Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what diplomatic steps his Department is taking to help ensure political stability in the Occupied Palestinian Territories following the resignation of Mohammad Shtayyeh.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has an important long-term role to play. We must work with our allies to provide serious, practical and enduring support needed to bolster the PA. We already provide technical and practical support and are ready to do more. The PA must also take much needed steps on reform, including setting out a pathway to democratic progress.

Just as the PA must act, so must Israel. This means releasing frozen funds, halting settlement expansion and holding to account those responsible for extremist settler violence.

We are looking at what more we can do, including providing economic support to the PA. We have already moved to ban those responsible for violence in the West Bank from the UK.

We have taken further steps to hold those to account who undermine the steps to peace in the West Bank. Earlier this month, the Foreign Secretary announced new sanctions designations against four extremist Israeli settlers who have violently attacked Palestinians in the West Bank.