Yemen Peace Process

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that 22 May 2019 is the 28th anniversary of the unification of Yemen, when that country emerged from a long and painful civil war; further notes that today Yemen is once again in a deep and pitiful state of conflict, having entered the fifth year of its current, tragic war; acknowledges that the most recent estimate places the death toll in excess of 70,000, of which 10,000 have died in the last five months alone; notes that Yemen remains in the midst of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, in which at least 85,000 children have starved to death and almost 200,000 have contracted cholera in 2019 alone; commends the work of the UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths, who brought opposing sides together for agreements including on a ceasefire in the Al-Hodeidah Governate; regrets that the implementation of those agreements has been slow or non-existent; and calls on the Government to take every possible measure to support an immediate ceasefire, the flow of humanitarian aid and further peace talks in Yemen.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee and its excellent Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), for granting time in the Chamber for this important debate. I am pleased to see so many Members in the Chamber despite this being election day.

I congratulate the Minister for the Middle East, the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), on his appointment. He knows this area well, and I wish him well. I hope he can continue the diligent work of his predecessor, the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt). I am glad to see the shadow Foreign Affairs Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), and the shadow Leader of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), whom, of course, I met many years ago in Yemen—she was born in Yemen.

Yesterday was a special day for many Yemenis. It was Yemen Day, their national unity day: 22 May, the day on which the country’s unification took place in 1990, is a national holiday in Yemen and should have been a day of festivity, yet no one was celebrating in that troubled land. And why should they have been when their country is being destroyed and fragmented, town by town, street by street and house by house? We are in the midst of a terrible war in Yemen, and in March we passed the grim milestone of the war’s fourth anniversary.

Yemenis are losing their lives every single day. According to the Foreign Secretary, a hundred children die every day. So far, at least 70,000 children have been killed in the fighting since the war began. This will rise to 100,000 if the war ends this year, according to the United Nations. We can add to that 130,000 more who will die from starvation and disease.

Women and children are suffering and bearing the brunt of this war. A child dies every 12 minutes in Yemen, and at least 85,000 have succumbed to starvation. The all-party parliamentary group on Yemen has heard time and again from aid agencies and Yemeni organisations about the episodes of brutality, which range from the indiscriminate detonation of landmines laid by the Houthi militias to the aerial bombing of the hospital in Kitaf, northern Yemen, by coalition forces. Yemenis are literally being blown apart from the skies above and from the ground below. This must end.

An agreement was made in Stockholm in December 2018. It included three key proposals: first, the deployment of forces from Hodeidah; secondly, the exchange of prisoners; and, thirdly, humanitarian access to Taiz. In each of those areas, there has been little progress. Prisoners have not been exchanged, and talks broke down in February this year. Taiz remains in the grips of a humanitarian disaster. It is likely to have shrunk to a city of just 200,000 people, which is one third of its pre-war population of 600,000. It is as though the city of Sheffield had lost two-thirds of its population. The Taiz-Aden highway, along which much-need aid can travel, remains cut off by the fighting. The redeployment of forces from Hodeidah has been dragged out. The original deadline for troops to leave was 1 January 2019, almost half a year ago. The implementation process was only agreed in principle on 17 February, and the detailed plan of how this would take place only accepted on 15 April. This is painfully slow, while people continue to die. Finally, on 10 May, just 13 days ago, Houthi forces finally began their redeployment.

The Houthis withdrew from the key ports of Ras Isa, Hodeidah and Salif. That of course has to be welcomed by this House, and we hope it is an indication of a path to peace that both sides will travel along. Around Salif and Ras Isa, there are minefields that can now be cleared—these minefields have cost so many lives, including those of aid workers The House will be aware that about 80% of Yemen’s humanitarian and other goods are imported through the port of Hodeidah. We are now at a critical juncture. There have been reports of rising violence away from Hodeidah. In the al-Dhale governorate in southern Yemen, there has been a sevenfold increase in air raids in recent months. In Hajjah, in northern Yemen, fighting near the border with Saudi Arabia has caused the displacement of 100,000 people. If the agreement is not implemented in full, and if these recent developments break down, it is likely that the peace process will irretrievably falter and come to an end, with catastrophic consequences. For the sake of the people of Yemen—for humanity—we cannot let this take place. Before it is too late, this Government and the international community must grasp this chance for peace.

