Yemen: Humanitarian Situation and Children’s Rights

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) for bringing forward this important debate. It feels like it has been too long since we had a debate about Yemen.

The conflict tracks fairly evenly the time that my hon. Friend and I have been in Parliament. Over the past eight years, the crisis in Yemen has been constantly on my radar. It came to my attention because a constituent came to my surgery to tell me that the Home Office had refused his status and wanted to send him back to a war zone. Things were just breaking out at that point. I think often about him and his family, as well as the many families in Yemen whose lives, livelihoods and adulthoods have been marked by this conflict. These have been a very long and hard eight years in Yemen. While other conflicts have come and gone and moved on during that period, Yemen’s has persisted.

As hon. Members have pointed out, the UK has a special role as the penholder for Yemen at the United Nations and as a supplier of arms to parties to the conflict. We have an important role in rebuilding and providing aid, and in doing what we can for the future of Yemen.

I want to pick up on a few points that have been made. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West was right to point out the vulnerability of children in the conflict. Children’s futures have been hampered, and in many cases destroyed, by the lack of access to education, medical care and ordinary things such as vaccinations, which are more difficult to get. During the conflict it has been difficult to get things across Yemen; the parties to the conflict have put in place roadblocks and barriers, preventing movement of food and goods that would have been helpful to young people.

In the absence of those things, 2.7 million children have been left out of school, education facilities have been bombed, and mines have been left in many parts of the country. In a helpful briefing, Save the Children states that casualties from mines increased from one every five days in 2018 to one every two days in 2022. There has rightly been a lot of focus recently on the impact of landmines in Ukraine, but we also need to invest in de-mining capacity in Yemen. Without that, people cannot live safely and go back to the lives they once had.

The key to this issue is funding. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West talked about the reduction in official development assistance, and the cruel way in which UK aid funding has been diverted to pay for the asylum backlog rather than to help those in Yemen stay there and live their lives—robbing Peter to pay Paul. The cut in the budget from £214 million in 2020 to £88 million in 2023—a period in which the need in Yemen has increased—is particularly cruel.

In its most recent briefing, the World Food Programme states that its needs-based plan is just 20% funded for the next six months, from May to October 2023. It needs significant funds. I appreciate that the UK Government do give money to it, but, as the penholder, the UK should be trying harder to get more people to provide money so that food can get to those who need it.

Save the Children points out that only 6.8% of child protection needs in the humanitarian response plan were funded last year, which makes it all the more difficult to rebuild the lives of children and young people in Yemen. As my hon. Friend mentioned, that affects girls particularly, because they get married off at a younger and younger age and are unable to get the education they need and to progress as they want, but it also severely impact boys, who are recruited as child soldiers.

I pay tribute to Mwatana for Human Rights, which has done a huge amount to document human rights abuses by those on all sides of the conflict in Yemen. It has documented numerous incidents of child recruitment by different parties to the conflict, who have used children in security, logistical or combat roles as part of military operations. Between March 2015 and March 2023, it documented a total of 2,615 incidents, involving the recruitment and use of 3,402 children, including girls. The Houthis recruited at least 2,556 children, and the Saudi coalition forces recruited and used 284 children. There are also 552 children apparently recruited by forces of Yemen’s internationally recognised Government. All sides in this conflict are causing harm to children and young people in Yemen. The harms caused include abuses against women and against people right across the board.

The hon. Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) talked about the arbitrary detention and some of the prisoner swaps that have been happening. That is incredibly important, because it builds trust and faith that people can be released from prison and get their lives back. It can also help to rebuild the family unit in cases where the main breadwinner has been taken out of the unit and arbitrarily detained; in many cases, the family do not know whether they are dead or alive. Allowing those breadwinners to come back to their families and to support the women of the family to feed the children is very important. I hope that we will see more of that facilitated by the International Red Crescent and others; without families being brought back together, it will be very hard for Yemen to move forward.

Furthermore, there needs to be accountability for the war crimes carried out in Yemen by all sides. Important to that—I seek an answer from the Minister—is reinstatement of the group of eminent experts on Yemen, which was an important part of accountability, ensuring that things were investigated properly and that people were held to account for what they had done in the conflict. Again, without the accountability and that judicial system, it will be difficult for people to rebuild their lives. I ask the Minister for an update on whether that is possible.

