Paul Hosford

Good morning, Clare.

Yeah, so I suppose if you talk to people in government, they say that this was always going to happen.

This was always progressing.

But it's been 18 months since the government came to power.

The Occupied Territories Bill was a large part of the 2024 bill.

general election, all parties kind of rode in behind it.

It's part of the programme for government.

But last week, the treatment of particularly the Irish activists on the Samud flotilla and the, I suppose, the behaviour of Israel's national security minister, Idmar Ben-Gavir, which I suppose were

widely condemned here has definitely upped the pace so today the Occupied Territories Bill will come before Cabinet with the Government planning to have it enacted before July.

I think getting any piece of legislation across the line in that kind of tighter window is always difficult but I think if you look at what was kind of or what they're aiming to do is basically to amend Section 14 of the Customs Act in 2015.

I think that

The kind of indication that I was given yesterday was that it was just that that was more straightforward than effectively trying to, I suppose, build a bill from scratch in a lot of ways.

So I think it's possible.

I think the government will definitely want to have done it.

I think there's more pressure now than there was.

I think the issue of Israel and Gaza was particularly pronounced over the last 18 months.

And then last week really kind of

exploded back into the consciousness of a lot of people.

So I think it will be something that they will look to do.

But like I said, it's a very, very tight window.