Oral Answers to Questions

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady is ingeniously asking the same question that she asked earlier. I can tell her that we are doing everything we can to address the issue she has raised. It is as much a concern to us as it is to her, and we will continue to do that.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

It is vital for peace that the rule of law is established and upheld in both Palestine and Israel. Has my right hon. Friend made an assessment of whether the weakening of the judiciary in Israel will impact on legal decisions relating to the Israel defence forces’ rules of engagement in the current conflict?

Oral Answers to Questions

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

15. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of recent violence in Israel and Palestine.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

19. What steps his Department is taking to help secure peace in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

22. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of recent violence in Israel and Palestine.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Rutley]

Lord Ahmad did meet the Israeli official and talked through the importance of this matter. As the hon. Lady rightly highlights, international humanitarian law requires military forces to allow medical access in order to evacuate and treat the wounded. We are always urging Israel to live up to those important requirements.

[Mrs Drummond]

This year has seen the highest number on record of settlements in the west bank. In just the first half of 2023, the Israeli Government promoted 12,855 housing units and 10 new outposts. The total number of settlers in the west bank is now 750,000. This is contrary to international law and further displaces many Palestinian families as their houses and land are taken away. How will that help the peace process? What are the Government doing to uphold international law?

[David Rutley]

That is an important question. As was laid out in the Foreign Secretary’s trilateral statement with the Foreign Ministers of Australia and Canada on 30 June, the continued expansion of settlements is an obstacle to peace and negatively impacts efforts to achieve a negotiated two-state solution. We call on the Government of Israel to reverse these decisions, and we have continued to do that with the Foreign Secretary speaking to his counterpart on 5 July.

Yemen: Humanitarian Situation and Children’s Rights

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Carol Monaghan]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. I will come on to the arms trade with Saudi Arabia and Britain’s role in that, but we cannot just be seen as a benevolent overseer here. The UK actually has its fingers in the pie in Yemen, and it is certainly not helping to broker peace while it is still arming the Saudi-led coalition.

Coming back to the subject of girl brides, according to Girls Not Brides, many girls in Yemen have been married off as a source of income during the conflict as families are driven deeper into poverty and desperation. There have also been reports of girls being trafficked through so-called tourist marriages with wealthy men from the Arab Gulf region for the purpose of sexual exploitation. These people are desperate, and it is unfortunately the most vulnerable who will suffer. Currently, 9% of Yemeni girls are married by the age of 15, and nearly a third are married by their 18th birthday.

However, the war does not just affect girls; it casts its lethal shadow over the entire nation. Landmines and unexploded ordnance have killed and continue to kill hundreds of children, and instability has resulted in the internal displacement of 3.2 million people. According to UNICEF, one child in Yemen dies from preventable causes every 10 minutes; during the course of this debate, another six children in Yemen will have died needlessly.

The situation on the ground is devastating. Children’s rights to life, food, security and basic healthcare are under threat. Against this backdrop, the UK Government stand by their decision to cut official development assistance funding from 0.7% of GNI to 0.5%—in doing so, slashing aid to the most vulnerable. In 2020, the UK pledged £214 million in aid to Yemen; this year, that figure is only £88 million. In 2020, when the ODA cut was initially enacted, many colleagues across the House—a number of them are here in the Chamber—deemed it inhumane and hoped the policy would be short-lived. It certainly seems inconsistent with this Government’s eagerness to project a global Britain that defends universal human rights, supports conflict resolution and tackles extreme deprivation. Three years on, this unethical aid cut remains, and global Britain seems no more than empty rhetoric. I am aware that, alongside the US and Germany, the UK is one of the major contributors of aid to Yemen—I will say that—but we are providing far less than we did previously. The longer the shortfall is maintained, the slower and more limited our humanitarian reach in Yemen will be. According to the former UN emergency relief co-ordinator, Sir Mark Lowcock, “there is no question” but that the decision to cut ODA has increased civilian loss of life in the country.

The UK’s desire to be a force for good must be underwritten by concrete action, and it demands that we do more. If inadequate humanitarian funding is one moral failing, the Government’s decision to arm the Saudi-led coalition is another. Air strikes by the coalition have hit hundreds of civilian targets. The Saudi air campaign alone has killed around 9,000 civilians, including hundreds of children, which has elicited strong condemnation from the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

Is the hon. Lady aware that United Nations resolution 2216 actually demanded the withdrawal of the Houthis and gave recognition to the coalition under President Hadi to restore the legitimate Government to Yemen? It was actually a UN resolution in the first place that brought in Saudi and the Gulf states.

[Carol Monaghan]

It is useful to have that background; I thank the hon. Lady for that. To be honest, I am not here to point fingers at other states—apart from the ones we are arming and involving in this conflict. There is a very complex situation in Yemen; there are lots of different factions involved, and its history is very coloured. We need to look at how we can help to resolve the situation, rather than throwing petrol on the fire.

