Yemen: Giving Peace a Chance (International Relations Committee Report)

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, following the powerful contributions from the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on the humanitarian situation and their personal reflections, the noble Lord, Lord Luce, on the geopolitical situation, the noble Baronesses, Lady Amos and Lady Anelay, on highlighting the failings of a process that is actively excluding the majority of people, women—I will touch on that later—and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, there are limited areas on which I can make an original contribution to this debate. It has been very powerful, even if it has been brief. I have the pleasure, as do others, of serving on the committee so ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and I concur with all of the contributions from my colleagues on the committee today.

I direct the House to my entry in the register of interests. Yesterday afternoon, I returned from a two-country visit to the Middle East. It was said to me then, as others in this debate have remarked, that we have lost with his resignation a Minister who is widely respected, not only in this House but, more importantly, in the region. A week on from his resignation, it is depressing to see there is no Minister for the Middle East to replace him in the Government. It is not acceptable that the Middle East is now covered by a Minister extending the scope of Africa and a Minister extending the scope of Asia. I hope the Minister will give the positive response that the Prime Minister will appoint a Minister for the Middle East as a matter of urgency.

I want to address the first element on which many noble Lords have commented, our arms and defence relationship with Saudi and the UAE. Any reader of the FCO website on GOV.UK will see two articles. The first has the headline:

“Britain has been shaping the world for centuries. That won’t change with Brexit”.


That is immediately followed by:

“Yemen crisis won’t be solved by UK arms exports halt”.


There is a jarring visual element to reading the articles by the Foreign Secretary, not just from looking at the website. I commend the Foreign Secretary for visiting the region, taking a strong special interest in this and supporting Michael Aron, our ambassador for Yemen, and his excellent team based in Amman, who are doing hard work.

The article by the Foreign Secretary said that the “strategic relationship”, by which he means our arms and defence relationship,

“allows us the opportunity to influence their leaders”,

by which he means Saudi Arabia and the UAE. He wrote that, if we stop this relationship, our position would be “morally bankrupt” and we would be bystanders. He gives the impression—in fact he states—that Stockholm would not have happened and we would not have the peace process. That is a regrettable article and it undermines some of the humanitarian work that the UK has provided in that area. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, it jars with the position of Germany and the United States Congress.

If countries buy over £5 billion of work from us, most objective people will wonder who provides the influence. Is it the seller or the buyer? There are questions on not just the use of the armaments that we sell but also, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has said, on the down-the-line impact of the training on those weapons and targeted training, and the deeply ingrained relationship we have. It is right for the committee, if not to say it explicitly, to ask for a serious and urgent reconsideration of our defence relationship, given this conflict.

I declare an interest in that I chair the UK board of Search for Common Ground, which has worked in Yemen since 2010, with consistent and active programming throughout the conflict cycles, not only of the last four years, but the last nine years. It has active projects running across seven different governorates, in both north and south, covering stabilisation, countering a culture of violence, conflict sensitivity among the humanitarian sector and trying to support the national peace process. In addition to the UK Government, work there has been supported by diverse UN agencies, USAID and the foreign ministries of the Netherlands and France, among others, showing that it is an international area of consistency. It is also an international shame that this crisis can still exist in the 21st century.

I commend the UK, however, for its government support and humanitarian aid delivery. I would like to see the Government moving beyond a do-no-harm approach to humanitarian assistance and more into the development sphere. From the many visits I made to northern Iraq when Mosul was occupied by ISIS, I saw that insufficient consideration of good governance work post peace process means that those who have been most affected will not be involved in the long-term reconstruction and rehabilitation of communities.

Other noble Lords have mentioned the three-phase process of the UN envoy. Phase one is the redeployment of forces away from Hodeidah. Phase two is a prisoner exchange, which is complex, as I understand there are high-value prisoners from the Saudi side. We know from the situation in Northern Ireland over many years that prisoner exchange is a highly charged and problematic issue. Perhaps we can offer some good lessons on the second area of prisoner exchange. The third phase is for a joint committee for Taiz which, I hope, will meet soon to agree a peaceful way forward.

As indicated by the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, and others, the confidence process is one of incremental stages. If it does not create a degree of momentum, which can be buffeted by wider political considerations of other partners, including Saudi Arabia and Iran, it will be hard to consider what progress is. It would help if the Minister can say what areas of progress the Government consider are sufficiently robust to reassure both sides that there can be movement to the next stage of the peace process.

It is worth putting on record the good offices of the Omani and Jordanian Governments, but I also return to the point mentioned so powerfully by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and others. Over recent years, we have seen the negative impact, both in Iraq and Libya, of processes that exclude women. This does not have an academic element, nor is further research needed. We know for a fact that the majority group has been excluded and that these peace processes are less robust because of it. Even in the last week in Amman, an event took place in which no women participated, contrary to the UN principles indicated by the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins. It may be time for the UK to say to the United Nations that an empty-chair approach could be necessary until women are actively part of the process.

As Mark Lowcock indicated, 24 million people need assistance. A population the size of London will be hungry tonight in that region, and we consider most of those victims to be women. It is simply not acceptable anymore, in how we go about our diplomacy and peacebuilding work, that women are considered a group that deserves to be consulted but not to participate. I hope the Minister says that our approach to look for an opportunity for the participation of women in this peace process before Ramadan will start to see some urgency.