Oral Answers to Questions Debate
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Duncan Hames
Main Page: Duncan Hames (Liberal Democrat - Chippenham)Department Debates - View all Duncan Hames's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hague
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we do not encourage boycotts in any way. The British Government do not support boycotts or a de-legitimisation of Israel, but we do support, as did the last Government, labelling of products from illegal settlements in the west bank, and I think that is the right thing to do. But the hon. Gentleman is quite right that our emphasis is on bringing Israelis and Palestinians together, and this is a more important time than ever to try to do that.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
It is certainly urgent. Does the Foreign Secretary believe that the public can have confidence in the labelling of goods from illegal settlements, or can the supply chain be sufficiently complex to ensure that the public do not have the information they may seek?
Mr Hague
The evidence I have seen is that the guidelines on this are well observed, and work is going on on EU-wide guidelines. But of course, where there are serious problems with them, if my hon. Friend or others would like to bring that to our attention, I will investigate.