Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether her Department has made an assessment of whether (a) Israeli settlements and (b) other Occupied Palestinian Territories could be excluded from the territorial application of the UK-Israel Free Trade Agreement.

The UK’s position on settlements is clear. The UK does not recognise the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) as part of Israel.

This has been long established policy since 1967 and was reconfirmed recently at the UN security council.

Under the existing UK-Israel trade agreement, goods originating from illegal settlements in the West Bank, are not entitled to tariff and trade preferences under either the agreement between the UK and Israel, or the agreement between the UK and the Palestinian Authority.