Yemen: Political and Humanitarian Situation

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the political and humanitarian situation in Yemen.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today for this important debate, Mrs Moon.

I am delighted to speak on this issue today and to have been granted this debate so early in the new Parliament, particularly given the pressing nature of the humanitarian crisis in recent weeks, not least as regards cholera, as we will all have seen on our television screens.

As many Members will be aware, this is, sadly, one of many debates that we have secured on Yemen in the past year, including in the last Parliament. I must start by expressing my deep sadness, regret and, quite frankly, abject frustration that we have seen so little progress, so much further decline into misery and chaos, and such a failure to grasp the nettle by the international community, the UK Government—I am sorry to say—and the parties to this conflict, who must ultimately bear full responsibility for the shocking scenes that we have seen in recent weeks of emaciated bodies wracked by the preventable, treatable disease of cholera, along with the further needless civilian deaths from bombing, blockades and siege tactics.

This House is already significantly occupied by Brexit, and vast parts of our diplomatic and civil service apparatus have been turned to its machinations, but I fear that it will only exacerbate our apparent lack of focus on Yemen and so many other humanitarian crises around the world.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate so early in the new Parliament? It is true that the Foreign Office may be concerned with Brexit, but at the United Nations we hold the pen as far as Yemen is concerned and it is not preoccupied by Brexit. What we need is a UN resolution adopted as quickly as possible—immediately, in fact—to deal with the crisis that he is talking about and has raised so many times in the House.

[Stephen Doughty]

I thank my right hon. Friend for those comments and agree with him. Indeed, I welcome the steps that the UK has taken in securing a recent presidential statement on Yemen, but frankly at this stage words are now simply not good enough. I fear that the lack of progress we have seen is not only morally lacking, but fundamentally not in Britain’s national or security interests. We know all too well the consequences of leaving vast ungoverned spaces, from Libya to the deserts of Helmand, to descend into poverty, misery and death, and those who would exploit such spaces.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I hope to follow your instructions, Mrs Moon. It is easy to do so on this tragic subject, because my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) has spoken so eloquently and passionately about an issue that affects the people of Yemen—the tragedy that is occurring in the middle east, which we in this House seem so powerless to deal with. The fact that 20 Members are here today signifies that this House is concerned about Yemen. It is close to our hearts, and we need to ensure there is a political solution to end the humanitarian crisis that has gripped that country.

I commend the Minister on his new appointment. He was a Minister in the Department for International Development, but he is now leading on Yemen, as far as the Foreign Office is concerned. He has responded to many Adjournment debates on this subject, which I, as chair of the all-party group on Yemen, and other Members of this House have initiated. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) for the work she does as the secretary of the all-party group.

As this is the first debate on this subject since we have returned, I should pay tribute to Flick Drummond, a fellow officer who worked so hard and, like me and my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), was born in Yemen. I also pay tribute to a trio of Members of the Scottish National party, who were not born in Yemen but took up this issue strongly: Angus Robertson, Alex Salmond and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh. We will miss their voice, but the good point is that we have Members here who will speak on behalf of Yemen today and in the months ahead.

I have only one point to make, which is to ask the Minister to ring up our permanent representative at the United Nations and to speak to the Foreign Secretary to ensure that we get a resolution before the UN at the next Security Council meeting so that we get a solution now. Unless we have that resolution, signed up to by all the countries of the middle east, Yemen will be broken into pieces. It is already fragile. It is already a catastrophe. One child dies every minute and 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict. We only have to hear the voice of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) to know that. He managed to get into Yemen to meet people there, including former President Saleh. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will have the opportunity to catch your eye, Mrs Moon. The fact is that the situation will continue unless the United Nations acts. It will only act if Britain decides it is to act.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I always listen carefully when he speaks about Yemen. He has been a powerful voice on this issue. Does he agree that if the Government are not persuaded by the serious humanitarian case we have heard today and Yemen becomes a failed state, that will have serious effects across the whole middle east and north Africa—we have serious material interests in those places—and will affect this country?