There is overwhelming evidence of repeated breaches of international humanitarian law, but the UK Government continue to supply the coalition with weaponry. The published value of arms licensed for export to the Saudi coalition since bombardment began is £9.4 billion, but according to estimates from the Campaign Against Arms Trade, the real value is nearly triple that figure. The Government are prioritising economic advantage over children’s futures. This Government rightly condemned Moscow’s aggressive bombing of a Ukrainian maternity hospital, but where was the condemnation of Saudi Arabia when Yemen’s civilian infrastructure was targeted?

The recent calls for a ceasefire are welcome, but the necessity of ending arms sales is no less urgent. I hope that the recent progress and talks between the warring parties bring about new peace and prosperity so that lives can be pieced back together.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard, I think for the first time. I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) for securing the debate.

As the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) and I were born in Yemen, we have taken part in many debates on Yemen over the years. It is good to see that there has been some progress: there has been no return to major fighting since the ceasefire formally ended, although localised fighting, score-settling and crime are still contributing to the suffering of millions of Yemenis. Major seizures of weapon shipments to Ansar Allah indicate that the conflict has potentially been paused rather than ended, which I hope is not the case, but we have seen the recent tragedy in Sanaa, in which 78 people died in a crush at an event where aid was being distributed. Many of those people were from the very poorest part of Yemeni society: the Muhamasheen. That something so tragic should happen at a charitable event is horrifying. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.

I am pleased that our Government have been a leader at the UN in promoting a settlement. I also thank the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for its work on the international women and girls strategy and its recognition of the appalling situation for women and girls in Yemen—it has finally been included on the list. The way in which the conflict has entrenched gender inequality is absolutely horrendous, as the hon. Member for Glasgow North West mentioned. The position of women and girls in Yemen was dire before the civil war began in 2013: 35% of women were illiterate and only 670,000 girls were in education, out of a school-age population of around 9.5 million children. It is education that I want to concentrate on first.

A quarter of Yemeni schools have been damaged or destroyed. Access to education is now so poor that more than 2 million, out of 10 million, are out of school. Some 33% of the whole population is barely literate or has only primary school education. Teachers have been paid only occasionally, and the salaries given do not sustain a family above poverty level. About 70% of Yemen’s children live in areas controlled by Ansar Allah, which has rewritten the school syllabus to focus on its own ideology—in particular, that fighting and dying for the Houthi cause is a direct route to heaven. Children are encouraged to join summer camps, where they are given physical and military training, and many older children drop out of school completely and have ended up joining the conflict.

We know that children elsewhere in Yemen are at risk of indoctrination, especially in schools in the south, which promotes its own secessionist ideology. Payment is now required in many places for a child to go to school, and the cost of providing essential textbooks and stationery also falls on families. Like everything else, they have nearly doubled in price over the last year, so I hope that we focus our aid on funding teachers, schools and equipment. Above all, education is absolutely crucial if Yemen is to build its way to being a successful, modern and 21st-century economy based on quality employment in modern businesses. We need to do whatever it takes to make that happen. Some of the neighbouring countries have achieved great things. Let us hope that we can do the same in Yemen.

Moving on to humanitarian issues, Yemen is suffering from spikes in the prices of essential goods. In some places, flour can now cost up to three times as much as it did before the invasion of Ukraine, and diesel costs between two and three times as much as it did this time last year. There has been no growth in wages or household income since the start of the ceasefire, and Yemeni families have no insurance against rising prices. Although it is good news that the blockade of the Red sea ports has lifted, the Houthis have now banned the movement of many goods by road from Aden and Mukalla, in order to guarantee Ansar Allah’s revenue stream from the port at Hodeida.

However, there are some signs of progress. The recent prisoner exchange has freed over 900 people on both sides of the conflict, many of whom were political prisoners or simply hostages. There remain several thousand people in jails and camps across Yemen, and the accounts of human rights violations from those released in the exchange are still a cause for concern. We must make sure that those who perpetrated atrocities are brought to justice. Politically, we need continued progress in the negotiations between the Houthis, the Presidential Leadership Council and Saudi Government in key areas, including re-establishing a unified central bank and currency, without which the Yemeni economy will remain crippled. We need to help when required.

I would like to close by returning to the incredibly dangerous situation with the oil tanker FSO Safer in the Red sea off Hodeida. I have brought this up many a time with Ministers. The UK has been a leader at the UN in raising funds to empty the oil from that ship into a secure tanker and dispose of the Safer. The replacement tank is on its way and has been exempted from canal tolls by the Egyptian Government. However, there is still a shortfall of around $20 million for the required work. Will the Minister ensure that we keep up the pressure at the UN? The last thing Yemen needs when we are still a long way from the end of the civil war is a major ecological disaster.

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship Mr Pritchard. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) not only for securing this debate but for making an eloquent and touching speech. I endorse everything that she said. The situation is tragic and ongoing.

I wish to start by putting on record a press report. I have a cutting that says:

“Gross violations of international law. Missiles raining down on houses. Kleptocrats laundering their ill-gotten gains through London and buying political influence. Aggressive, powerful states attacking a poorer neighbour; backing separatist rebels; illegally occupying its land; dropping cluster bombs and conducting crippling cyber-attacks.”

