{"id":865,"date":"2016-12-28T20:36:11","date_gmt":"2016-12-28T20:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lfpme.org\/?post_type=parliament_activity&p=865"},"modified":"2017-09-21T21:37:19","modified_gmt":"2017-09-21T20:37:19","slug":"gaza-water-and-sanitation","status":"publish","type":"parliament_activity","link":"https:\/\/www.lfpme.org\/activity\/gaza-water-and-sanitation","title":{"rendered":"Gaza: Water and Sanitation"},"content":{"rendered":"

5. What assessment she has made of the quality and availability of water and sanitation facilities in Gaza. [902752]<\/p>\n

The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)<\/h2>\n

It is completely inadequate. Demand exceeds supply by a factor of four, and 96% of the extracted water fails World Health Organisation safety standards.<\/p>\n

Alex Cunningham<\/h2>\n

It is a terrible situation. Twenty-six per cent. of all diseases in Gaza, ranging from respiratory and gastric to skin and eye diseases, are directly associated with the poor water supply. Clean water is limited to 70 litres per person a day and that figure will fall drastically over the coming years. According to the UN, the underground coastal aquifer will become unusable by 2016. What can be done about that, or is it just a case of lifting the Israeli blockade and getting on with life?<\/p>\n

Mr Swayne<\/h2>\n

We are currently spending some \u20ac600,000 on a project to assist with desalination. Funds are available through our climate change fund for a long-term solution to this problem, but the level of investment and the marshalling of the factors of production will require a long-term peace process to be viable.<\/p>\n

Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)<\/h2>\n

The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) speaks about the blockade, but surely if they did not embrace Hamas and continually fire rockets into Israel, there would not need to be a blockade in the first place.<\/p>\n

Mr Swayne<\/h2>\n

We work continually with both sides to ease the economic conditions and to bring about a settlement.<\/p>\n

Mr Speaker<\/h2>\n

Natalie McGarry? Not here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","activity_category":[14],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfpme.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/parliament_activity\/865"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfpme.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/parliament_activity"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfpme.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/parliament_activity"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfpme.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"activity_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfpme.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/activity_category?post=865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}