To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps her Department has taken to ensure that no products emanating from settlements built in occupied territory in breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention are purchased by her Department and its overseas missions. (132723)

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) does not currently have a policy precluding the purchase of goods emanating from the settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The FCO’s policy on the procurement of goods is based on value for money, having due regard to propriety and regularity and ensuring full compliance with the EU consolidated Public Procurement directive, implemented in the UK by the Public Contracts Regulations 2006, where applicable. However, in practice the FCO in London and FCO Posts do not purchase goods from the settlements.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if she will instruct overseas missions not to purchase and consume products emanating from settlements built in Occupied Territories in breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention. (132724)

I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave her today (UIN 132723). There is no provision in either the EU consolidated Public Procurement directive or the UK Public Contracts Regulations 2006 (SI 2006 No. 5) to instruct the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s overseas missions in this way and I do not therefore intend to do so.