The article asks if that sounds familiar. But that is not Putin; it is not Bakhmut. It was a year ago and written with regard to the war in Yemen. We see support and the flags flying, even here, for Ukraine. We have hosted President Zelensky. We have condemned President Putin unreservedly, and rightly so. Yet everything that is going on in Bakhmut is being replicated in Yemen, and little is being done.

The comment has been made that it takes two to have a fight, and I am not here to support one side or other, but, as other hon. Members have mentioned, the bulk of the danger is being created by the weaponry, especially of the Saudi Arabians and the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai are principally supported by the British military, and that is something that we have to address. We are providing aid to Yemen and commenting on the ongoing horror, yet as other hon. Members—especially the hon. Member for Glasgow North West—have said, we are fuelling and funding that situation by providing the weaponry that is wreaking the horror there.

[Mrs Drummond]

I mentioned earlier that the situation in Yemen is completely incomparable to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This was very much under UN resolution 2216. The hon. Gentleman has not mentioned the fact that Iran has also contributed weapons to the Houthis.

[Kenny MacAskill]

I condemn Iran for its role, as I condemn it for its drones that have been causing horror in Ukraine. But we all bleed the same. A Houthi or a Yemeni bleeds the same as a Ukrainian or a Russian, and we have to recognise that. We cannot exculpate ourselves by saying that they are slightly different.

I wish to put on record the importance of recognising the role that the UK and, indeed, Scotland, is playing. The UK is the principal arms supplier for Saudi Arabia, which is why we turned a blind eye when Khashoggi was murdered: “Who cares? Let us look away and invite Mohammed bin Salman or whatever—it does not matter so long as we continue to sell.” The hon. Member for Glasgow North West and others have rightly put that on record. The tragedy is that Scotland has a role in this. As the report I quoted goes on to say, we are aware that missiles provided by Raytheon are causing death and misery in Yemen, indiscriminately killing children from whatever side. The fact of the matter is that the laser guidance systems for Raytheon’s missiles are made at Glenrothes, in Scotland.

Human Rights Protections: Palestinians

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) for bringing forward this important debate. I declare an interest as I visited Israel and Palestine in 2016 with some other MPs, and that is recorded in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I want to concentrate on one aspect that is not often raised in public: the detention and imprisonment of Palestinian adults and children from the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which is a central part of Israel’s military occupation.

In 2016, we visited the Israeli military court at Ofer and saw how it works in person. Only Palestinians are tried in military courts. Settlers in the OPTs are tried in Israeli civil and criminal courts. As part of his report in October 2018, the UN special rapporteur wrote about how

“the extension of Israeli laws to the West Bank”

since 1967 has created “a discriminatory legal regime”.

If an Israeli settler child and a Palestinian child throw a stone in the same area, the former will almost certainly not land up in a court and will be protected by Israel’s legal system. However, the Palestinian child will face a military court. Israel’s military court at Ofer has, by its own figures, a 99.74% conviction rate. Why? Because lawyers advise Palestinians to plead guilty in order to get out earlier. I will leave it up to hon. Members to weigh whether that is justice.

International law is very clear on the legal authority to impose military law and establish military courts to try civilians. The key provisions are found in the Hague regulations and the fourth Geneva convention. Articles 64 and 66 of the fourth Geneva convention state that local laws

“may be repealed or suspended…where they constitute a threat to…security”

and replaced with military law, enforced in

“properly constituted, non-political military courts”.

That is what the Israeli military authorities use as the jurisdictional basis for establishing military courts in the west bank. However, international law also stipulates that occupation should be on a temporary basis, including the prosecution of civilians under military law. As we have heard, Israel’s military court policy has been in existence for 56 years—hardly a temporary solution.

The PLO Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs estimates that more than 850,000 Palestinians have been detained since 1967. Wide-ranging military regulations govern every aspect of Palestinian life. Military orders provide for a wide range of offences, divided into five categories—some credible, some not. Hostile terrorist activity and disturbance of public order are classified in that way, which I think is acceptable, but so are classic criminal offences, illegal presence in Israel and traffic offences committed in the OPT. Do the last three categories of offence really need to be tried in a military court? Are the sentences proportionate? Under military order No. 1651 of 2009, for example, throwing stones is considered a security offence with a punishment of up to 20 years’ imprisonment.

There is also detention without trial. Palestinians may be held without charge for up to six months under an administrative detention order issued by an Israeli military commander. Recently, with Breaking the Silence, we met a military commander who I think had made such orders when he was 21—a very young age to have such an impact on somebody. The orders can be renewed without charge or trial. As of October 2022, there were 798 Palestinian prisoners being held under an administrative detention order, including eight members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. The majority of those prisoners have served more than six months behind bars.

It is important that I give the House some detail about what happens. Detainees, including children, are handcuffed and blindfolded. Some are kept in total isolation, as we have heard, and there are widespread allegations that they are threatened during interrogation. Some 70% of child detainees and 80% of adult detainees have been unlawfully transferred to prisons in Israel, in violation of the fourth Geneva convention and the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court.

I want to concentrate on what happens to children. Israel is the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes children in military courts. Some 95,000 children have been detained since 1967 in the west bank. The most common charge is stone throwing, and it is often unclear who has thrown the stones. Stone throwing is not acceptable, but no child should be arrested in the middle of the night, roughed up, taken by the army without a parent or a responsible adult and interrogated without a lawyer present.

