Yemen

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I could not suppress a slight smile when the hon. Gentleman talked about my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt); it was as though he had died. I think he is still alive and kicking. He is probably having a quiet pint and a quiet afternoon—though maybe not.

The hon. Gentleman raises a serious point about Luke Symons, on whose case he has worked extremely hard. He is aware that the Foreign Secretary brought up the case during his visit to Yemen earlier in the month. We have been providing consular advice to the UK-based family since 2017, and will continue to do so.

I wish to put it on the record that although I appreciate there were particular reasons why Luke Symons was out there—his wife is a Yemeni national—we now advise against all travel to Yemen, and therefore we are unable to provide consular assistance out in the country. Anyone who travels to Yemen against our advice is putting themselves at considerable risk.

Of course I would be very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman, and indeed representatives of the Symons family.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I, too, would like to share my gratitude to the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) for his work. I was very glad to be able to listen to Yemenis last week who were in London for events. They included Dalia Qasem Farea, Laila Al-shabibi and Hisham Al-Omeisy—the House may remember that he was held by the Houthis, and I have raised his case in the House.

Of ongoing concern to many aid agencies is the ability of goods and people to travel around Yemen to get to the places and people who need them. Can the Minister tell us more about what is being done to ensure that aid reaches those who need it the most?

[Mark Field]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. I have already alluded to that subject in several answers. Our immediate focus, obviously, remains on ensuring that enough food is getting through to the desperate Yemenis to prevent starvation and a disastrous famine. With the operating environment in Yemen extremely difficult for humanitarian organisations we are now focusing our attention on UN agencies, NGOs and other donors, to get out to those more difficult areas. Part of that is to assess the acuteness of need in those parts of Yemen, but that of course is an ongoing process and we feel that we have made some significant progress along with NGOs and other international partners.