Also on accountability, the Committees on Arms Export Controls have asked that they be a stand-alone Committee, so that they can interrogate how the UK Government are using and selling their weapons, and whether they are doing so properly. I hope that the Government will support that in some way.

I want to mention briefly the important situation of the Safer, which the hon. Member for Meon Valley mentioned. I understand that there were meetings last week in London, so it would be useful to get an update from the Minister. This is not just about a boatful of oil threatening to leak out all over that part of Yemen, but about people’s livelihoods. Many people on the coast are dependent on fishing for their livelihoods and incomes, and if the oil tanker were breached, as has been threatened for some time, a whole swathe of people would be prevented from earning a living, which will be important in moving forward.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West for securing the debate. I also thank the hon. Members for Meon Valley and for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill)—he mentioned important aspects of the arms debate—and the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), who has done so much for this cause, along with her brother the former Member for Leicester East, who chaired the all-party group for Yemen and kept it on the agenda. It is for all of us to keep pushing the Government, because a lot more needs to be done.

The UK Government have important responsibilities as the penholder at the United Nations, which means that they ought to be an honest broker, rather than a supplier of arms to one side. I urge the Minister to do more, even in the face of the other challenges for the Government with international conflict, to ensure that Yemen does not slip off the international agenda.

Sudan

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

My right hon. Friend, the former Defence Secretary, is absolutely right in what he says. There is a real danger of the cross-border spread of terrorism that he describes. He asked me specifically about conversations with the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I can assure him that those conversations go on at all levels of Government, and, indeed, went on over the weekend.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

When the Minister came to the House last week, I asked him what reassurance he could give to those Sudanese nationals who are already here in the UK. This morning, I got an email from my constituent, Mohamed, who applied for asylum 16 months ago because he was being persecuted in Sudan. He is still waiting for some kind of decision from the Home Office, so can the Minister speak to his colleagues to offer some reassurance to those who have sought sanctuary here that they will not be returned to a country in conflict?

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comment. I do indeed recall what she said last week. I will refer the matter that she has raised to the Home Office, but I can assure her that no one will be sent home to Sudan at the moment.

Sudan

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 17th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend’s cultural point is entirely right, and I have no doubt that we will come to it in due course. He went to Sudan; today I want to salute the incredible bravery of citizens there who are trying to restore democracy and the things we often take for granted in this House, and who are being attacked by the military on both sides of the conflict for no reason of any benefit at all to Sudan.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The situation in Sudan is clearly very worrying, as everybody has laid out. Just shy of 3,000 Sudanese nationals claimed asylum in the UK last year. What conversations has the Minister had with the Home Secretary and the Minister for Immigration to ensure that Home Office officials take account of the up-to-date advice that he has issued this evening, and that nobody is sent back to a dangerous situation in Sudan? Furthermore, will he learn from the situation in Afghanistan and put in place a scheme to ensure that those who already have family here in the UK can be swiftly reunited with them through a safe and legal route?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady will know that in such situations there are clear rules that kick in about the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees. She may rest assured that Britain will shoulder its responsibilities in that respect absolutely.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that Government Ministers do not normally sign early-day motions, but in respect of his point about Bridgetown, there is no more important agenda around internationally. We need to ensure that we turn billions into trillions, as the rich world has promised repeatedly at recent conferences of the parties, and the Bridgetown agenda is in very large part the way we do that.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I was honoured to attend the UN Commission on the Status of Women last week, where I heard from the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts about its #SheSurfsFreedom survey, which highlighted the impact that online harassment, misogyny and abuse are having on girls around the world. Can I ask what actions the Minister intends to take to work with partners to ensure a free and equal digital future?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point, and I will study the results of those events, if she will make them available to me. Then the Government will consider what, in addition to what we are doing already, we may be able to do.

Russian Assets: Seizure

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I want to speak briefly very much in support of the ten-minute rule Bill of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant). It seems perfectly obvious to me that the money is there for winning the war. Money has been given in weapons, tanks and other methods, but we also need to invest strongly in building the peace, rebuilding Ukraine and making sure that people who have absolutely no blame in this conflict are not left living their lives in ruins.

