Yemen

Fabian Hamilton Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

I am standing in today for the shadow Foreign Secretary, who has a child in hospital.

As we discuss the human cost of one seemingly intractable conflict, I am sure that the whole House will join me in commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Cambrai. I was able to visit the tunnels under Arras—the Carrière Wellington—last Thursday afternoon and to salute the service of the Royal Tank Regiment, for whom this day rightly remains sacred.

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. I will not address all the points he made at this stage, given that there may be another opportunity to do so later in today’s proceedings. For the time being, I wish to address the urgent matter of the escalating humanitarian crisis in Yemen, as he has done in his statement. On that point, the Minister has joined a long line of Foreign Office Ministers who have come to this House since 2015 and told us, time after time, that they are doing everything they can to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and to limit civilian casualties. Yet, time after time, whatever the Government’s good intentions, the humanitarian crisis keeps getting worse and the civilian death toll continues to rise ever higher. We now face a dramatic escalation of that crisis, with millions of lives in even more immediate danger. I am afraid that more good intentions on the part of the Government will simply not cut it this time. Instead, we need urgent action.

We are all familiar with recent developments, as summarised by the Minister. The Saudis have reacted with understandable anger to the Houthis’ firing of a ballistic missile at Riyadh—an act that all Labour Members unequivocally condemn, in the same way in which we have condemned all the thousands of Saudi air strikes against civilian targets inside Yemen. Following the Houthi missile strike, the Saudis strengthened their blockade of all rebel-held areas of Yemen. As a result, what little supplies there were—of food, medicine and other humanitarian goods—have now ground to a halt. Millions of children, who were already facing severe malnutrition, a cholera epidemic and an outbreak of diphtheria, have had their very last lifeline cut off.

Let me quote this weekend’s joint statement by the World Health Organisation, the World Food Programme and UNICEF. They say the tightening of the blockade

“is making an already catastrophic situation far worse.”

They say the supplies the Saudis are blocking

“are essential to staving off disease and starvation. Without them, untold thousands of innocent victims, among them many children, will die.”

They estimate that if nothing is done over the coming months, 150,000 already malnourished children could starve to death. They conclude:

“To deprive this many from the basic means of survival is an unconscionable act and a violation of humanitarian principles and law.”

The Minister has said that he shares those concerns and is urging the Saudis to open up humanitarian access, but at what point will he admit that that strategy is not working? At what point will he warn the Saudis that Britain will withdraw its support if they carry on with this blockade? And at what point do we say that this is no longer a question of diplomatic persuasion but a matter of international law?

International humanitarian law is clear, and Britain’s “Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict” is clear: the starvation of a civilian population cannot be used as a weapon of war. Let me quote specifically from the British manual:

“The…establishment of a blockade is prohibited if…the damage to the civilian population is… excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage”.

It also states:

“If the civilian population…is inadequately provided with food and other objects essential for its survival, the blockading party must provide for free passage of such…essential supplies”.

So if the Saudis continue to enforce the blockade in its current form and deny humanitarian access, will it be the judgment of the Government that the Saudis are in breach of international humanitarian law? If so, will the Government suspend the sales of British arms that are being used to enforce that blockade?

The truth is that the Government have invested considerable political capital in their relationship with Saudi Arabia. They have championed Crown Prince Salman, the architect of the conflict in Yemen and the man who is calling the shots on the blockade. If that diplomatic strategy has been worth anything, now is the time to prove it. Now is the time for the Government to show that we can have influence and impact on the Saudis and to persuade them that, as a matter of urgency, they should open up the ports to humanitarian supplies and bring relief to the millions of children facing starvation and disease. If the Government cannot achieve that, it is time for them to change their approach.

[Alistair Burt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, a large part of which I would not disagree with.

May I start by passing on the good wishes of all of us on the Government Benches to the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry)? We trust that all is well with her child. Secondly, I recognise what the hon. Gentleman said about the first world war battle. We all saw tweeted pictures of the tanks yesterday, which brought a glad smile to many hearts, so I thank him for reminding the House of that.

The hon. Gentleman was right to recognise, first, the frustrations in terms of the conflict. The actions to bring it to an end are not solely within the power of the UK Government; we have to work with partners to achieve that. I set out what we have been seeking to do ever since it became clear that the conflict would require political negotiation, and not a military solution, to bring the parties together and find an answer to something that has already taken too many lives.

This is very much about two sides. There is an awful lot of concentration on the Saudis and on the coalition, but very little attention is paid to the activities of the Houthis and their supporters, and to those who have been involved in human rights abuses on their side. It does take two sides.

The efforts that the United Kingdom has made, at the UN, through our ambassador in Yemen and through our work with the Quad and the Quint to try to bring this to an end have been significant, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that our frustration is that this has not yet produced the end of the conflict, which is the only thing that will resolve the humanitarian issues we are talking about. I do not in any way quibble with the concerns that have been raised by agencies. I am in touch with the World Food Programme and others who have warned, as has Mark Lowcock of the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, of the severity of the problems to be faced if the restrictions are not eased.

I would challenge the hon. Gentleman and put a different complexion on his comments about what happens if the representations that we are continuing to make on the political solution do not work. We are pressing on these representations. We do not know what the answer will be, but we are making very clear the seriousness of the situation, as have other parties, and we expect and trust that there will be a change—there has to be.

I also challenge the hon. Gentleman in relation to international humanitarian law, which he says prevents starvation of civilians as a means or method of warfare. That is quite correct. The publicly made statement by the Saudis on their intent was that it is not to cause starvation but to ensure that missiles do not enter Yemen. To that extent, the solution still lies in the remarks I made in my statement. It is about a combination of two things. First, there is the support that those who wish to prevent missiles entering Yemen need in order to protect themselves, and that comes through the work being done by the UN and the coalition to try to secure the entry ports to make sure that there are no threats in the same way that there was to the airport in Riyadh. At the same time, it is vital to make sure that there is humanitarian access. We believe that concentrating on both those things will relieve the humanitarian situation while securing the safety of those who wish to protect their own people. We will continue to do that in addition to the work that we are continuing to do on the political negotiations that are the only solution to the conflict.