On 26 February 2019, the United Nations, and the Governments of Sweden and Switzerland, hosted their annual high-level pledging conference in Geneva. Donor states pledged a total of $2.6 billion in aid to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian supplies to the people of Yemen. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates each donated $750 million. We donated £200 million, bringing the UK financial contribution since the war began to £770 million. This support is most welcome. However, Sir Mark Lowcock, the head of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs—OCHA—told Members of this House recently that it has received very little of this promised funding, with only 7% of the $4.1 billion required delivered by 24 April. From Saudi Arabia and the UAE, it has received less than $240 million of that promised. Saudi Arabia’s impressive Foreign Minister, Adel al-Jubeir, assured hon. Members in a robust exchange at the Saudi embassy recently that it was ready to transfer the rest of the funding. Will the Minister confirm that the rest of that funding has been transferred?

The UN reports that it has received only £30 million from the UK; will the Minister explain why we have not delivered exactly what we promised? The pledging of aid is one thing, but the promises have to be delivered on. Delays in payments are costing lives.

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his engagement with Yemen. In particular, his visit to Aden, the city of my birth, on 3 March this year showed that he cares for the people of Yemen and that he wants to see a solution to the conflict. He met members of the all-party group on Yemen on 4 February this year and hosted a meeting of the Yemen Quad in London on 27 April. All that is by marked contrast to the engagement of his predecessor, but, as he knows, much more needs to be done.

I welcome the new Secretary of State for International Development, the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), with whom the all-party group worked during his previous period at the Department. These ministerial changes show that we have two friends of Yemen in key Front-Bench positions, and I hope we will hear from a third when the Minister responds to the debate.

Our message to our friends is that they need to tell our partners to stop the bombing, and to do so now. We need seriously to consider the issue of arms sales to our coalition partners. The United Kingdom has sold at least £4.7 billion-worth of arms to Saudi Arabia and a further £860 million to its coalition partners since the war began. The issue must be addressed.

We need to talk to other regional powers. We know that the Government are not friendly with Iran—they have made that clear—but they need to talk to the Iranians. Of course, Iran denies involvement in Yemen, but only last week the Houthis, backed by Iran, struck Saudi oil pipelines. This violent act had to be, and was, condemned. But just three days later, exactly a week ago, the coalition retaliated with an air strike that hit central Sana’a, killing six people, four of whom were children. This is the never-ending cycle of death that happens whenever there is an act of violence and whenever we do not engage in the peace talks. That is why we must have an immediate ceasefire.

I commend the work of Congressman Ro Khanna of the 17th congressional district of California, and Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Mike Lee of Utah and Chris Murphy of Connecticut for their passion on and commitment to this issue. The US Congress has been more active on the Yemen peace process than we have been—to be frank, in some areas it has been more active than our Government. On 4 April this year, Congress passed a resolution, which was previously passed in the Senate, calling for an end to US involvement in the Yemen war. Regrettably, the measure was vetoed by President Trump, who, as we have heard, is making a state visit to the United Kingdom from 3 June to 5 June. The House will expect the Yemen conflict to be on the agenda for his meeting with the Prime Minister; will the Minister confirm that that will be the case?

We owe a debt of gratitude to the UN special envoy, Martin Griffiths, for all that he has done. He has brought the parties in the war together and has initiated the trust-building measures that led to last week’s troop withdrawal. We know how busy he is, but we hope he will meet members of the all-party group when he comes to London. Members of the group have been diligent in raising awareness of the Yemen peace process both inside and outside the House. In particular, the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who sends her apologies for not being able to attend this debate, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) and the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman), who I see is in his place, have all worked tirelessly on this issue.

