Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 15 February 2019 to Question 220733, whether the independent review of Palestinian Authority textbooks will be published by September 2019.

Given the seriousness with which the UK takes the allegations of incitement in the Palestinian pilot curriculum and textbooks we have taken the time needed to make sure that the independent review delivered will be rigorous, credible and can form the basis for discussions with the Palestinian Authority (PA) on this important issue. Securing the backing of the wider international community is central to this. We are pleased that after calls by the UK government for international action the European Union (EU) agreed to lead and co-fund the independent review. DFID has pressed hard to expedite this and had hope to make findings available to Parliament by September 2019, including by commissioning an inception report to form the basis of the independent review.

The EU are currently in contracting negotiations with a potential service partner. Following this negotiation DFID will provide an update to Parliamentarians on the timetable for the report. We recognise that publishing findings by September is now very unlikely, although we anticipate only a short delay. In the interim, we are continuing to raise our concerns about incitement in education, which I did personally at a meeting with the Palestinian Authority Education Minister in Ramallah in May 2019.