Palestinian School Curriculum: Radicalisation
Debate between Jonathan Gullis and Julian Lewis(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Jonathan Gullis
I remember that trip. When we met members of the Palestinian Authority, including one of the chief negotiators back in the early 1990s, we saw the lack of drive and vision for how to reach a two-state solution. I could not agree more with my hon. Friend and will not try to better his comments, because he perfectly summed up the situation. The self-interest of these leaders in prolonging the conflict causes immeasurable long-term harm to the Palestinian and Israeli people.
I welcome to the Minister to his place, and I understand that he may not yet have had the chance to raise these issues with his Palestinian counterparts, but does he agree that we have a duty of care to children worldwide who receive UK aid to ensure that their educational experience is positive? Will he confirm that £20 million of annual UK support the Palestinian Authority contributes to the salaries of teachers and health workers through a vetted EU list? Does the UK monitor the training programme for the teachers whose salaries we pay? Who oversees that programme?
While it is not necessarily the UK’s place to determine the narrative and content of another territory’s curriculum, we are duty-bound to intervene immediately should unacceptable materials be used in education systems supported financially by British taxpayers.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The House of Commons Library briefing shows that, on 1 April 2018, in response to reports about this sort of material, the Department for International Development’s media team stated:
“DFID is planning to conduct a thorough assessment of the Palestinian curriculum and evidence and if we find evidence of material which incites violence, we will take action.”
That is coming up to two years ago, so I think we ought to have heard something from the Government about this by now.
Jonathan Gullis
I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend. One reason why I wanted to secure the debate is that two years is absolutely too long. We need to ensure that UK aid money—UK taxpayers’ hard-earned money—is used appropriately, for aid and support and not to promote violence and extremism.