Yemen

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I am very happy to give that assurance. A draft is in circulation. It rightly seeks to embody in text at the Security Council the positions and agreements agreed in Stockholm, but it also includes a significant element on the humanitarian crisis and the need for the international community to come in behind that UN Security Council resolution, perhaps agreed today, to ensure that those needs are met.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I put on record my admiration for the persistence of all those involved in bringing the warring parties to the negotiating table. We are told that, following talks in Stockholm, further talks are scheduled for January in Kuwait, I believe. Does the Minister share my concern that the fragile agreement might have failed irrevocably by then and that reconvening the parties at an earlier date would be desirable?

[Lord Bates]

In a sense it might be desirable, but that was the agreement made in Stockholm. That is what we have to follow with the six-week commitment. During that time we will see whether the other commitments to opening the ports of Hodeidah and Saleef and the prisoner exchanges happen. There are a number of steps along the way, but I certainly join the noble Baroness in paying tribute to British diplomats, of whom we can be proud, such as the UN special envoy Martin Griffiths and our own Sir Mark Lowcock, formerly a Permanent Secretary at DfID, for the work they have done.