic policy in the west bank, personified by the work of Tony Blair, presumably to try to help lay better conditions for a political settlement. That strategy has comprehensively failed as the possibility of a political settlement is much further away now than it was then. Is it not now time for the Quartet to focus heavily on the politics rather than the economics?

[Mr Hague]

It is very important that the Quartet does everything that it can to recognise the urgency of what we are speaking about on both sides of the House. At the same time it is very important that we do everything we can to support a Palestinian economy that is in a serious condition. As my hon. Friend knows, we provide £30 million a year in budget support to the Palestinian Authority, and the Department for International Development has provided £349 million in support of Palestinian development in the current four-year spending programme. However, the conditions are difficult, and other nations need to do more. It is important that the Israelis release the revenues that are owed to the Palestinians.