United Nations Relief and Works Agency

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

It is time that there was a peace process and for the parties to the conflict to come to the table and start to negotiate to resolve these matters regarding refugees. UNRWA provides essential healthcare to some 3 million people in the region, along with essential education for 525,000 people there. The United Kingdom Government are not going to walk by on the other side when people are in need.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that response, which is absolutely right. The noble Lord, Lord Polak, made a point about what more we can do, which I found really interesting because the last time that the Minister responded on the issue of the importance of UNRWA he recognised that we could not do this on our own. We have to work with our partners, particularly our European partners. Is there not an opportunity to focus more on inter-community activity and on economic activity which can build a sustainable economic environment in the Palestinian territories?

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord makes a good point and we are very much with him on that. The situation in Gaza is appalling. Youth unemployment is running at around 70%. That was one of the reasons we decided to double the amount of economic development assistance that we give to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The sum will go up to some £38 million over the next five years. We need to work with our partners across a whole range of areas, and our European friends and colleagues are very important to this process. It is also incredibly important that we leverage our influence with our United States friends. That has been done by our Foreign Secretary in a meeting with Jared Kushner. Moreover, the Minister, Alistair Burt, was in the region over the weekend with Jason Greenblatt, who is the special representative for the area for the US President. We will continue to work on all those fronts.