Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what steps he is taking to help ensure that adequate aid is being allowed into Palestine.

The UK has trebled its aid commitment for this financial year and is working closely with partners in international agencies and in the region to get aid to where it is desperately needed.

We played a leading role in securing the passage of Security Council resolution 2720, which set out the urgent demand for expanded humanitarian access, and supported the United Nations World Food Programme to deliver a new humanitarian land corridor from Jordan into Gaza, with 750 metric tons of life-saving food aid arriving in the first delivery. The Foreign Secretary continues to discuss and press for the action that needs to be taken to increase aid to Gaza in his regular calls with his Israeli, Egyptian, Jordanian, Lebanese, US and Palestinian Authority counterparts. The Foreign Secretary's Representative for Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Mark Bryson-Richardson, is based in the region and working intensively to address the blockages preventing more aid reaching Gaza.