Yemen

Debate between Edward Argar and George Kerevan

Thursday 12th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

There is a hidden element running through this debate. This House and the UK Government can hope to influence the conduct of Saudi Arabia and the other states of the Gulf Co-operation Council. We have less hope and opportunity of influencing the Houthi and the various elements active in Yemen, including Iran. No Opposition Member who wishes to be critical of Saudi is blind to the crimes committed against humanity, against their own people, by the Houthi leadership and other elements of the coalition Government. So if we are talking with emphasis about Saudi, it is not because we ignore the other side and its crimes, but if we are to move the debate on, all we can do—as a major ally, weapons supplier and market—is to influence Saudi. That is why we are doing it. Some Members have tried to present the discussion in terms of some people being anti-Saudi or forgetting about the Houthis, but that is not where we are going. We can influence Saudi. The argument from Opposition Members is that Her Majesty’s Government have been niggardly in how they have tried to influence Saudi. I will provide some evidence.

On 13 December, the United States Government vetoed the sale of 16,000 guidance systems for munitions that were going to be sold by US companies to Saudi Arabia. That tells me a couple of things. Why does Saudi need 16,000 guidance systems for bombs? It is something to do with the disproportionality of the air offensive that Saudi and several other air forces in the Arab world have been conducting. That disproportionality is getting in the way of a settlement. What began as a civil war—yes, there were some implications around the Saudi border—has been turned into a humanitarian disaster by the sheer scale of the action the Saudis have undertaken.

The fact that the Saudis are continuing after there is very little left to bomb suggests an unwillingness by the Saudi regime to come to a compromise before it is able to impose the political settlement it wants. It is therefore incumbent upon the UK to try to put pressure on the Saudis to reduce the scale of the bombing and say that they have to do something else. If the United States can do it, so can we. The US spokesman, when announcing the veto of the weapons sales in December, said, “We will not give a blank cheque to the Saudi regime.” My criticism of HM Government is precisely that they are trying to give a blank cheque to the Saudi Government.

[Edward Agar]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point well, but does he recall that the Secretary of State for Defence, in a statement to this House on 19 December, made it clear that the United States Government had suspended a particular licence but had continued to supply military jets, helicopters and other ammunition to Saudi Arabia? It was not a blank cheque.

[George Kerevan]

I am well aware of that. Politics is politics in the western world, so while the US was banning the guidance systems, it was simultaneously agreeing a major contract to supply battle tanks to Saudi Arabia, but that just makes my point. If we presume, as HM Government do, that Saudi Arabia is an ally, the way we should deal with it is not to give it a blank cheque but to give it a choice. It is carrot and stick. The British Government have not done that. They spent a long time pretending or arguing that British cluster weapons had not been used. Once that was definitively proved, they moved back to saying that Saudi should conduct its own inquiries.

We have been training the Saudi air force. For the past 40 years, we have been helping to set up the command and control system for the Saudi air force. If it is not getting it right now, it is for political reasons, not because of any defectiveness in its command and control system. Waiting on the Saudis to investigate is a subterfuge. We have to put political pressure on the Saudis to come to the negotiating table to reduce the scale of the bombing and move towards some kind of ceasefire, and to do it properly. If we do not do that, we let them off the hook. As long as the British Government are being so soft—I use the word advisedly—on the Saudis in this context, we will never to get the international inquiry, which is the start of the process.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) crystallised the debate right at the very beginning by asking at what point do the British Government move on from demanding the Saudis investigate the failures in the bombing war to having an independent inquiry. That is the simplest thing. It is an even more modest request of HM Government than suspending arms sales temporarily, yet they will not even do that. That is the issue.

My final point is that as long as the British Government continue to underwrite the excessive Saudi bombing offensive, it becomes more and more likely that British personnel, in the military and in the Government, could be culpable legally.