§ The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Jack Straw)In my written reply to the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr Campbell) on 15 April 2002,Official Report, col. 723W, I informed Parliament that we had questions about other possible breaches of the Israeli assurances about the use of UK-supplied equipment in the Occupied Territories (OTs) exported under previous Administrations. The Government has looked into the issue further and I am now able to inform Parliament of the outcome of our inquiries.
The only equipment that has been identified as being used by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in the OTs, and that can justifiably be regarded as constituting a breach of the assurances, is a combination of Puma and Nachpadon armoured personnel carriers (APCs). These are derivative APCs on a Centurion chassis, which therefore have a significant and recognisable UK
Resources Capital Change New DEL Of which: voted Non voted Change New DEL Of which: voted Non voted 82,706,000 1,401,303,000 1,250,326,000 150,977,000 -77,095,000 68,146,000 62,346,000 5,800,000 The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from
i. A Public Expenditure Survey (PES) transfer to the Department of Transport of £50,000 in respect of the setting up of a Register of Shipping by the Maritime and Coastguard agency for certain Caribbean Overseas Territories.
ii. A PES transfer to the Ministry of Defence of £183,000 in respect of business rates applicable to the 'Old Admiralty Building—Citadel' formally paid by the FCO and now the responsibility of the MoD.
iii. Reclassification of £62,410,000 from Capital to Resource (Administration costs of £56,810,000, Grants of £5,600,000) to improve budgetary flexibility.
iv. A decrease of £11,750,000 in respect of an adjustment for Overseas Price Movements.
v. An increase in Admin costs of £1,630,000 in respect of increases to Consular services overseas.
vi. A transfer from BBC World Service Capital to BBC World Service Resource of £30,000,000 to facilitate effective management of BBC World Service budgets.
64WScontent. Parliament was informed of this in Mr Bradshaw's reply to a parliamentary question from Mr Galloway on 11 March 2002.
In our view the Israeli assurances do not cover equipment consisting of components exported by the UK to a third country, which components were then incorporated in that country into products for onward export. The Foreign Secretary's announcement of 8 July 2002 set out how the Government will approach licence applications for goods where it is understood that the goods are to be incorporated into products for onward export.
We intend to inform the Israelis of the results of our inquiries. We shall re-emphasise our current concerns about exporting arms to Israel that might be used against Palestinian targets, and that our policy on assessing Israeli export applications has not changed: we shall continue to assess export licence applications for the proposed export of controlled goods to Israel on a case-by-case basis against the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria.
Our staff will continue to monitor the deployment and the use of equipment by the IDF in the OTs during their regular tours of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem; and will report to me any sightings of British-supplied equipment.