Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effect on the peace process of differences in how the application of planning regulations apply to settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank.

This question was answered on 17th November 2014
The British Government regularly raises concerns regarding the Israeli building and planning regime in Area C with the Israeli Government. The UK has also called publicly on Israel to take steps towards the transfer of authority over Area C to the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian development in Area C is essential for a sustainable Palestinian economy, yet only 1% of Area C is zoned for Palestinian construction and a large portion of this land is already built-up. The UK will therefore continue to press Israel to ease the current restrictive permitting regime and to transfer control of Area C to the Palestinian Authority as per the Oslo accords. The Israeli Non-Governmental Organisation Peace Now has identified the building and demolition decisions in Area C. Between 2000 and 2007 the Israeli Civil Administration approved only 91 of 1,624 Palestinian applications. During the same period Israeli settlers built over 18,000 homes in the same area. We assess that this does not help efforts towards peace.