The humanitarian impacts of the peace process have been the focus of the Chairman of the International Development Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), who is in his place, and of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). Other Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) and the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins), have considered Yemen because of the plight of constituents with family members caught up in the conflict. I am so delighted to see the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) in his place. He is the only senior politician in Europe to have visited Sana’a during the conflict. From his time as one of the great International Development Secretaries, he has shown himself to be a great friend of Yemen.

Yesterday afternoon, the all-party group hosted its annual Yemen Day event. We heard from charity representatives about their work in Yemen and the devastation they encounter. International humanitarian organisations continue to do so much to help the people of Yemen. These include Oxfam, the Norwegian Refugee Council, the International Rescue Committee, Human Rights Watch, Médecins sans Frontières, CARE International and Save the Children. I have presented the Foreign Secretary with a letter signed by 86 hon. Members from both sides of the House, as well as Members of the other place, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. It calls on him to use every tool at his disposal to push for peace in Yemen. We urge him to use our considerable influence—that great soft power that Great Britain is so good at wielding—in the region to stop the bombing. It has to remain at the top of his agenda.

On the 20th of next month, the all-party group will host an international conference on Yemen. Parliamentarians from across the world will join us in Edinburgh and Glasgow for the conference being hosted by the hon. Members for Dunfermline and West Fife and for Glasgow Central. This follows the first international parliamentary conference for peace in Yemen held in Paris in November last year and hosted by Sébastien Nadot, a Member of the French Assembly. I extend an invitation to the Minister, who has not yet been to a Yemen event—he has just been appointed, so I forgive him—to come to Edinburgh and take part in that meeting.

Here are our key asks. The Stockholm agreement was a vital staging post, but it did not go far enough. We should have had an immediate nationwide ceasefire in Yemen. We have played an important role in the peace process. We secured the passing of UN resolution 2451 on 21 December 2018 and resolution 2452 on 16 January 2019. Just last month here in London there was a meeting of the Quad. The US was represented by David Satterfield; Saudi Arabia, by Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir; and the United Arab Emirates, by Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed.

As we all know, the UK is the penholder at the Security Council, but we need to do much more. I have an idea for the Minister. Why do the Government not host a peace conference in London in the next eight weeks? Why do they not use their position on the Quad, as the penholder, to organise such a conference, as we have done in the past, to keep this right at the top of the agenda? Key parts of the agenda should be the facilitation of unimpeded access for food, fuel and medicines through the key port of Hodeidah and through Taiz and implementing the demand for an immediate nationwide ceasefire. What better way to show a commitment to peace?

In successive debates in this House, I have lamented the fact that Yemen is bleeding to death, while all we do is make speeches in this House. One cannot look at the pictures of what is happening to our fellow citizens of the world and not be overcome with emotion. As I have said many times before, I want one day to return to the country of my birth to show my children where I was born and where I spent the happiest days of my life. I want to live long enough to see Yemen peaceful, prosperous and united, free from violence and free from hate. We have reached a critical juncture in the peace process that will be of historic significance if we seize the moment. From the bottom of my heart, I beg the Minister to save the children of Yemen. I beg him to stop the bombing and the killing. I beg him to stop this war. This is in our Government’s hands.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Change UK)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell). He raised important points about the Houthis, which I will come to in a moment. I am also grateful to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) for securing this debate. Even though we in this country are obsessed with Brexit, and with who might be Prime Minister in three days’ time, other important issues deserve our attention. The ongoing failed state that is Yemen is a major threat not just to its neighbouring countries but to the whole world, and it could be the powder keg that sparks a wider conflagration.

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, because a year ago I went to Saudi Arabia and visited Najran. I saw buildings, a school, and a power plant that had suffered extensive damage from missiles fired into Saudi Arabia from Yemen by the Houthis. For those in Saudi Arabia, this conflict is seen as a threat to their state.

