Death of Jamal Khashoggi

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Germany has halted arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The Secretary of State prefers to wait. Is he suggesting that there is some way in which Mr Khashoggi could have met his death in the embassy that would be acceptable to him, and will he accept that whatever the result of the investigation, responsibility for the murder must lie with the autocratic ruler of what has now been shown to be a murderous state?

[Mr Hunt]

I have made it very clear that we need to find out who was ultimately responsible for happened and act accordingly, but on the question about arms sales, I think the hon. Lady is misrepresenting the approach we have in this country, which, as I mentioned earlier, was set up by Robin Cook, a Labour Foreign Secretary. In the past few years, we have suspended or revoked licences for arms sales to Russia, Ukraine, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. In 2015 alone, we refused 331 licences. We have one of the strictest regimes in the world, and we will follow the proper processes that we have in place in the case of Saudi Arabia as well.