Worst of all, families are not informed where their children are taken, even though military order 1676 requires that a police officer inform the parents of the child’s detention. In most cases, Palestinian children are taken to detention centres in larger Israeli settlements across the west bank, and parents take the time to find out where their child is. In 99% of cases, children are denied access to their parents or a lawyer and are unaware of their right to remain silent. During covid, families were unable to visit their children. Confessions are often signed in Hebrew, which few of the Palestinian children understand, and 90% plead guilty regardless of whether they committed the offence.

Children should be offered the same protections that would be granted in a civil court. In all of this, Israel is violating the numerous provisions of the UN convention on the rights of the child, which it ratified in 1991. The criminal age of responsibility is 12. In 2011, military orders raised the age of majority from 16 to 18. Under-18s must therefore be tried in juvenile courts, which brings Israel into line with international standards. However, that does not apply to sentencing: 16 and 17-year-olds are still sentenced as adults.

All of this is common knowledge if anyone cares to look. It was confirmed in the legal report that the Foreign Office funded in 2012, which found that Israel was in breach of eight of its international legal obligations under the UN convention on the rights of the child and the fourth Geneva convention. Eleven years on, sadly little has changed. As of 31 March 2023, 151 Palestinian children are in military detention, an 11% increase on the 2022 figure. I urge the Minister to revisit that report and push for change.

Following UNICEF’s report “Children in Israeli Military Detention”, which found that there was ill treatment of children in the military detention system, Israel reduced the maximum time for which a child could be detained before appearing in front of a judge, from four days to 24 hours for children aged 12 and 13 and from four to two days for children aged 14 and 15. However, there was no change in the period for 16 to 17-year-olds, which is still 96 hours. Settlers’ children enjoy much shorter periods of detention before seeing a judge, and are allowed access to parents and lawyers.

The resentment towards the Israeli defence force that each of those 95,000 children must grow up with must be huge, and to say that it is counterproductive must be one of the biggest understatements I have made in the House. As the right hon. Sir Stephen Sedley writes in his foreword to the Save the Children report “Defenceless”,

“Whatever one’s view of the ongoing conflict and its causes, there is no excuse for the systematic infliction of psychological harm on a generation of young Palestinians.”

Sadly, most Palestinian children’s only experience of Israelis is framed by such experiences, and violence from Israeli soldiers and illegal Israeli settlers. I urge Israel to ensure that throughout the arrest, interrogation and court process, Palestinian children are given the same safeguards as Israeli children in civil courts. The UK Government and their partners have a direct responsibility to ensure that that happens, as high contracting parties to the fourth Geneva convention. I urge the FCDO to deal with this as a matter of urgency.

Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The right hon. Gentleman, who has dealt with these matters in government and understands them well, makes the case with impeccable clarity.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

May I add my deepest condolences to Rabbi Dee and his family following the murder of his wife Lucy and his daughters Maia and Rina in the west bank? I welcome the statement by the Minister, who has laid out the issues clearly, but can he tell me what discussions he has had with the Palestinian Authority and what help has been offered to bring the violence to an end?

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank my hon. Friend very much for her comments and her support for the statements of condolence across the House today. These discussions take place all the time. I can tell her that the UK is committed to working with all parties to reduce tensions and maintain calm across Israel and the OPT. These discussions do not go forward in leaps and bounds; they are continuous and take place all the time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The UK Government condemn terrorism in all its forms. Whatever criticism Palestinians may have of the Israeli Government, there is no justification for terrorist action. We always encourage dialogue, we always encourage co-operation and we always encourage actions that de-escalate. That will continue to be our posture with regard to Israel and the OPTs.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

The only way to permanently end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is to deliver Palestinian self-determination and preserve Israel’s Jewish and democratic identity through a peaceful two-state solution. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that his Department remains committed to achieving that solution based on 1967 borders and the recognition of Palestine as a state?

[James Cleverly]

Our position on a sustainable two-state solution is long standing. We will always encourage Israel to take actions that support that and we have the same conversations with representatives of the Palestinian Authority. We encourage dialogue, we encourage negotiation, we encourage co-operation and we encourage de-escalation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady raises an important point, and she specifically mentions Oxfam. Anything that Oxfam is involved with is well worth pursuing and I will look into it.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

FSO Safer, the oil tanker off the coast of Yemen, continues to deteriorate. Funding has been raised, so can my right hon. Friend update the House on when the oil will be offloaded and the tanker made safe?

[James Cleverly]

The Safer oil tanker has been an issue of international concern for quite some time and I am glad that funds have now been made available. I have spoken to the Yemeni Government, the Saudi Government and even representatives of the Houthis about this to try to get the matter resolved, and we will continue to push to prevent what would be an ecological disaster on an unprecedented scale if that tanker were breached.