Let me add a little history to this debate. First, this conflict is not just between the internationally recognised and living in exile President Hadi and the Houthis, because Yemen has other conflicts within it. Since 2009, there has been an insurgency by the Southern Movement—its Arabic name is al-Hirak—and an area in the south of Yemen is controlled by tribal groups and militias, and has a transitional council that is supported, ironically, by the United Arab Emirates. Everybody talks about Saudi Arabia, but the UAE is also a key player within the internationally supported and recognised coalition that is led by Saudi Arabia. The UAE also has strong views about resisting all forms of influence in the Arab world from Iran and what it perceives to be its proxies.

Secondly, elements in the south of Yemen are linked to al-Qaeda, and there are real dangers to that happening in any failed state. We have seen in Afghanistan, Somalia and Libya that if there is no state with power, the vacuum is filled by non-state actors, including extremists who are prepared to act totally ruthlessly, and who have no principles or regard for international law or what their international partners think. That is what we could have in Yemen—indeed, we already have it, but it could be much worse.

The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) spoke about having a new approach to whether we should continue to recognise President Hadi, given that he does not have any real locus within Yemen. That is a big issue and a fundamental question, because if there are to be talks, and if any real progress following the Stockholm agreement is to be made, the voices from the south of Yemen must also be heard. Such talks would not involve just the backers of President Hadi and of the Houthis, but other voices from within Yemen.

Yemen is a complicated country with a complicated history. There were once two Yemens, and with the end of the cold war they became one. Now we seem to have more than two, as there are several disparate groupings. Since last year there has been some hope—the efforts of Martin Griffiths have been referred to so I will not repeat them. There was an agreement to remove forces from Hodeidah and to have a neutral policing operation in the city, but we have not had that. The unilateral claim of withdrawal by the Houthis has been disputed by some people. We have also seen that even if the problem of the port of Hodeidah is somehow solved, that does not necessarily mean that the starving people in Yemen will be any better off.

The World Food Programme, which supplies food aid to 12 million people in Yemen, stated on Monday that it is thinking of suspending its operations in certain areas that are controlled by the Houthis. Of those 12 million people, 9 million are in Houthi-controlled areas, and the World Food Programme referred to a series of problems, including intimidation, corruption, extortion, insecurity and fighting, that are presenting great difficulties in getting that aid through. The Houthis are effectively taxing and extorting. Food and other aid is not getting through to the poor people, because these organisations are using their power to prevent it. That absolute scandal deserves wider publicity.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is very experienced. He is a distinguished former Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and his presence for this debate is extremely important. I remain puzzled, however, so perhaps he can help me with his vast knowledge of international affairs. The coalition admits that it cannot win the bombing war and the Houthis cannot win the war. People are starving. From looking at this problem from the outside, with a lot of knowledge about the tribal nature of Yemen, what does he think is stopping everyone saying that this has to end?

[Mike Gapes]

In short, it is because the conflict has become a proxy. The Houthis are perceived by a large number of countries in the Arab world to be either proxies or puppets of the Iranian regime. I do not think that that is absolutely an accurate description, but it is clear that the Iranians are arming the Houthis. I have seen the remains of missiles with Iranian markings on, which were on display in Najran, and the Saudis have a lot of such material. Nevertheless, the reality is that this is an internal conflict that outside countries are exploiting.

The problem we have is that in the past few days the United States has decided to send a carrier group into the region. The US has always had aircraft carriers in the region. In 2000, flying with the Defence Committee, I landed on the deck of the USS John C Stennis, named after the Chairman of the US Senate Defence select committee. Bruce George, the then Chairman of our Defence Committee, was hoping that the Ministry of Defence would do the same, but that never transpired. We landed, with the wire, on the deck. This aircraft carrier was in the Gulf of Hormuz. We could see all the aircraft movements in Iran up to the horizon from the bridge of the vessel. The US is reinforcing its military capability with carriers in the region because of its tensions with Iran. I do not want to be diverted on to issues relating to the joint comprehensive plan of action, the Iranian nuclear programme and so on, but there is the potential for Saudi Arabia and the UAE to get America into a regional conflict with Iran.

