Yemen

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman and I have spoken on the whole issue of the arms trade. He is putting forward a perfectly respectable position, but I think it is not necessarily shared by us all. I hope that the fact that we have safeguards in place that are, I think, more stringent than most other countries’ should give some comfort to his constituents; but I think that we will have a very active and live debate in this House, in relation to not only Yemen but the whole world, in the years to come.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Mr Speaker. In an answer to a parliamentary question that I tabled, the British Government confirmed that they had directly trained 102 Saudi pilots over the last 10 years. Last year they signed a deal to sell 48 Typhoon jets to Saudi Arabia. How many of those pilots and planes have been operational in Yemen? Or is it the case that once the pilots are trained and the planes are sold, the British Government wash their hands?

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that I cannot answer that question directly, simply because we obviously do not have that information to hand. And no, it is not a matter of our washing our hands. We have military liaison in Saudi Arabia, and part of that is to try and encourage a sense of ethics. We have military liaison, of course, in a number of other countries that are at the heart of war zones as well. I obviously cannot give a direct answer because I do not have that data to hand, but I very much hope that the liaison officers that we have with the Saudi military are inculcating some of the values that we need, within warfare, to be properly adhered to.