Lord Barber of Chittlehampton (Lab)

My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend for her comments this afternoon and to the Prime Minister for his work on Britain’s interests abroad. I particularly appreciated my noble friend’s comments on settler violence in answer to a previous question. I want to raise a second question about the Israeli Government’s policy. They collect tax for the Palestinian Authority every month, and for a year that tax has not been paid over to the Palestinian Authority. The result is that the public sector workforce and the civil servants are on small fractions of their pay, often working just for commitment to their country rather than pay. This is creating massive problems and a potential crisis. I urge my noble friend to put it to the Government that we need to put urgent pressure on the Israeli Government to pay over the tax that they have collected from Palestinians to the Palestinian Authority so the authority can get it on with doing its job. I say this as the Government’s envoy to the Palestinian Authority on governance. Finally, I will say that I really liked the answer earlier on a Palestinian state being created and a two-state solution. A state with the rule of law, living in peace with its neighbours, has to be the outcome we all seek.