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

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, I too am a member of the International Relations Committee and am grateful that we have been given the opportunity to debate this report so soon after its publication, given the urgency and extreme seriousness of the situation in Yemen.

I shall focus on just two issues. As the first is the position of women, I have just deleted several parts of my speech, not to repeat the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, with which I wholeheartedly agree. We know from various sources that women and children are, not surprisingly, bearing the brunt of the violence and its consequences, including starvation and the lack of healthcare. For example, the International Rescue Committee reports that over a million women who are pregnant or breastfeeding are currently acutely malnourished. The UN has warned that the maternal death rate is likely to be double what it was in 2015.

Against this appalling background, the committee’s report was able to record some impressive aid programmes being delivered by DfID; it goes without saying that these are more than welcome. For example, last September, Her Majesty’s Government announced that almost £100 million would fund a nutrition programme, treating 70,000 children with acute malnutrition and providing antenatal care to 800,000 women.

I do not, however, want to focus on women solely in relation to their suffering in the conflict. I also wish to stress how important it is that women form an integral part of the peace process to resolve that conflict—an issue also raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Amos and Lady Anelay.

In a recent Written Question, I asked what action Her Majesty’s Government have taken, or plan to take, to ensure that the provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on the involvement of women in peace negotiations and post-conflict reconstruction are being fully complied with in the Stockholm agreement process aimed at ending the war in Yemen. The Minister provided an encouraging Answer, saying that the UK has indeed lobbied the parties in the conflict to include more women in formal peace talks and explained why—although, in the light of the observations of the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, we should perhaps be talking not about more women but about any women at all.

In addition, he pointed out that, through the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, the UK helps to support the Yemeni Women’s Pact for Peace and Security. I thank the Minister for this information. Can he update the House on any progress being made by Tawafaq, the Yemeni women’s pact, especially in the light of the championing of its work by the UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Yemen?

Looking at other ways of increasing—or perhaps I should say achieving—the participation of women in peace talks, I draw the Minister’s attention to the meeting a few weeks ago which members of the International Relations Committee held with the president and other members of the Southern Transitional Council of Yemen. He will know that the STC is currently excluded from the Stockholm process and I appreciate that there are dilemmas to be addressed. At the same time, it was clear that the STC has an inclusive attitude towards women and at its 2017 assembly agreed an explicit policy on women’s rights. So can the Minister tell us the Government’s current view on including the STC in official peace talks, with specific reference to the inclusion of women?

The second issue I want to raise, like most other noble Lords in this debate, is that of arms sales by the UK to Saudi Arabia. As others have said, we concluded in our report that we disagreed with the Government’s view that the UK was,

“narrowly on the right side of international humanitarian law”,

to quote the former Foreign Secretary. We also concluded that UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia are,

“highly likely to be the cause of significant civilian casualties in Yemen”.

Since the report was published, further doubt still has been directed at Her Majesty’s Government in this regard. The international NGO Saferworld has argued that the UK’s assistance to Saudi Arabia in targeting strikes is potentially leading to more, not fewer, casualties, and that the UK is guilty of a lack of transparency in how decisions on arms licences are made, putting the UK out of line with several other European countries, which, as we have heard, now have a de facto embargo on arms sales to Saudi.

Does the Minister still stand by the Government’s position that they are on the right side of international humanitarian law in this case? Secondly, echoing the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, will the Minister clarify how political approval for arms licences is reached? I look forward to his reply to my questions and those of other noble Lords.