---
title: "Britain Vowed to Punish Settlement Firms. Its Roads and Radios Kept Paying Them"
description: "After Miliband’s September 8 warning, UK public bodies published £10.7m in new contracts with firms the UN links to West Bank settlements"
author: "Jan Sokol"
published: 2026-11-10T05:39:50Z
modified: 2026-11-10T15:21:56Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/britain-vowed-to-punish-settlement-firms-its-roads-and-radio-33dbcf
language: en
tags: ["sanctions", "israel", "west-bank", "contracts", "heidelberg-materials", "world"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Britain Vowed to Punish Settlement Firms. Its Roads and Radios Kept Paying Them

*After Miliband’s September 8 warning, UK public bodies published £10.7m in new contracts with firms the UN links to West Bank settlements*

By Jan Sokol · November 10, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/britain-vowed-to-punish-settlement-firms-its-roads-and-radio-33dbcf

## In brief

- Al Jazeera found 18 UK public contracts worth £10.7m ($14.4m) went to settlement-linked firms after September 8
- On September 8 Ed Miliband announced powers to sanction firms that support Israeli settlements in the West Bank
- Heidelberg Materials subsidiaries won 14 contracts worth £10.4m, mostly roadworks for National Highways and councils
- Motorola Solutions, Fosun and Egis subsidiaries also won new contracts; Motorola holds about £1.7bn in UK deals overall
- Jeremy Corbyn called the findings outrageous; the Cabinet Office did not respond to the investigation

On September 8, in the House of Commons, the Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, spoke to the people who build, finance and sell Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank. “You will face the full force of UK sanctions,” he told them, and then, in case anyone missed it: “Settlements are illegal.”

The British state, though, is more than one voice. It is also thousands of buyers: councils, hospital trusts, highway agencies, police forces, each with its own budget and its own tender portal. After the speech those buyers went on buying. They published 18 more contracts, worth £10.7 million ($14.4m), with companies tied to the settlements, according to [an investigation by Caolán Magee for Al Jazeera](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/10/firms-tied-to-west-bank-settlements-win-15m-uk-deals-despite-sanctions). The reporting drew on procurement records, company filings, corporate disclosures and contract data from Tussell, a firm that tracks the UK public-sector market. It covered companies named by the United Nations and their subsidiaries.

## The speech

The September announcement went further than most British statements on the occupation. The government recognised the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank, declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and stopped arms licences and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation,” [Middle East Eye reported](https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-announce-trade-sanctions-israeli-settlements). Miliband promised action against companies and individuals providing construction, infrastructure, financing or real estate for settlement expansion. Britain went ahead even though Washington had warned of economic consequences, [according to CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/08/uk-israel-sanctions-miliband-florida-trump.html). Later that month he called Israel’s conduct [a stain on the world](https://rews.cc/a/miliband-calls-israel-s-conduct-a-stain-on-the-world-and-ple-f7d5c5).

![A stylized podium with a microphone funnels gold coins toward red and cream buildings connected by stairs against a dark teal background.](https://rews.cc/img/3372dfae6228b70f1b8570612983ab4c9d24fecc.webp)

On the day itself the deeds were smaller. Five settlers were designated under existing human-rights sanctions rules. A dedicated settlements regime, with a ban on settlement goods, was promised [over the next six to nine months](https://sanctionsnews.bakermckenzie.com/uk-announces-new-sanctions-targeting-israeli-settlements-in-the-occupied-west-bank-alongside-allies/), backed by a joint statement from the foreign ministers of 12 countries. A few weeks later new regulations came into force that, as [Jewish News reported](https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/uk-significantly-expands-sanction-powers-allowing-action-against-companies-supporting-west-bank-settlements/amp/), “widen the net from direct perpetrators to anyone who facilitates, promotes, incites, or funds qualifying misconduct.”

So the net was widened. The contracts kept coming.

