Yemen: UK Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, for referring to the report of your Lordships’ Committee on International Relations, and to my noble friend for her reply, but will she undertake, given that this is probably one of the largest and most horrific humanitarian disasters of recent times and given our involvement because of our export supplies, to use all leverage, including possible suspension of arms export licences, to put pressure on all parties—I emphasise, all parties—to the Stockholm agreement to hold the ceasefire, get the food sitting on the docks of Hodeidah to the starving millions and discourage further outbreaks of violence and bloodshed in this appalling situation, which all of us have a responsibility to do everything we can to halt?

[Baroness Fairhead]

I thank my noble friend for that question and for chairing the committee. It is, as the Secretary-General of the UN has said, one of the worst humanitarian crises. We keep export licences under close and continual review, and we undertake to continue to do that. In terms of the peace process, we are doing all we can to find an end. Our Foreign Secretary and US Secretary of State Pompeo co-hosted a meeting of the Yemeni quad. Our commitment to a peace process, which is at a critical juncture, is absolute, and we are putting our full weight behind the UN peace process, including additional contributions to support the facility. We have also been active in lobbying the international community on rapid, safe, unhindered humanitarian access to the ports, as my noble friend asks.