On 10 December 2022, President Zelensky said:

“Bakhmut, Soledar, Maryinka, Kreminna. For a long time, there is no living place left on the land of these areas that have not been damaged by shells and fire”.

Investment must be put into rebuilding all of the cities in Ukraine that have been damaged—the bridges, the infrastructure and the things that make life possible. A significant investment is also required in demining and the removal of ordnance, without which none of the construction can safely go ahead. That will be a significant task that the Government must invest in. I am conscious that occasionally somewhere in Glasgow we unearth a world war two bomb, so given the intensity of shelling that has happened in Ukraine, there has to be significant investment in demining to allow things to go ahead.

This is logical when we recognise that so much of this money is right here; it is in bank accounts in this country. In some cases, assets have been frozen, but we must find a way of reclaiming that money, which does not belong to the oligarchs in the first place. This is money they have plundered and do not deserve, and it must be returned to the Ukrainian people to allow them to rebuild.

As I have said many times in this place, the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill requires strengthening. There are more things it could do to tackle many aspects of money laundering that allow that money to flow through the United Kingdom. Transparency International UK has mentioned several areas where it could be tightened. It could prevent UK companies from being used to provide a veneer of legitimacy for money launderers by ensuring transparency over shareholders, members and partners. That is still not the case in the Bill. It could improve the Companies House register of accuracy by enabling Companies House to verify and publish shareholder information. It could catch rogue operators by providing Companies House with powers to check the documentation of “know your customer” checks carried out by third-party agents. Many of those third-party agents are where the problem lies with verification. There must also be a credible deterrent to money laundering. We must resource agencies that have to do the important work of checking and interrogation to ensure that economic crimes do not continue to go unpunished, and to have a far more effective system to prevent the UK from being seen as the location for economic crime that it has sadly become.

I want to talk a little about Scottish limited partnerships, which have long been used to give many of these companies a veneer of respectability. They have been implicated in economic crime through the Panama papers, and many other scandals over the years, and they are still being used, not for the purposes for which they were originally set up 100 years ago, but for hiding wealth. The Ferret news agency in Scotland has found that, of the 631 SLPs created last year, only three were formed by residents of Scotland. That should set off an alarm bell. It says to me that they are not being used by people in Scotland for the purposes for which they were historically needed. Eighty per cent. of those SLPs were formed in just three addresses in central Edinburgh. These are not real companies carrying out real work; it is happening in plain sight.

The Ferret found that 38 firms registered with MYCO Works, one of the Edinburgh companies, name Matthew Bradley in their accounts. He was sanctioned by the United Nations after a fraud investigation into SLPs. He has links to Serhiy Kurchenko, a Ukrainian billionaire who fled to Russia after it was alleged that he failed to pay tax. He was sanctioned by the UK in 2020 and the UK Government alleged at that time that he

“facilitated the supply of oil from Russia companies to their Crimea-based subsidiaries in the first year of the Russian occupied Crimea, enabling the Russian companies to bypass EU sanctions.”

In April this year, the EU sanctioned Kurchenko for aiding Russia’s attacks on Ukraine and, in 2017, after he fled Ukraine, prosecutors moved to seize his company’s assets as part of the

“criminal group organised by Serhiy Kurchenko.”

Bradley was named as the ultimate beneficial owner of UMH Group, which was in the company’s structure documents. So a web of firms is being set up under SLPs by those means through the UK, which the UK Government could be doing a hell of a lot more to clamp down on. They are allowing that sanctions busting and veneer of respectability, and it is exploiting the people of Russia as well as the people of Ukraine. I urge the Government to take the issue much more seriously and to amend the Bill to shut down all those loopholes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

My hon. Friend speaks with accuracy and passion about the malign impact of the IRGC around the world and in the region, and its attempts to intimidate and injure journalists here in the UK. I will not comment specifically on what further actions we might take—he will understand the reasons we choose not to do so—but I can assure him that we do not limit ourselves to the actions that I have announced when it comes to ensuring that the IRGC’s regional and international activities are curtailed.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

My constituent Hamid Bahrami is one of a number of Iranian constituents who are deeply frightened by the activities of the IRGC here in the UK. Can the Secretary of State tell me more about what he is doing to protect Iranians who have come here for sanctuary but find themselves still threatened by IRGC agents?

