Yemen
Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Graham P Jones(6 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Harriett Baldwin
Among the work that the UK is doing, I particularly highlight the work that we have done through Djibouti, in terms of shipping access to Hodeidah, but it is something that we are monitoring very carefully. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, only about two thirds of the humanitarian assistance that Yemen needed got through in March, and so far in April it seems to be an even lower percentage, so it is something that we are paying very close attention to.
Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) for asking this urgent question. I think we all agree that what happened in Hajjah was absolutely shocking. It is not a first, and such killings continue in a war that has seen a lot of individuals killed. There needs to be a clear process of accountability; otherwise, the killing will simply continue. I welcome Martin Griffiths as the new special envoy. He has talked about a peace process, but let us not forget that recently Ismail Ahmed, the outgoing UN special envoy, said that the Houthis had walked away from a peace deal. My question to the Minister is how do we get a peace deal when the Houthis walked away from the Kuwait talks and the Geneva talks and Ismail Ahmed said they walked away from the talks at the back end of 2017? How do we get these people around the peace table?
Harriett Baldwin
As I said, negotiations and the special envoy’s work are ongoing, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support for his role and the work that he is doing, but no one should underestimate the difficulty of the task that he has been asked to undertake.