Yemen: UK Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia

Debate between Baroness Fairhead and Lord Tunnicliffe

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, following the publication of the report by the International Relations Committee Yemen: giving peace a chance on 16 February, what plans they have to reassess the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Trade (Baroness Fairhead) (Con)]

My Lords, we welcome the House of Lords International Relations Committee’s report on Yemen, and thank the committee for engaging on this hugely important issue. The UK is doing all it can to help the parties to find a way to end this devastating conflict, and the Government will respond to the report in due course. With regard to arms export licensing, the Government take their responsibility very seriously, and will not grant a licence if to do so would be inconsistent with the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria. We rigorously assess every application on a case-by-case basis against the consolidated criteria, drawing on all available information. The consolidated criteria set out the policy framework for assessing export licence applications, and they remain as announced to Parliament in a Written Ministerial Statement of 25 March 2014.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government say that they are narrowly on the right side of international law in licensing arms sales to Saudi Arabia—but the International Relations Committee, which has just been so praised, says that they are narrowly on the wrong side of international law, as these weapons are:

“highly likely to be the cause of significant civilian casualties”.

As this appears to be a fine line, what specific evidence would the Government need from the UN, investigators and NGOs to be pushed over the edge and deem those arms sales illegal?

[Baroness Fairhead]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that this is a very finely balanced decision; there are respectable arguments on both sides. The Government remain confident that we are compliant with our obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty. The key criterion here, of course, is that there has to be a clear risk that the items might be used for serious violations of international humanitarian law in the future. In terms of the sources that we use, in a recent judicial review the court was very clear that there were significant qualitative differences between the risk analysis that the Government could undertake—the information that we got—and the information supplied to NGOs.