Asked by: Lord Bishop of Southwark (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to reinstate funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and, if so, when.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK provided £35 million to UNRWA this financial year, including an uplift of £16 million for the Gaza humanitarian response, all of which was disbursed before the recent allegations came to light. No more British funding is due this financial year and we have paused any future funding of UNRWA. I met with Commissioner-General Phillipe Lazzarini on 4 April to discuss the steps they are taking in response to the interim findings.
We want UNRWA to give detailed undertakings about changes in personnel, policy and precedents to ensure this can never happen again. We are working with allies to try to bring this situation to a rapid conclusion - not least because UNRWA have a vital role to play in providing aid and services in Gaza.
We are aware that the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services and Catherine Colonna have now provided their interim reports to the UN Secretary-General.
Our decision to pause future funding to UNRWA has no impact on the UK's contribution to the humanitarian response. We remain committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it, including through other UN agencies and British charities.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to her Department's press release entitled £5 million fund to tackle fatal drug deaths across the UK, published on 29 August 2023, how this funding will be distributed; and what criteria her Department is using to select projects for this funding.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of the Reducing Drug Deaths Innovation Challenge, which aims to reduce drug-related deaths across the United Kingdom, the Department is investing in 12 projects to develop technologies aimed at improving detection, response, or intervention in potential drug-related deaths.
Applicants submitted proposals, and these were assessed by an independent panel. Detailed assessment criteria were worked up by NHS Fife, and then moderated before awards were made. They included how well the project met the challenge described in the competition scope, the main technical challenges addressed, what similar products were available and how the proposal differentiated from them, project plan and milestones, expertise, cost, and commercial potential. We awarded funding to 12 projects, with further information available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/5-million-fund-to-tackle-fatal-drug-deaths-across-the-uk
This funding supports wider Government initiatives to tackle drug misuse in society. The UK’s drugs strategy, published in December 2021, has a key objective to prevent 1,000 drug deaths in England by 2025. This aligns with work within and across the four nations of the UK to improve systems of support and reduce drug-related deaths.
Asked by: Steve McCabe (Labour - Birmingham, Selly Oak)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what proportion of his Department's aid to Gaza is channelled through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
UK funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was disbursed before the allegations that UNRWA employees were involved in the appalling 7 October terror attack against Israel came to light. No more British funding is due this financial year and we are pausing any future funding of UNRWA.
The UK provided £16 million this financial year to UNRWA's Flash Appeal in response to the Gaza Crisis, which constitutes 22% of the UK's total humanitarian allocations to Gaza. Our decision to pause future funding to UNRWA has had no impact on the UK's contribution to the humanitarian response. We are doing everything we can to get more aid into Gaza as quickly as possible by land, sea and air, working with partners including the British Red Cross, UNICEF, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Egyptian Red Crescent Society to respond to critical food, fuel, water, health, shelter and security needs in Gaza.
Asked by: Steve McCabe (Labour - Birmingham, Selly Oak)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what proportion of UK aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is spent on (a) food, (b) medicines, (c) other essentials, (d) salaries and (e) other costs for (i) UNRWA personnel and (ii) other employees.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
UK funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was disbursed before the allegations that UNRWA employees were involved in the appalling 7 October terror attack against Israel came to light. No more British funding is due this financial year and we are pausing any future funding of UNRWA.
We provided £19 million of unearmarked funding this financial year to UNRWA's programme budget. This enabled UNRWA to deliver education, health, relief and social services and protection to 5.9 million Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. The UK also provided £16 million to UNRWA's Flash Appeal in response to the Gaza Crisis, supporting UNRWA to deliver humanitarian assistance, food, shelter, and non-food items for refugees in Gaza.
Our decision to pause future funding to UNRWA has no impact on the UK's contribution to the humanitarian response.
Our commitment to trebling aid to Gaza still stands and we are supporting partners including the British Red Cross, UNICEF, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Egyptian Red Crescent Society to respond to critical food, fuel, water, health, shelter and security needs in Gaza.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the decision of the General Assembly of the United Nations to establish a Register of Damages for the Crime of Aggression in Ukraine, what assessment they have made of the categories of claim included; how entries to the Register are to be made; and how the distribution of damages will be determined and audited to deter corruption.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK is committed to ensuring Russia pays for its unprovoked war in Ukraine, including in our role as an inaugural member and Chair of the Conference of Parties of the Register of Damage. The Register is an important step in the pursuit of justice and ensuring those responsible are held to account. The Member States of the Register are expected to approve the list of claims categories and the process for submitting claims at the end of March 2024. The Register will have no adjudication functions with respect to claims, including determination of responsibility and allocation of any payments.
Asked by: Michael Ellis (Conservative - Northampton North)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the analysis of casualty figures in Gaza by the Professor of Statistics and Data Science at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, published on 7 March 2024.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
Like many of our partners, we routinely use reports from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to monitor daily figures for casualties in Gaza. OCHA rely on reporting from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza. Casualty figures are only one data point of many we use to understand the scale of the conflict and its impact on civilians. Satellite imagery of building damage, eye-witness accounts from hospitals and data on living conditions all feed into our assessment.
Asked by: Anna McMorrin (Labour - Cardiff North)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what steps his Department is taking to help prevent delays in the implementation of the 2016 Columbia peace agreement.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
I [Minister Rutley] met with Colombian ministers in Bogota earlier this month where I stressed the importance of making progress on the 2016 Peace Agreement. During the most recent United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting on 11 January, the UK and various Council members reiterated their commitment to support implementation of the 2016 peace agreement as the central peace policy in Colombia. As the second largest UN Trust Fund donor, the UK continues to be a leading advocate in support of Colombia's peace process and supports the work of the UN Verification Mission.
Asked by: Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has had recent discussions with (a) Unicef and (b) the United Nations Rapporteur on extreme poverty on initiatives to tackle child poverty.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP officials engage with a wide range of stakeholders including UNICEF.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 7 March (HL2663), whether they have made any estimate of the number of camps, including the so-called anti-extremism centres and re-education camps, in (1) Tibet and (2) the rest of China.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government refers to credible external estimates, in particular those from the United Nations, of numbers of individuals in China detained under various circumstances and within certain geographies. For example, the April 2023 UN Special Procedures found "[h]undreds of thousands of Tibetans have reportedly been 'transferred' from their traditional rural lives to low-skilled and low-paid employment since 2015" noting "the labour transfer programme is facilitated by a network of 'vocational training centres', which focus less on developing professional skills and more on cultural and political indoctrination in a militarised environment." As noted in the Government's response to Written Question HL2663, with regard to the situation in Xinjiang, in 2018 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination estimated "upwards of a million people were being held in so-called counter-extremism centres and another two million had been forced into what the Chinese refer to as 're-education camps' for political and cultural indoctrination."
Asked by: Earl of Sandwich (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what impact the UK's suspension of funding for UNRWA had on its performance in delivering aid to Gaza in the last financial year; and what is their forecast of funding in 2024.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK provided £35 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) this financial year, including an uplift of £16 million for the Gaza humanitarian response, all of which was disbursed before the recent allegations came to light. No more British funding is due this financial year and we are pausing any future funding of UNRWA.
Our decision to pause future funding has no impact on the UK's contribution to the humanitarian response. We remain committed to getting humanitarian aid to people in Gaza who desperately need it, including through other UN agencies and British charities. On 13 March, the Government announced a further £10 million in aid funding to bring UK support to more than £100 million this financial year. UK funding has supported the work of partners including the British Red Cross, World Food Programme, UNICEF and Egyptian Red Crescent Society (ERCS) to deliver vital supplies.