Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

1. What plans she has to work with her international counterparts to address humanitarian needs in Gaza.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

May I start by paying tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), who now moves over to the Home Office but did some fantastic work alongside me on the women and girls agenda, and also wish the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) good luck in his mission impossible as he seeks to take over Labour in Scotland?

The UK will continue to work closely with international partners to address humanitarian needs in Gaza. We have already provided over £17 million in humanitarian assistance and recently committed a further £20 million at the international donor conference in Cairo to assist those affected, including hundreds of thousands left homeless as winter approaches.

[Mr Turner]

There are 1.8 million people in Gaza and it is physically smaller than the Isle of Wight. Does the Secretary of State accept that 485,000 people in Gaza need emergency food assistance and 273,000 people need school buildings for shelter and, most important of all, around 1 million people are desperate for work? What is the right hon. Lady doing about that?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend raises some very good points. Gaza is one of the most densely populated parts of the world. As he says, we are, of course, providing shelter and basic services to many people, but we also increasingly work on private sector support, supporting livelihoods, and the key to that in the long term is a political settlement that means the economy in Gaza can thrive normally.