British Council Contractors in Afghanistan

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Baron]

I agree that, sadly, the Government are failing these people. I am trying to use the normal channels to add some urgency. I do not think it is just the Home Office; a few Departments, including the FCDO, are involved. I hope to hear some positive news from the Minister and I will certainly prompt him in that direction when I resume my address.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

Although I can understand why the Government are worried about eligibility, does my hon. Friend agree that our reputation globally is at risk? Although we make promises about their welfare and support for their rights, we do not honour them. The people who worked for us in Afghanistan worked for the good of their own country. If we want to help Afghanistan in future, we will depend on their goodwill.

[Mr Baron]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We asked these people to step up to the plate and are looking away when it is our turn to do so. That cannot be right and does not create a good impression of our country’s approach to such matters on the international stage.

Last summer, after activity from the British Council all-party group in particular—I thank the APPG and its members for being so hardy in this cause—the Government opened an application window for the contractors to apply for a place on the ACRS. The British Council worked at pace with the FCDO, as the Minister will know, to winnow out genuine applicants. By September, around half had heard that they had a place on the scheme, pending security checks, but they have heard nothing since. Certainly, that was the case up to Christmas. The other half of applicants—around 100—had simply heard nothing at all. Their papers were stuck in a bureaucratic mishmash in Whitehall. Following pressure from the British Council all-party group in particular and from others, I understand that over the Christmas recess around half of the contractors had their ACRS applications acknowledged and granted, and I look forward to hearing whether the Minister can confirm that.

Barriers remain. People will apparently require the necessary ID and travel documents to leave Afghanistan. They left their homes at short notice and are in fear of their lives, moving from one safehouse to another, and I am sure the Minister will be sympathetic to the case that they might not have all their paperwork. The idea of applying to the Taliban for passports is, as I am sure the Minister will realise, just not feasible. Meanwhile, new-born children may have arrived, bringing further complication for paperwork.

In the interest of brevity, knowing that others might want to contribute to this very brief debate and wanting to allow the Minister plenty of time to respond and take interventions if necessary, I have four questions for the Minister. I hope he will take note of them and answer them in turn. First, am I right to understand that around half the contractors have been given the go-ahead? It is a simple yes or no.

Secondly, have they been told they can make for the border? If so, I ask the Minister what he and the wider ministerial team at the FCDO are doing to encourage Governments in third countries to offer a greater degree of flexibility on paperwork for those seeking to cross the border out of Afghanistan. Such arrangements were previously agreed with the Government of Pakistan, which allowed individuals under the predecessor Afghan relocations and assistance policy scheme to cross the border without ID if their names were on a list approved by the British Government. Is it going to be as simple as that?

Thirdly, I understand that around half of contractors are yet to hear anything. By when can they expect to be contacted? It is totally unacceptable, as Members have already heard and will continue to hear. It is totally unacceptable—a view widely held in the House—that those people have had to hold on and wait for so long. It is just inhumane.

Finally, may I make a plea to the Minister? In my various deliberations, I have heard some unedifying, if not distasteful, talk of quotas. Will he ensure that quotas do not prevent those who worked for Britain and their families seeking safety in the UK? After all, there was no talk of quotas when we asked for volunteers. There is no talk of quotas when it comes to the extent of these people’s bravery in stepping up to the plate when we needed them. We should therefore not be talking about quotas when it is our turn to stand by them.

In conclusion, although I do not doubt Government or the Minister’s good intentions—it is often an issue of cock-up rather than conspiracy—the sad fact is that after the scheme was introduced, for the whole year of 2022, not one person was relocated. I will not accept any of the talk I have heard previously of many hundreds or thousands being helped. That is disinformation. People who got out under Operation Pitting have been retrospectively shoehorned into various schemes. I hope the Minister will not recite those figures to me. The sad fact is that during 2022 nobody has been relocated under the scheme.

As we reach the first anniversary of the ACRS, I urge the Government finally to get all those contractors and their families to safety. Recent talk in certain circles of the number of Taliban being killed has not helped them at all. After all, the ACRS was a flagship scheme announced with great fanfare, but nobody has yet been relocated. The litmus test of the success of the scheme is how many people have been relocated over the course of the past year, and that figure is a big fat zero. Now is the time to put that right.

Missile Incident in Poland

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The hon. Lady will understand the long-standing convention that we do not discuss intelligence matters on the Floor of the House. I can none the less assure her that the threats and the risks that the heads of our security and intelligence agencies have put in the public domain are absolutely understood by the UK Government and our allies, and we continue to work very, very closely with our defence and security partners around the world on precisely the issue she highlights.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

The Prime Minister was right to say at the G20 summit that Putin’s casual disregard for human life will ripple around the world for years to come. Can my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary update the House on conversations that the Prime Minister has had with our global allies at the G20 to convince Russia to withdraw from Ukraine?

[James Cleverly]

I am not able to give a full update because the meetings in Indonesia are still going on, but I spoke with our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister late last night and I can assure my hon. Friend and the House that this is very much in the thoughts of leaders at the G20. Obviously, the conversations at the G20 cannot just be about Russia and Ukraine, but the implications for the global south and for many member countries of the G20 are very much at the forefront of our thinking, particularly for energy security and food supplies and the need to ensure that the hungry people of the world are not made more hungry as Vladimir Putin uses their hunger and their need for energy as leverage in his brutal war of aggression against the Ukrainians.

