Human Rights and Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia

David Lidington Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) on securing today’s debate and on the passion with which she put her case. I apologise to her for missing the first few seconds of her remarks. I also want to express the regret of the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), for not being able to speak here today. He is actually travelling on middle east business today.

I will try to focus my remarks on answers to the many points that came up during the debate. I am deeply conscious that in the limited time available I am almost certainly going to give incomplete replies, and that I may be unable to touch on some points at all. I was disappointed when the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) questioned the case for Saudi Arabia even to be considered a fit and proper partner for the United Kingdom. That would certainly be a major departure from the position taken by previous Labour Governments, including the one in which she served in the years before 2010. There is no doubt that Saudi Arabia is a very different culture, with different political traditions from those of the United Kingdom or other western democracies. However, we need to bear it in mind that it plays an increasingly important part in securing regional stability.

It is important that the big regional players should be at the heart of discussions about finding solutions to regional challenges. The Saudis have been and remain at the forefront of international efforts to defeat Daesh. Saudi was one of the first countries to participate in air strikes in Syria, and it is fully engaged in the fight to cut off Daesh’s access to finance, through its co-chairmanship of the counter-ISIL finance working group. In relation to Syria, Saudi Arabia has played a leading role in bringing together the Syrian opposition—a key element of finding a solution to the conflict. I want to say a few words about Yemen in due course, but I want to turn to the questions that were raised about some other human rights topics.

The Government remain committed to advancing the global abolition of the death penalty. That means opposing it in every circumstance, in every country. We encourage Saudi Arabia certainly to abolish the death penalty, as we do with every other country that has the death penalty on its statute book. We also encourage Saudi Arabia, so long as it has the death penalty within its law, to uphold minimum international standards, such as ensuring that sentencing is in line with article 6 of the international covenant on civil and political rights. Among other things, that means the death penalty should not be applied to minors and should only be applied to the most serious crimes.

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary visited Saudi Arabia last week in the course of a tour of the Gulf region, and he took that opportunity to raise with senior Saudi counterparts our concerns about human rights issues in the generic sense and a number of individual cases that I will come to in a moment. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West asked about a number of cases. On that of Mr Ashraf Fayadh, our understanding is that the Saudi Arabian courts have overturned the death sentence passed upon him, although he remains in detention. We continue to follow that and similar cases closely.

During his visit on 29 May, the Foreign Secretary raised the case of Ali al-Nimr and the two others who were juveniles when they committed the crimes of which they were subsequently convicted. Our expectation is that Ali al-Nimr and the two others will not be executed, but we will of course continue to raise those cases with the Saudi authorities. The hon. Lady asked about Raif Badawi. We remain very concerned about that case. We continue to express that concern at both official and ministerial levels to the Saudis. Our understanding is that the case is still under consideration in the Saudi supreme court, but we do not expect further lashes to be administered.

A number of hon. Members asked questions about the alleged use of cluster munitions by Saudi forces in Yemen. The situation as regards the United Kingdom is this: we have not supplied cluster weapons of any kind to Saudi Arabia since the 1980s. The United Kingdom signed the convention on cluster munitions in 2008 and ratified it in May 2010. Since 2008, we have not supplied, maintained or supported those weapons anywhere in the world.

[Ms Ahmed-Sheikh]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Lidington]

No, I am not going to give way.

The Government take the allegations that have been made about Yemen very seriously. We are seeking clarification from the Saudi-led coalition about those allegations, and in line with our obligations under the convention on cluster munitions, we have always made it clear to the Saudis that we cannot support the use of cluster munitions in any circumstances. We continue to encourage Saudi Arabia as a non-party to the convention to accede to it. Accession to the convention will then oblige Saudi Arabia, as it obliged the United Kingdom when we ratified the convention, to take steps to not only identify but dispose safely of any stocks of cluster munitions that it may have, either on its own territory or anywhere else within its jurisdiction.

Much of this debate has focused upon Yemen. I should say, in response to the questions about the Yemen Executive Mine Action Centre, that we are supporting United Nations Development Programme-led efforts to rebuild the capacity of Yemen’s national de-mining institutions, including YEMAC. That is part of our wider humanitarian help to Yemen. We are contributing just over £1 million to that work in 2016 from the cross- departmental programme expenditure within Whitehall.

On the Yemen situation more broadly, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan) set out the overall geopolitical position with both succinctness and skill. The fact is that the Saudi-led coalition is present in Yemen at the invitation of the legitimate Government of that country. I do not think we can simply wash our hands and say, “We wish they weren’t there, but we don’t want to express any view about the Houthis, the fate of Yemen or the wider region.”

[Ms Ahmed-Sheikh]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Mr Lidington]

No, I am not giving way. In fairness, the hon. Lady intervened many times during the course of the debate. I have little time available, and I think her hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, wants some time to reply to the debate at the end of our proceedings.

The coalition is there at the invitation of the legitimate Government. Saudi Arabia, whatever criticisms we make of it, is actively helping the United Nations supervision of humanitarian assistance in Yemen, and my understanding is that Saudi Arabia is also the largest single bilateral donor to the humanitarian relief taking place in Yemen. Those things, too, need to be weighed in any overall judgment we make about the activities of the coalition within Yemen.

In respect of the allegations about breaches of international humanitarian law, the Ministry of Defence makes assessments of how the Saudis are acting and whether the coalition is observing international human rights obligations. The MOD assessment is that the Saudi-led coalition is not targeting civilians; that Saudi processes and procedures have been put in place to ensure respect for the principles of international humanitarian law; and that the Saudis both have been and continue to be genuinely committed to compliance with international humanitarian law.

[Mark Durkan]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (in the Chair)]

Order. It is quite clear that the Minister is not going to give way.

[Mr Lidington]

That is the overall frame within which we move on to judge some of the particular and detailed allegations that have been made. I do not want for one moment to dismiss the importance of such allegations. It is important that any allegation is properly and rigorously investigated.

As the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East, said when he gave evidence to the recent investigation of the Committees on Arms Export Controls, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White), we press the Saudis to carry out such investigations and to do so with all possible speed. It is the responsibility of any country, where allegations are made against its military, to take action to investigate those allegations. That is what we do and what we did when allegations were made against our forces in Iraq and in Afghanistan. It is what we expected of the United States when comparable allegations were made.

It is important that Saudi Arabia, in the first instance, conducts thorough and conclusive investigations into incidents where it is alleged that international humanitarian law has been breached. Saudi Arabia did conduct such an investigation following the October Médecins sans Frontières incident in Sa’ada, and the results of that investigation led to a number of important steps being taken by the Saudis to avoid any such incident happening again. There were changes to procedures. I do not say we need to be uncritical of Saudi Arabia, but we need to bear it in mind that it showed, in respect of that significant incident, that it was willing to look at where things had gone wrong and to take steps to improve matters for the future.

I will write to the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) about the points he made on the Home Office and the story in The Times today. That is clearly a matter the Home Office leads on. The Government’s judgment remains that a strong relationship with Saudi Arabia helps us to keep this country both prosperous and safe. It is in working with Saudi Arabia that we can encourage the changes we would like to see in that country.