There are good reasons to be critical of Iran: internally, it has the highest number of executions of any country in the whole world apart from China—much more than Saudi Arabia, actually—its bad behaviour in Syria; its support for Hezbollah; its consistent attempts over decades to undermine any prospect of a middle east peace process; and what it is doing in Yemen. At the same time, the Arab League has just sent an invitation from the Saudi Government to an emergency Arab summit on 30 May in Mecca. The terms of the invitation refer to “recent aggression”, which refers to the attacks on the two Saudi oil tankers off the UAE coast. No one has claimed responsibility. Blame has not yet been attributed, but the assumption is that that was done by either Houthis, people from Iraq or, potentially, those from Iran as part of the proxy regional conflict.

A year ago, as our plane was flying back from Najran and was about to land in Riyadh, there was an alert. We could see, from a distance of probably just a few miles away, an incoming missile fired into Riyadh airport. When attacks start on oil tankers and pipelines, and missiles are fired into airports as planes are landing, that gets into the mindset of the Saudis. If we are to get peace and to get the Saudis out of this conflict that the then Defence Minister, now the Crown Prince, got them into in 2015—I am sure they never thought that four years later they would be sucked into it in such a manner, and I am sure they would like a way out—the problem, as has been said, is that the Houthis also have to want a way out. However, they are doing very well out of taxing the aid that comes in, controlling the ports and all the rest of it. They are not a big group. As a percentage of Yemen’s total population they are a very small group, but they have maximum power and leverage at this time.

I do not have a message of easy solutions. I know it is fashionable for some people to say, “Well, if we stop supplying arms to Saudi Arabia, there would be no conflict in Yemen.” No one who has spoken in this debate has said that, but I have seen leaflets going out from groups such as the Stop the War Coalition that seem to imply that that is the reality. The reality is that we must use our position in the United Nations, as we have been. We must back up Martin Griffiths and his efforts. We must try, even though it is difficult, to talk to the Iranians and say, “This pattern of bad behaviour is not helpful to you if you want us to stop the pressure for more sanctions.” We also need to find ways to get support internally in Yemen for a dialogue between all groups. I flag up the fact that it is not just about the Houthis and Hadi’s Government. There are other factors in Yemen and they all have to be brought together.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

This has been an excellent and passionate debate, fully justifying the decision of the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), to give us time, for which we thank him.

I thank the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), the hon. Members for Henley (John Howell), for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely) and for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman), and my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton). And I thank the Minister, who will always remember his first speech from the Dispatch Box as a Foreign Office Minister. He has responded very positively.

It is often said that the war in Yemen is a forgotten war, but it is not forgotten in this House. Today we have remembered Yemen, but another 12 Yemeni children have died since the start of this debate. What we want is not great speeches but great actions. A ceasefire is not a mantra but an objective. We need this ceasefire, and this country needs to make sure it happens. We need to seize the moment and bring peace to this sad, troubled but beautiful land.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes that 22 May 2019 is the 28th anniversary of the unification of Yemen, when that country emerged from a long and painful civil war; further notes that today Yemen is once again in a deep and pitiful state of conflict, having entered the fifth year of its current, tragic war; acknowledges that the most recent estimate places the death toll in excess of 70,000, of which 10,000 have died in the last five months alone; notes that Yemen remains in the midst of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, in which at least 85,000 children have starved to death and almost 200,000 have contracted cholera in 2019 alone; commends the work of the UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths, who brought opposing sides together for agreements including on a ceasefire in the Al-Hodeidah Governate; regrets that the implementation of those agreements has been slow or non-existent; and calls on the Government to take every possible measure to support an immediate ceasefire, the flow of humanitarian aid and further peace talks in Yemen.

Yemen

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She will be aware that this war did not begin with a Saudi-led intervention. This whole matter began six months after Houthi rebels, representing no more than 15% of the Yemeni population, captured most of the capital, Sana’a, and expelled the internationally recognised Government. As she alludes to, they have been supported by Iran, and clearly the international community needs to try to come together. It is a desperate humanitarian situation on a scale that few of us can comprehend. I have been out to Cox’s Bazar, where the Rohingya are living, but this is on a scale literally 30 times as great; it is really quite horrific.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I join the shadow Foreign Secretary and others in commending the incredible work of the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt).

