§ Lord Hyltonasked Her Majesty's Government:
What physical checks were made by the staff of the British Embassy in Tel Aviv or by other government officials in the last two years on the actual uses to which weapons, ammunition and military equipment supplied by the United Kingdom to Israel have been put. [HL2782]
31WA
§ Baroness AmosBritish Embassy staff in Tel Aviv do not undertake physical checks on the end-use of UK licensed equipment, components and spare parts supplied by the UK to Israel. They do not have the resources to do so. In addition, many UK defence exports in recent years have been components or pieces of technology embedded in other systems and therefore not very visible. We do however use information supplied by a number of sources to check that UK equipment is not being used against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, including information gathered by our embassy and non-governmental organisations among others.
The Government have also taken steps to strengthen the process of risk assessment when considering export licence applications for any destination. For example, we have improved our procedures for gathering information on end-users of potential concern from UK overseas posts. We also take into account reliable information received about end-users of concern from a variety of external sources, including international reporting bodies and non-governmental organisations.