Yemen Peace Process

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the peace process in Yemen.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this important and timely debate.

Just over 60 years ago, I was born in Steamer Point Hospital in Aden, and I began a long fascination with Yemen in its various guises. I was born with British citizenship as my father was serving in the British Arab army, and we left when I was three. Ever since then, I have tracked how things have changed over the years as I have written down the changing names of my country of birth. I have not been back since but I dream to, much like the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) and her brother, the former Member for Leicester East, who were also born in Yemen.

Over the last 60 years, Yemen has been divided and come back together again, and it has now become a long-forgotten war for many. Why is Yemen important to us? The UK has a historic interest in Yemen through the existence of the Aden colony from 1839 to 1967. More importantly, today we are the UN penholder. The Government must continue to play their leading role in promoting peace. I pay tribute to the UN special envoy, Hans Grundberg, and his predecessor, Martin Griffiths, for all their work.

Today I will set the scene, as I know others will want to talk about different aspects. I thought it would be good to remind people about the complexity of the war and our role. That is not to say that we should impose a western-centric, top-down structure of government for Yemen. That has been disastrous in places such as Iraq. Like other middle eastern countries, Yemen is made up of different communities, and there is currently little feeling of a whole national identity. The war is not as clear as some may wish it to be. Often, there is too much focus on Saudi Arabia and the Iranian involvement, but it is an internal civil war, not a surrogate or proxy war. Although outside countries are involved, either by backing the Houthi rebels or supporting the Yemeni Government, they do not necessarily control them politically.

Yemen has had a history of civil wars for centuries, and a continual battle along the Saudi Arabian border—a border that has cut through some of the historical Yemen. It is a country divided by tribal and religious loyalties. The Houthis are more doctrinally close to the Sunnis than the Iranian Shi’ite regime with which they are often linked by the outside world. The Houthis are also more conservative than the southern tribes in their Sunni doctrine.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady seems to be implying that there are only allegations of Iranian involvement with the Houthis, whereas the Iranian regime is absolutely up to its neck in this, stimulating and providing massive amounts of material. Frankly, the Houthi attacks would not be successful without the destructive and disruptive behaviour of the Iranian regime.

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[Mrs Drummond]

If the right hon. Gentlemen was listening carefully, I said that although other countries are involved, they are not politically involved. They may be supported militarily, but the Houthis are thinking for themselves rather than being dictated to by the Iranian Government. That is the point that I was trying to make.

The sectarian divide in Yemen is not clearcut, as tribal loyalties cut across religious beliefs, making it a confusing and shifting picture, particularly for those looking from the west. Unification in 1990 was to bring forward a representative Government, with elections every seven years. However, it was fragile because of the problems with power sharing that we see elsewhere, including closer to home.

The origins of the present war lie in the political and economic marginalisation of northern Yemen by the former President Saleh. Many of the 301 members of the Yemeni Parliament, who were elected under universal suffrage, felt disenfranchised and unable to effect change. That was a missed opportunity to show that democracy works, in a part of the world surrounded by authoritarian regimes.

The war is a result of decades of exclusion of different parts of the population around the country. Yemen has been run by elites who have concentrated power with their own allies and disenfranchised large parts of the population, even when elections were held. With that in mind, we need to look at how that impacts the peace process and the route to lasting peace.

On 2 April, Yemen’s warring parties began a two-month nationwide peace brokered by the UN. That was extended until October, but it has not been extended again, although the fighting has not resumed at the same intensity as before. On 7 April, President Hadi transferred his powers to a new eight-person Presidential Leadership Council, and the new President is Rashad al-Alimi, a politician with long experience and a diplomatic background.

The six-month ceasefire has been the nearest thing to a reprieve since civil war broke out eight years ago. Casualties have come down countrywide, there has been an increase in fuel deliveries, and international commercial flights to and from Sanaa have recommenced for the first time in six years. However, the latest proposal put forward by the special envoy has not been accepted by the Houthis. The proposal is wide ranging and includes the payment of civil servants’ salaries and pensions, the opening of specific roads in Taiz—the second most populous city—a commitment to release detainees urgently, and the strengthening of the de-escalation mechanism through the military co-ordination committee. The main obstacle is that the Houthis want their security forces to be included in the salary payments to civil servants, which the Government could not accept. This is really disappointing.

Taiz has been in a state of a partial siege since the beginning of the war, and life has been tough, with a war economy inflating prices and insecurity. It was not until 2021, when Hans Grundberg became the first diplomat to visit Taiz since the start of the war, that the profile of the city and its plight were raised. Improving communications with and around Taiz must be central to negotiations, and this is one of the areas where the UK Government can help by working with the special envoy to call on the Houthis to show flexibility.

The outside world must remind the Houthis that all citizens have benefitted from the peace over the past year. Any attempt to prevent oil and goods from arriving at the port of Hodeidah impacts on the already difficult humanitarian crisis. Food is becoming more expensive as it becomes even more scarce, and there is not enough equipment to keep hospitals and schools functioning. Only 48% of the aid needed through the 2022 Yemen humanitarian response plan has been funded so far. The Houthis must realise that working towards a long-term peace process will help that and is in everybody’s interest.

