Middle East and North Africa

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I have pointed out that the responsibility for the situation on the borders is not entirely on the Israeli side. I have made very clear our opposition to the use of lethal force and that the defence of borders and boundaries should be proportionate. Hon. Members should make no mistake about that. That is the message that we convey to the Israeli authorities. We should not be so short-sighted as to believe that in the case of Syria no one else is involved in trying to create those incidents and putting people in a position in which they are caught up in violent incidents.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his comprehensive statement. Will he be specific about the number of British nationals who have fled Yemen since the statement in March? Will he give us his estimate of the number of British nationals who remain in Yemen and, finally, why are there 80 British marines off the coast of Yemen and what do they intend to do? In the statement, he said that it was “extremely unlikely that the British Government will be able to evacuate any British nationals” left in Yemen.

[Mr Hague]

There is a good deal of evidence that many British nationals have left Yemen in recent months in response to our advice, although it is not always easy to track them all individually. Most British nationals who remain appear to be dual nationals, so they may not intend to leave under any circumstances—they are Yemeni as well as British. The number of people holding only British nationality is certainly down to a few hundred as far as we can see—fewer than 300 would be a fair estimate. There are British military assets in the region, but I am not going into the operational tasking of those assets. I restate that, whatever the assets we may have in the region, conducting a safe evacuation from a place where it would be difficult for people even to get to the airport if greater violence breaks out is not something on which people can rely.