Yemen

Lord Luce Excerpts

Thursday 15th November 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Luce]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking with international partners to end the conflict in Yemen.

[Lord Luce (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the urgent question of how to achieve peace in Yemen. I look forward to hearing from the Minister what action HMG are taking following the Foreign Secretary’s visit to the Gulf, and to the contributions of noble Lords to this rather delayed debate.

The 27 million people of Yemen face a kind of Dante’s Inferno; they are today’s forgotten people. It has become a failed state, which is exploited as if by piranhas by disparate groups in the country with a vested interest in continuing warfare through illicit trade and arms smuggling. It is also a breeding ground for al-Qaeda and Islamic State.

I must explain my interest in this country. My father, the late Sir William Luce, was governor of Aden in the late 1950s. The British ruled the southern part of Yemen forming a federation of Arab Emirates of the South, while the Imam led in what is now northern Yemen. Today, the Sir William Luce memorial fund based in Durham University finances, among other things, an annual fellowship. In 2016 Dr Helen Lackner, who lived in Yemen for over 15 years, gave her Luce lecture, providing a brilliant description of how Yemen’s tribal life and society had been transformed over 60 years. She demonstrated that the 30 years’ dictatorship of the late President Saleh seriously undermined Yemen’s society, creating a kleptocratic tribal military nexus riven by intra-elite power struggles. This has left Yemen with an unsustainable governance system, absolute water shortages, insufficient natural resources, low educational standards and the poorest people in the Arab world. Yemen today cannot be viewed in any way as a modern national state. We have to consider the rivalry of different groups within a fragmented country. These include the separatist tribal south, Aden, the Hadramaut, Taiz, the highland tribal territories and the land in the north and west, now occupied by the Houthis.

We can agree with our Saudi friends that Yemen as a failed state is a threat to their stability and that the Houthis are being encouraged by Iran to weaken Saudi Arabia, including by threatening it with missiles. We can see too that the Saudis would like access to the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb and the ports so that they can be less dependent on the Strait of Hormuz with its Iranian threat. At the same time our friends in the UAE are showing a different level of interest in establishing military bases in south Yemen and in ports on both sides of the Indian Ocean.

We need to be clear that the coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and with which the US, France and the UK are associated, has been pursuing its ends through a cruel war which it cannot win. Moreover, the unmitigated rivalry between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Iran risks destabilising not only Yemen but many other parts of a region vital to the international community.

In Yemen itself, the coalition’s action has undoubtedly made a bad situation much worse. Since 2016, over 10,000 people have been killed and some 1,250 children have lost their lives through air strikes. The latest information from the UN humanitarian chief, Mark Lowcock, demonstrates that the country is on the verge of a massive famine. Some 14 million people are now entirely reliant on external aid to survive; 22 million are in need of support including 11 million children; 16 million are without access to safe water. Fuel imports are 25% of the requirements. Civil servants are not being paid. Health services are virtually non-existent. Prices of food and other products are increasing steadily due to devaluation of the currency, the rial. There is high unemployment except for those who are exploiting the conflict. This is truly a failed state.

At this stage I must welcome the Government’s support through DfID and the UN for the people of Yemen. In addition to general humanitarian assistance, I know that we are providing £170 million of support, much of which is helping malnourished children and providing vaccinations against cholera. Can the Minister clarify what else we are doing in this area?

Despite our diminished role in the world, and indeed our preoccupation with Brexit, it is surely very much in our interests to seek urgently a peaceful resolution in Yemen. Today we can achieve this only by working internationally with many other nations. I want to ask the Minister about our proposed next steps in the UN Security Council. We are the pen holders. I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement of 5 November that we will work within the Security Council and ensure that Resolution 2216 is made more balanced and realistic, particularly in relation to the role of the Houthis. We must clearly work as closely as possible with the United States and respond to its lead in calling for a ceasefire by the end of November. But a ceasefire on its own is pointless unless there are clear proposals for starting discussions to end the conflict. I assume that we will work relentlessly with the UN through this month to ensure that the UN envoy, Mr Griffiths, is given an urgent remit to bring about peace negotiations.

This leads me inevitably to the issue of our relationship with Saudi Arabia. We have enjoyed a long-standing friendship with that country for over 100 years. Today, intelligence and counterterrorism are common concerns. We have major trade and economic interests in the kingdom, including of course our defence sales and military assistance. It is now abundantly clear, however, that the continuing of a war led by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman is not going to solve the Yemen problem and bring peace on its own. The Saudi Crown Prince is indeed trying to introduce many economic, cultural and other reforms, including more freedom for women, but he is using the pursuit of military victory in Yemen as well as dictatorial means to achieve this and to strengthen his position. This will be counterproductive. We must not only say so frankly, as friends, but also be prepared to use what influence we have, in conjunction with our western allies, to persuade the Saudis and their coalition to adopt a different approach. The Saudis should take seriously the very real pressures here and elsewhere to curtail the supplies of essential armaments and other military support, as well as the measures that the US Administration have already taken on aircraft refuelling.

The next few weeks will be crucial. The battle for the port of Hodeidah could have big implications. It is vital of course to ensure that food supplies continue to get to the people, but it will in the end be essential for the Houthis to see their self-interest in ending that battle and finding a peaceful resolution in which they play a role. This is one of those times when tragic events seem to be persuading the international community to change direction. It is in our interests not to ignore the rest of the world, but rather to take this opportunity to play a constructive role to achieve peace in Yemen. There could not be a more appropriate time to be peacemakers than the centennial anniversary of the Armistice.

In addition to the discussions that the Foreign Secretary has held in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, the Government need to show vigorous and visible activity at the UN and fresh new direction in their thinking, including revisiting Security Council Resolution 2216. We have to work internationally to assess the immediate emergency needs of Yemen and to prevent famine. We also have to work with the US, France and Germany and with constructive voices in the region, such as Oman and Kuwait, towards a fresh political approach, thinking where we can outside the box. We need too to think ahead about how we can realistically help the reconstruction of Yemen and end the famine. We have to address how in a fragmented failed state we can pursue, perhaps through the mediation of regional participants, movement towards some kind of a federal framework and system of governance.

I look forward to the Minister’s response and to reassurance that the Government are still willing and able to play a constructive role for stability in other parts of the world, not least in Yemen.