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is not just about Yemen today; it is about the effect on the rest of the middle east and the threat of terrorism in our country. Yemen is a training ground for the people who wish to come and do damage to us. I urge the Minister to act. I am sorry that I will not be able to stay until the end of the debate—there is another meeting that I have to chair—but I urge him to come up with a rapid solution to this agonisingly difficult problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Rory Stewart)]

First, I pay tribute to the extraordinary range and passion of these debates. The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) is a doughty, redoubtable opponent. He knows an enormous amount about this subject. I was privileged to work with him on the Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill Committee, where I developed an enormous respect for his eye for detail and his ability to discover the most vulnerable and important points in an argument.

It will be difficult to touch on everyone’s points in 10 minutes, but I will run through them quickly. The hon. Gentleman produced a large overview of the context of the problems and pushed hard a strong moral line on what he felt the solution should be. The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who has been probably the greatest champion for Yemen in the House of Commons since he entered the House—he was born in Aden, like his sister—has kept a focus in endless forums on one of the most horrifying situations in the contemporary world, and strongly on the UN resolution. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) showed her own focus on this issue and in particular on technical issues around Hodeidah port.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) wanted to focus on specific questions about additional support on human rights. I very much hope he will again be the Chair of the International Development Committee, and I agree with the challenge that came from my friend the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) about the importance of setting up the Committees on Arms Export Controls as quickly as possible. The answer is that we are focused on providing additional support to the Human Rights Commission and have made that clear on a number of occasions—indeed we are already producing support.

The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) brought us into the discussion about the role of the Houthi-Saleh alliance and its culpability in these affairs. Indeed, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth focused on that as well. The hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) posed a big moral challenge to the Government, and the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) brought us back to questions that touch in particular on arms sales.

I will try to address those questions in total—they are very deep and important questions. Of course, the honest answer is that we do not have all the solutions to those problems. The British Government are doing an enormous amount—probably more than we are being given credit for in this Chamber—but clearly all the things we are doing are not sufficient to solve this crisis. The problem is—the hon. Member for Leeds North East pointed this out—although it is true that we are spending only about £180 million[Official Report, 20 July 2017, Vol. 627, c. 1-2MC.] in Yemen, we have to bear it in mind that, unfortunately, the situation in Yemen is not the only situation in the world. We are spending 0.7% of our GDP on international development and we have to make some difficult choices, because—this is the main point—the situation we face in Yemen has similarities with situations we are struggling with all over the world.

Whatever solutions are proposed here—and whatever belief there is from the hon. Member for Glasgow Central that it is within the power of the United Kingdom to sort the situation out—need to be addressed also to the problems in north-east Nigeria, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Syria, Iraq and Ukraine. I raise that because the fundamental problems on the ground in Yemen are driven by the region and the internal politics of Yemen. Those are fundamentally political problems. Some of their roots stretch back to the original formation of the Yemeni state.

I have not been to Yemen since March 2014. If any Member in the Chamber has been to Yemen more recently, I would love to hear from them. None of us in the Chamber has been to Yemen in the past three years. That is an important fact to bear in mind when we talk about the situation, and it is important because the situation is changing very quickly. Even since my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) visited, the situation has changed again and again.

[Keith Vaz]

Members of the APPG are very keen to go to Yemen in order to get the kind of information we need; the problem is that Saudi Arabia has to agree to it, because it is Saudi Arabia that allows aircraft into Yemen. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) went in under his cloak; the rest of us would love to go, but we cannot. If the Minister can help us to get there, that would be great.

[Rory Stewart]

That is a challenge for me, and I would love to take it on. Let me try to touch on some things in the remaining five minutes. The one thing that I unfortunately cannot touch on—the elephant in the room—is arms sales. There is a serious legal proceeding looking exactly at the question that has been posed by everybody here: whether the UK Government were, as we believe, in compliance with our international humanitarian obligations. A judge and some expert lawyers will very soon be able to resolve whether Philippe Sands is correct or we as the British Government are correct.