Middle East

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Clearly, there are changes taking place in the policies of this country and our allies towards the middle east. Several of the things I have referred to in my statement today are changes in policy towards the middle east. On the specifics of the hon. Gentleman’s question about human rights clauses not being observed, there is a case, which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister raised at the recent European Council, for strengthening the conditionality of such clauses and for the European Union’s becoming more insistent on the proper observation of those clauses. We will be discussing that further in the EU.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I join the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) in welcoming the Foreign Secretary’s visit to Yemen—the first by a British Foreign Secretary since reunification? I am sorry that he was not able to get to Aden on this occasion.

On discussions on poverty and security, I note that it is not this Government who have failed to deliver on our pledges but other donors. Will the Foreign Secretary ensure that they are encouraged to pay up as they have promised to do? On security, we need to do better. It has taken us six months to get one scanner to Sanaa airport, but in order to help defeat al-Qaeda, we need to do things much faster.

[Mr Hague]

We are helping with airport security. The right hon. Gentleman is right about that, but it is not always quite as simple as it may look to put these things in place. On the question of international donations, those donations will be available, provided the international community is convinced that the development and poverty reduction plans are sufficiently detailed and credible, and that we can organise some of the aid through the multi-donor trust fund of which I spoke. There will, I think, be a generous response, provided that those plans are credible. That is what we have to establish at the next meeting of the Friends of Yemen, which I hope will take place within the next couple of months.