[James Cleverly]

My Department works closely with the Home Office to ensure that people who live here in the UK, irrespective of their heritage or birthplace, feel the umbrella of protection that they deserve. We will continue to work closely on threats against Iranians here in the UK.

Ukraine

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I regularly speak to my Turkish counterpart on this issue and others. Turkey is very committed to ensuring that the grain exports continue, and I will continue discussing with Turkey how we can ensure that they continue beyond the lifetime of this agreement.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Russian missile strikes in Kyiv have reportedly left much of the city without water. What more will the Government do, through both expertise and funding, to ensure that Ukrainians have access to clean water?

[James Cleverly]

The hon. Lady makes an incredibly important point about the ability to repair infrastructure. I spoke to His Majesty’s ambassador to Kyiv this afternoon about the remarkable speed with which Ukrainian municipal workers are repairing that infrastructure.

The right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) asked about humanitarian assistance, and it will include 856 portable generators to support power for essential public services in Ukraine.

Jagtar Singh Johal

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti]

On the second point about consular assistance, the question that the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire asked was about the proceedings that were to take place in court today. They did not take place because the Indian authorities did not put forward the papers for the prosecution. British officials were at that hearing today. We have been very supportive of Mr Johal, with consular support as well as the support through Ministers meeting his family here in the United Kingdom.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I have three Sikh gurdwaras in my constituency: the Central Gurdwara, Singh Saba; the Guru Granth Sahib in Pollokshields; and the Shri Guru Tegh Bahadur, which is also in Pollokshields. Those in the Sikh community in Glasgow are deeply concerned for Jagtar Singh Johal, and they send their solidarity to him and his family. They are also deeply worried about any trip that they may be making to India, so can I ask the Minister what possible reassurance he can offer them?

[Rehman Chishti]

I, too, have a Sikh community in my constituency, at the Byron Road gurdwara and the Franklin Road gurdwara, and absolutely, I think the point I would make on that is that the United Kingdom’s top priority is the welfare of its citizens abroad. On that basis, we will do everything we can to support our citizens abroad.

Prime Minister’s Meeting with Alexander Lebedev

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

May I just say that Russia is a top national security priority for this Government? We have made huge strides to counter the threat by the Russian state. The National Security Council agreed the Russia strategy back in 2017. The Government published a full and comprehensive response to the Intelligence and Security Committee report back in January 2020, implementing a majority of the Committee’s recommendations. We have closed the tier 1 investor visa route, which I believe was introduced by the Labour party. We continue to call out Russian malign activities where they occur across the globe.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Open Democracy has reported that the Conservative party has received £62,000 from Russian-linked donors since the beginning of the current escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, including a further £50,000 from Lubov Chernukhin, who is married to Putin’s former deputy Finance Minister. We know that money buys influence. What analysis has the Minister carried out of the influence that this money buys and where it goes, and of the national security implications?

[Vicky Ford]

Transparency of information about political donations is very important. Only individuals on the UK electoral roll, or UK-registered companies, are allowed to make such donations. It is an offence for political parties and other campaigners to receive donations from impermissible sources, and that includes donations from foreign nationals living abroad. That is the law, and that is the law that all parties, including the Conservative party, need to uphold.

Women’s Rights to Reproductive Healthcare: United States

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I despair at the overturning of Roe v. Wade, because the undermining of women’s reproductive rights anywhere is a threat to women everywhere. The truth is that we cannot ban abortions—only safe abortions. I welcome the abortion care summit held by the First Minister earlier this week, and I pay tribute to Back Off Scotland, to Green MSP Gillian Mackay and to COSLA for their work in securing buffer zones to protect everyone accessing healthcare and staff from the hostile anti-abortion activists who have been causing such distress outside healthcare facilities, such as the Sandyford and the Royal Infirmary in my constituency.

What is the Minister specifically doing to prevent the creeping influence on these islands of US-based extremist groups, such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has been described by the Southern Policy Law Centre as a hate group, but which was shockingly given a platform by BBC Scotland on several occasions this week?

[Amanda Milling]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. As we have said, it is important that legislation is in place enabling women to have an abortion. Women should have control over their own bodies. That is why we have the legislation we have in this country.