Politically, the Presidential Leadership Council under President al-Alimi has unified the resistance to the Houthis. The Southern Transitional Council is the most well-known group, so we should recognise the role of Mr al-Zubaidi and, just as importantly, the other members —Tareq Saleh, Abdullah al-Alimi Bawazeer, Sultan al-Arada from Marib, General al-Bahsani, Othman Majali and Abu Zara’a al-Muharrami for their contribution to leading the council. However, the situation with the PLC is delicate, and support from the international community is vital to maintain its credibility.

[John Spellar]

The hon. Lady mentioned the Southern Transitional Council. She may be about to come on to this, but what consideration should be given in the discussions to the desire for self-determination in south Yemen?

[Mrs Drummond]

I do not think it is for us to determine the future of Yemen. It is up to the people to decide what they would like to do through the negotiations, so I would not dream of putting what I think on to what they are going to decide. That is very important, as I mentioned at the beginning. We cannot apply our western-centric views to what is going on in Yemen. If the people decide that they want to divide as they used to be, that is fair enough, but I do not think we should be talking about that at the moment—

[John Spellar]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that there is considerable demand in southern Yemen for a degree of self-determination, if not independence, and that that is very much recognised by the south Yemeni diaspora here in the UK? This is not about us pressing for that as colonialists; it is very much a local demand.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. When someone intervenes, the speaker needs to accept the intervention before the other person starts speaking.

[Mrs Drummond]

Thank you, Mr Davies.

It is all very well for people in the UK to say that that is what should happen, but the country has been divided before. It came back together and started to have a Government who, unfortunately, were not run properly. Unifying the country could happen again, but if it is the will of the people of Yemen to divide again, we must accept that. It is up to the people of Yemen who are living there and those who are running the Government, who are beginning to run it with a lot of credibility. We have to wait for that to settle down.

The special envoy and other allies must also make clear that help and aid will come if the Government of Yemen take the opportunity to move on from their former position under President Hadi. Any weakness will be exploited by the Houthis and delay any future peace process. The UN special envoy has been tireless in his diplomatic efforts, and has been asking for a new six-month truce to allow time for negotiations for a formal ceasefire, the resumption of an inclusive political process, and talks on wider economic issues. We must help to make those things happen. On the humanitarian angle, Joyce Cleopa Msuya, the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, has spent time in Yemen, helping the 4.3 million people who have been internally displaced since the start of the war in 2015. Her role can also help to encourage negotiations, showing that peace brings dividends. Mine clearance needs to be a priority, as mines are presently being washed into farm fields.

Before the civil war, 45% of the population of Yemen lived below the poverty line; that figure is now around 90%. Today, 24 million people are in danger of famine, of whom 14 million are at acute risk, and 2 million children are at risk of starvation. Huge parts of the population are being sustained by relief efforts. The UK has always been one of the leading donors supporting Yemen, providing more than £1 billion of aid during the conflict, and many British non-governmental organisations have been doing fantastic work. However, we must recognise that the Yemeni economy will need considerable help and support even after a return to peace.

Yemen is facing huge challenges from climate change, with near-constant drought and desertification of agricultural areas. Since the start of the war, the population of Yemen has doubled, but GDP per head has more than halved. There is a need to rebuild Yemeni society on an equal and fair basis, which includes the promotion of women’s rights. Lastly, there is the threat of an environmental disaster from the oil tanker FSO Safer, moored off the coast of Hodeidah. I have been raising awareness in Parliament about that potential catastrophe for many years. I am pleased that the UN has now raised enough money to start transferring the oil to a temporary vessel, but I have an immediate ask of the Government: that they work with our partners to make sure that transfer is completed as soon as possible, and to secure a safe disposal of the Safer. If that is not done, there is a risk of environmental damage to the whole of the Red sea for decades.

This war has gone on for too long, and too many people have died or been displaced. I urge the UK Government to work tirelessly with all parties and bring peace to a region that deserves it. The British Council is already working in the north and the south; there is a huge demand for English teaching and transferrable skills in Yemen. Our soft power influences can be a big help to Yemen in its post-war reconstruction and rehabilitation. That is important, because there is a compelling geopolitical reason why the west must help the people of Yemen: China or Russia, for example, could fill the vacuum, which could be disastrous for the region’s security. Our support for people in crisis in the world, helping them to build stable and fair regimes, is an investment in our own security as well as theirs. If we can achieve that, then perhaps I, the right hon. Member for Walsall South, and many Yemenis displaced around the world can one day safely return.

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[Bob Stewart]

I thank the right hon. Lady, whom I call a good friend, although she is not formally meant to be a friend; technically, she is not a friend, but she really is a friend. I have been able to find my place now—thank you.

The colony of Aden consisted of 23 sultanates when we were there. There were emirates, sultanates and several independent tribes. All this was run from London and controlled by the British Government, although not completely. In the 1950s, when I was there, some tribes were in open rebellion against British authority, which led to a protracted insurrection that we all remember. Well, others might not remember it as much as I do.