## The quarry

Nearly all of the new money went to one name. Heidelberg Materials, the German building-materials group, appeared in the UN’s September 2026 update of its list, cited for commercial use of natural resources. Three of its subsidiaries won 14 contracts worth £10.4 million, most of them for roadworks and resurfacing for National Highways and for councils in Nottingham and Lincolnshire. Five Heidelberg subsidiaries together hold at least 35 British public contracts worth about £194.7 million.

Its Israeli subsidiary, Hanson Israel, owns the Nahal Raba quarry south of Qalqilya. The research group Who Profits says the quarry sits on land belonging to the Palestinian villages of az-Zawiya and Rafat. Heidelberg says Hanson Israel stopped operating there in 2023. Who Profits says an expansion was approved on May 28, 2025. Heidelberg did not dispute that.

A resurfaced road in the English Midlands and a hillside in the northern West Bank have no visible link between them. The link runs through a company register, which is exactly where a procurement officer is least likely to look.

![A dark road with pale dashed markings curls upward like a ribbon beside a golden landscape with exposed geometric layers against a teal background.](https://rews.cc/img/a2b8f248950d4d694974c575b38898450d27a036.webp)

## The radios

The other contracts were small. What they connect to is not. Motorola Solutions, which the UN lists for providing security equipment and services, won two new police communications contracts worth about £87,900. That is loose change set against its whole British business: about £1.7 billion, mostly through its subsidiary Airwave Solutions. That includes a Home Office extension worth £1.562 billion for the emergency services network across England, Scotland and Wales. Motorola Solutions UK holds another £123.9 million, including a £36.5 million Ministry of Defence deal for Airwave radios. The company did not respond to requests for comment.

Fosun International, the Chinese conglomerate, is on the UN list because of the cosmetics maker Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories. Its subsidiary Breas Medical, held through Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical, won a £98,000 contract with hospitals in Hull, bringing the group’s total to at least £1.3 million. Fosun did not respond. The French engineering group Egis is listed for transport services linking settlements in East Jerusalem with the rest of the city. Egis said it had “formally expressed its disagreement with this inclusion.” Its subsidiary Thomas & Adamson International won £84,000, taking the group to at least £133.7 million.

None of this is new. An earlier Al Jazeera investigation, in August 2026, found at least 17 companies with settlement links holding British public contracts worth more than £2.1 billion.

![A dark blue handheld radio with an orange button connects by cable to a raised platform holding miniature cream houses with orange roofs against a teal background.](https://rews.cc/img/b6444e94ec5cbe7195da87358b333aefbd6f5ae0.webp)

## The back door

Jeremy Corbyn put it bluntly. “Britain cannot credibly claim that it is imposing sanctions on Israeli settlements,” he said. The contracts, he argued, were continuing “through the back door”, which he called “outrageous and frankly insulting to the public.”

Neve Gordon, a professor at Queen Mary University of London, said the firms “appear to be in breach of their legal obligations under international humanitarian law,” and added: “Any UK company that is involved in the occupation is likely to be in direct breach of the sanctions regime.”

The Cabinet Office did not respond. It has said before that individual authorities decide on excluding suppliers case by case, and that procurement should not be used to boycott suppliers unless formal UK sanctions, embargoes or restrictions apply.

Set those two positions side by side. Ministers say settlements are illegal and their financiers will feel the full force of the law. Officials say public buyers should act only once formal sanctions name a company. Meanwhile the full settlements regime is still on a timetable of months, and no company named here has been designated. This is an old habit of governments: the condemnation arrives at once, and the invoices are someone else’s department. The space between the two is where the money moves.

The villagers of az-Zawiya and Rafat do not appear in any British tender document. Questions about [what Britain did in Gaza](https://rews.cc/a/a-hundred-thousand-names-ask-westminster-what-britain-did-in-295f2e) have already reached Westminster on a petition with a hundred thousand names. The ledgers of National Highways and the Lincolnshire councils have not yet been asked.