Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that Official Development Assistance is not allocated by the Palestinian Authority to the families of people who have been involved in terrorist activity.

No UK aid is used for payments to prisoners or their families or the Martyrs Fund. DFID has robust measures in place to ensure UK Aid reaches only its intended beneficiaries. UK aid to the Palestinian Authority’s (PA’s) health and education sectors is channelled through the EU Palestinian-European Socio-Economic Management Assistance Mechanism. Our money goes into a dedicated bank account before being paid to individuals who have been carefully vetted in advance. The bank account is only used for UK aid. Independent auditors check that the money paid out from this bank account only went to the vetted individuals after every disbursement.

UK assistance to the PA for water and energy will be through the World Bank Partnership for Infrastructure Development in the West Bank and Gaza Multi Donor Trust Fund. UK aid will flow from the trust fund to dedicated accounts that will be managed by the PA in accordance with rules established by the World Bank, and be subject to the review of external financial auditors to provide assurance that the expenditure of funds was only on agreed programme activities.