Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateGraham P Jones
Main Page: Graham P Jones (Labour - Hyndburn)Department Debates - View all Graham P Jones's debates with the Department for International Development
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberMy hon. Friend is entirely right to identify the conference on Somalia organised by the Prime Minister as the beginning and not the end of the process. Certainly, there will be an absolute commitment across Whitehall to drive forward the results of that conference and make them meaningful on the ground in the way that my hon. Friend describes.
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
My Department is heavily engaged in achieving the development results set out to Parliament a year ago in the bilateral and multilateral aid reviews. Those include securing education for at least 11 million children, saving the lives of 50,000 women in childbirth, and getting clean water and sanitation to more people than live in the whole of the United Kingdom. Britain is also heavily engaged in difficult humanitarian situations around the world, including in Syria.
On 24 February, Israeli authorities approved 500 new homes in the west bank settlement of Shiloh and retroactively legalised more than 200 built-without-permits, some in the settler outpost of Shvut Rachel. What does the Minister say to his colleagues in Israel to try to stop these illegal developments?
As the hon. Gentleman makes clear, these settlements are illegal and the Foreign Secretary has made that absolutely clear to his opposite numbers, as did I when I visited Israel, the west bank and Gaza just before Christmas. [Interruption.]