Business of the House

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The Prime Minister indicated yesterday that we will give consideration to that matter. It is an important and topical issue, on which there are very strong feelings—not on any party basis—and there is intense interest in the debate about it in the House of Lords tomorrow. I will reflect on when it would be appropriate to have such a debate, as well as on the various means of bringing it about. I cannot yet promise one in Government time.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I join Members in their unanimous welcome to the new Leader of the House, and I pay tribute to him for his outstanding work at the Foreign Office. May I take him back to one of his successes—Yemen—and the democratic transition that resulted in the election of President Hadi? The situation is now very critical, with 11 million people in poverty and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula making enormous gains. May we have a statement or a debate on that? I know we have Foreign Office questions on Tuesday, but we cannot deal with it in just one question.

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, whose knowledge of and concern about Yemen has been remarkable, constant and much respected over many years. He is right that a great deal of progress has been made, as we saw when the Friends of Yemen met in London under our chairmanship a couple of months ago. He is also right that formidable problems remain, and it is now very important that the help the international community has pledged is delivered and used successfully by President Hadi and his colleagues. There has been widespread demand in the House for statements by the Foreign Secretary, and I will not commit my successor to a long list of them—hon. Members will have to use Foreign Office questions—but I know that he will make as many statements as he can about such topical issues.