Yemen

Debate between Emily Thornberry and Andrew Stephenson

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his support for the UN special envoy and his work. We all need to support Martin Griffiths, and to ensure that everybody gets behind the UN-led peace process. In my own portfolio of sub-Saharan Africa, I have been impressed—really impressed—by the World Food Programme’s ability to deliver aid to some of the most conflict-afflicted countries. I have seen at first hand its work in South Sudan and Somalia since my appointment and I am more than happy to look further into what it is doing in Yemen. I know that it is doing an incredible amount of work there. At this point, I should add my apologies for the fact that my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa is not in his place. He is undertaking some of his duties as an army reservist, and that is the only reason he is not taking this urgent question.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), the Chair of the International Development Committee, for securing it and for being one of Yemen’s great champions.

I am sorry that the Foreign Secretary himself has not seen fit to answer this question, but then again this is a Foreign Secretary who made a 1,300-word speech in Manchester this weekend and chose not to mention Yemen once, yet on his watch the cycle of indiscriminate violence in Yemen and the scale of the humanitarian crisis are growing worse every day. This weekend, we had unconfirmed reports of a major Houthi strike against Saudi forces inside Saudi Arabia. On this day a month ago, we had the attack by Saudi planes on a Houthi detention centre in Dhamar, killing at least 100 innocent captives. In Aden, we had the ridiculous situation of forces supported by the UAE fighting soldiers loyal to the Hadi Government, which the UAE is supposed to be trying to reinstall, and all the while the toll of innocent children killed by malnutrition and cholera continues to mount. As things stand, there is no end in sight to the conflict and no end in sight to the suffering of the Yemeni people.

This is not only a humanitarian disaster, but a failure of politics. The UK really must pull its finger out and do its duty in the Security Council. As the penholder at the Security Council, it is supposed to table a UN resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire by all parties everywhere in the country. We on the Labour Benches have been calling for that resolution for three and a half years. Can the Minister of State tell us how many more months and years we will have to wait?

Finally, tomorrow will mark exactly one year since Jamal Khashoggi was butchered in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, in large part for his criticism of the war in Yemen. A full 12 months on, this House has still not been presented with the results of the Government’s investigation into who ordered his murder, let alone “the serious consequences” that we were promised from that Dispatch Box would follow. Again, can the Minister tell us how many more months, and now how many more years, we will have to wait?

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank the shadow Foreign Secretary for her comments. The UK continues to call on all parties to the conflict in Yemen to exercise restraint and to engage constructively with the peace process led by the UN special envoy. We are monitoring claims of attacks in Saudi Arabia and are in contact with our partners to understand exactly what has happened there. We are also deeply concerned about reports of civilian deaths, following recent air strikes—our thoughts are with those who have been affected—and we are working with our partners to try to establish exactly what has happened. We welcome the coalition’s referral of both recent incidents to be investigated by the Joint Incidents Assessment Team. The UK continues to call on all parties to the conflict in Yemen to exercise restraint, to comply fully with international humanitarian law and to engage constructively with the peace process led by the UN special envoy, which is the only way to end this cycle of violence.