Foreign Aid Expenditure

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. For the most part, DFID delivers global goods, lifts people out of extreme poverty, champions the rights of women and girls, and delivers humanitarian relief when disaster strikes. However, support for helping the poorest people on our planet is harmed, and DFID suffers reputational damage, when behaviour that contravenes aid agreements is unchallenged and when, despite being presented with evidence, DFID takes no remedial action. There is no greater example of that behaviour than the support DFID provides to the Palestinian Authority. However, I do not wish to dwell upon that as my views on the subject are well known. Where I seek to take this debate is to how DFID spending can assist in the quest for a two-state solution—something that all of us believe in.

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

I had the great pleasure last year of visiting Israel and Save a Child’s Heart, a wonderful charity that has helped about 4,000 children, half of whom are from the west bank and Gaza. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is the kind of co-existence project that DFID funding should be supporting?

[Dr Offord]

I absolutely agree, and I, too, have had the pleasure of visiting that hospital. I am very proud of my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who makes a monthly donation to that hospital out of his own pocket, which is something he should be commended for.

However, I do not wish to dwell on the Palestinian Authority and where they spend money. There is a need for greater support for individual projects actively promoting peaceful co-existence in the region, as Save a Child’s Heart does. That would support the UK Government’s own stated goal of securing a lasting and peaceful two-state solution, which, once again, is something that all of us in this room want.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Does my hon. Friend understand the foundations from which he wishes to build that co-existence that we would all like to see? Will he unequivocally confirm that he endorses the Government policy that Israeli settlements on Palestinian land are wholly illegal?

[Dr Offord]

I can confirm that I think that. Indeed, the Israeli Supreme Court says that as well, so there is no misunderstanding about that.

In April the Minister announced that DFID is

“open to considering further support”

through the conflict, security and stability fund

“for strong co-existence projects that bring Israelis and Palestinians together”.

[Chloe Smith]

I agree with my hon. Friend on the thrust of his remarks on peaceful projects. Does he agree with me that this is an example of how we should be looking to move away from general budgetary support and to specific project support, which I believe has already been done in countries such as Rwanda and Malawi?

[Dr Offord]

I certainly agree with that sentiment, and the examples I wish to raise are of ongoing projects that do not achieve the aims that are sought.

Less than 13% of DFID’s £1.17 million funding of Israeli and Palestinian NGOs goes towards projects that bring the two peoples together. That represents around 0.2% of the £72 million that DFID spends in the Palestinian Territories. A number of NGO projects currently sponsored by DFID in Israel and the Palestinian Territories carry out laudable activities, yet have a questionable outlook of endorsing violence. Some of those NGOs engage in activities that undermine peace efforts and increase tensions, and a number are heavily involved in “lawfare” and the so-called Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

UK-funded NGOs have their own NGO, through something called NGO Monitor, that looks at how some of the funding is spent through the conflict, stability and security fund. NGO Monitor seeks to hold NGOs in Israel and the Palestinian territories to account, and regards UK funding to a number of those NGOs as

“a manipulation of the democratic process, an attempt to change ‘Israeli civil and military judicial practice and decisions’ and government policy”

and notes that some of those groups are

“engaged in anti-Israel efforts.”

NGO Monitor has also said that

“a significant proportion of the NGOs receiving British funds promote the Palestinian political narrative, focusing only on allegations of Israeli human rights violations.”

The UK Government currently funds 10 NGO projects in Israel through the conflict, stability and security fund: the Peres Centre for Peace, INJAZ, Kids Creating Peace, Yesh Din, Gisha, Peace Now, Terrestrial Jerusalem, the International Peace and Co-operation Centre, and Rabbis for Human Rights. Because of the limited amount of time, I will look at just one of those. Yesh Din describes its mission as working

“to oppose the continuing violation of Palestinian human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory... documenting and disseminating accurate and up-to-date information about the systematic violation of human rights in the OPT, by raising public awareness”.

In October 2013, members of Yesh Din took part in an Arab celebration on the ruins of a Jewish community in Homesh, with attendees desecrating Jewish symbols and waving anti-Semitic posters, including one depicting a Jew with a spear through his head. That is where our money is going.

I would like the Minister to hear our concerns today and not to continually view this problem through a prism of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Our money is going to some causes that I am sure he would be ashamed of. I hope that we can take that message to the Government today and make sure that we actually look at our spending.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Gibson]

No, but there are some sections of the right-wing media where, if I read the football scores there, I would need to check them. I would not believe everything that I read in certain sections of the right-wing media.

[Dr Offord]

Does the hon. Lady accept that there are also some unacceptable left-wing media as well?

[Patricia Gibson]

I am confining my remarks here to the misinformation perpetrated about foreign aid with the sole agenda of undermining that 0.7% commitment. That is despicable. In effect, it is waging a press war against the most vulnerable people on our planet, which is wholly outrageous, and we should be willing to say so.