Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 13 September 2017 to Question 8642, for what reasons her Department concluded that the IMPACT-SE report on the Palestinian Elementary School Curriculum 2016-17 was not objective in its findings.

The UK Government was very concerned at some of the allegations outlined in the IMPACT-SE report. We are therefore working to commission a robust study into the new Palestinian textbooks. Our assessment is that the IMPACT-SE report was not objective in its findings and lacked methodological rigour. For example, some claims were made on the basis of a partial or subjective reading of the text, some findings are presented out of context, and there was limited information available about the sampling approach to select textbooks to analyse.