In 1967, the United Kingdom had enough. Aden was given independence as South Yemen, and British forces withdrew. The Aden protectorate was renamed the People’s Republic of South Yemen. The Yemen Arab Republic was to its north—that is the division we were talking about. In 1990, north and south joined to become Yemen.

My particular interest in Yemen comes from the fact that as a child I lived there from 1953 to 1957. I was there because my father served there, like the father of my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley. My father was a company commander in the 1st Battalion of the Aden Protectorate Levies, charged with keeping order “up-country”, as we called it. He was always away, and I never really saw him. He was always on operations, and there was pretty fierce fighting. In 1955, he was awarded the Military Cross.

Since 1990, Yemen has gone from bad to worse. It is such a dangerous place that it would be utterly foolhardy for foreigners to go there without protection. We have already identified how poor the country is; it is actually very poor. It is the poorest country in the middle east and a very fragile state. Yemen has essentially become a cockpit where some would say the two main branches of Islam are fighting tooth and nail by proxy. The official Government of Yemen are now backed by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, the Gulf states and, through them, us as their allies, and the United States. The rebels are mainly from the northern Shi’a Houthi grouping, who, I seem to recall, used to take great delight in shooting at my father in the 1950s.

[Mrs Drummond]

They are not Shi’a; they are Sunnis from the Zaidi part of the Sunni doctrine.

[Bob Stewart]

Forgive me if I got that wrong; I am perfectly willing to be corrected. To complicate the situation further, al-Qaeda has turned up. Perhaps the most dangerous of the al-Qaeda factions is in Yemen. Just to make the problem even more difficult, so-called Islamic State is present as well, or Daesh, as I might prefer to call them. That is a very rude word in Arabic, and I will not explain what it means, but frankly it is correct.

We have a responsibility here, because we drafted the original UN Security Council resolution 2216 in April 2015, which demanded that the Houthis withdraw from all their seized areas and relinquish all seized arms. We established an arms embargo against the Houthis and the forces loyal to the former president. Security Council resolution 2216 was passed unanimously. The five permanent members of the Security Council must agree it; otherwise it does not pass. In this case, four did. Russia did not, but it abstained, which under the rules allowed the resolution to pass, so it passed unopposed. United Nations action on the ground has not been very effective, but that does not stop leaders of the United Nations doing their very best to try to sort out the situation.

There remains little access to large parts of Yemen, but I am pleased that the UK provides so much aid. Are we the fourth or the second-largest provider of aid to Yemen?

[Mrs Drummond]

Second.

[Bob Stewart]

We are second. Aid must get through. We have mentioned people starving and a lack of medical supplies, but all I can remember about Aden is how little water there was there. Water is crucial—good clean water. Certainly, in the early days, some of the Saudi-led airstrikes went wrong, and they have clearly killed innocent people. However, in 2016, when I visited the Riyadh air operations centre, which controls all operations, I was impressed by the attitude of the air controllers and the coalition pilots to what ex-military people like me call weapons release. From what I saw, they were doing their very best then, and have done since, to avoid civilian casualties. Indeed, I heard real evidence that they often returned with full bomb loads. They were not positive that they would not hurt people, so they did not have weapons release.

The Gulf Co-operation Council and Saudi Arabia are very close allies of our country. We must be quite clear that, regardless of its mistakes, the Saudi-led coalition is operating under the authority of a unanimously adopted Security Council resolution. It is acting for the Security Council. It is acting for the forum of the world. It is doing the work on the ground in response to the Government of the world, if one wants to think of the United Nations like that. After all, the usurpation of power in Yemen was illegal. The Government of Yemen are a legal Government. We do well to remember that. It is far too easy for us to sit here and castigate what our allies do sometimes. The Saudi-led coalition is doing its very best to implement international law and the Security Council resolution that we, the British, drafted.

Obviously, everyone here realises that the only way ahead for Yemen is a political solution. That solution must obviously involve the United Nations. I suspect that it has to involve countries such as ourselves, other Arab countries and the United States. Perhaps, dare I suggest, it has to include Iran.

According to the United Nations, as we have heard, 150,000 people have been killed in the war in Yemen, and that does not include the 227,000 who died as a result of famine. I cannot believe that people in this world are dying because they do not have enough food. That is appalling. It is something that, as human beings, we have a real responsibility to sort out. Lack of food, kids dying—it is just dreadful. The lack of healthcare facilities just piles it on, too.

I should stop shortly, because others want to speak, but I hope that I have emphasised that we, the British, have a responsibility for action in Yemen. I know that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is acutely aware of the United Kingdom’s long-standing concern about what has happened in the country, and that the issue is not on the backburner. It is very difficult to sort this one out, but surely a world that can land a spacecraft on a flipping comet can find a way to stop Yemen going through the bloody awful hell that it is enduring.

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[Mrs Drummond]

Thank you very much for chairing the debate, Mr Davies. I thank the Minister for his encouraging remarks, and all hon. Members for their contributions.

The war started as an internal civil war. It has gone on far too long and has brought in other state actors. We need every party to get together, in a bottom-up, not top-down, way that encourages every community and tribe to get involved. We need a new peace process, and we need it fast. I thank everybody, but I especially thank my friend, the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), for securing the debate with me; shukran.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the peace process in Yemen.