This is a grim anniversary. Since the ceasefire was announced, three civilians have died in this conflict every single day, and there are 110,000 cases of cholera. Three dates are essential: the date that we can have the next meeting of the Quad, the date when the peace talks will resume and the date for the appointment of a new Minister with responsibility for Yemen. When will those be? It is important that we have proper ministerial focus. The Minister cannot run the whole world. We need someone as focused as the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire.

[Mark Field]

That is a fair question. I would like to think that I can do the job at least for urgent questions and the like, but I take on board what the right hon. Gentleman says. As far as a date for peace talks is concerned, we are desperate to ensure at the UN and with all our partners that there is momentum from what happened in Stockholm, which was very positive, but we feel that the momentum is coming to an end. As far as the Quad is concerned, there are ongoing discussions, and no doubt we will again try to get more movement and momentum to ensure that the progress made is built upon and does not dwindle away.

Yemen

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I am most grateful to Mr Speaker for granting this debate. I am glad to see the Minister for the Middle East, the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), present today, for he is a person of great knowledge and experience regarding this matter. I am also glad to see other colleagues in attendance.

In a world beset by multiple crises, Yemen continues to exhaust all comparisons as a political and humanitarian crisis. There has never been a conflict quite like it. In 26 days’ time, we will be approaching the fourth anniversary of this gruesome and tragic war, when the first bombs fell near the city of my birth, Aden. By the minute, by the hour and by the day, Yemenis continue to die. Whether by air raids, landmines, starvation or illness, Yemenis from the north and the south are suffering unimaginable trauma, and are being killed.

Yemen holds that bleak title of the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. The scorecard of shame brings tears to my eyes. Eighty-five thousand children have starved to death, 24 million people need humanitarian assistance, 3.1 million have been displaced and 60,000 have been killed since conflict began in March 2015. That is 294 each week, and 42 every single day.

Yemen is still suffering because, despite recent discussions and negotiations, in Yemen itself nothing has changed. When I meet and speak to Yemenis, they are crying out for peace. But they are asking searching questions of this Parliament and our Government: “Why is this still going on? How much more suffering can we take? And why is the world appearing to do nothing about it?”

This humanitarian situation is a tragedy. For six months, until only last week, there was absolutely no access to the Red Sea mills in the port of Hodeidah, which can feed up to 3.7 million people in a month. A UN report published just 14 days ago on 14 February reported that 14.3 million Yemenis are now in acute need. BBC News on 4 February revealed harrowing images of children starving; 10.3 million children do not know where their next meal will come from. Yet the war continues. Bombing runs—155 in January this year—are terrorising people, and destroying buildings and 1,000 years of Yemeni heritage.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for doing so much to highlight this cause; he is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that the bombing of medical facilities—five medical facilities run by Médecins sans Frontières have been bombed since 2015—is a criminal act, and that medical facilities should never be a target in such a conflict?

[Keith Vaz]

I absolutely agree and I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for all the work that she has done on Yemen, keeping this issue very much alive in this Parliament and elsewhere. She is right that there is no excuse for bombing medical facilities.

In fact, 19,200 airstrikes have hit since those first raids in 2015. Violence is being perpetrated on all sides. A total of 267 civilians have died because of landmines that are now hidden in the landscape of western Yemen. In January 2019, five charity workers were killed while trying to de-mine. There is no point in the UK Government generously pledging funds if the aid cannot actually reach the people of Yemen.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) for yet again bringing this subject to this House and for his tenacious pursuit of justice for the country of his birth. In addition to the extraordinary litany of human tragedy, just some of which he has reeled off, and the fact that, incredibly, it seems that no fewer than 80% of Yemeni people are in need of some form of humanitarian assistance, does he agree that there has also been a particularly worrying increase in gender-based violence in a country not best known for its women’s rights? Aid agencies estimate that there has been a 63% increase in gender-based violence, including rape and sexual assault, during this conflict—just to add to the woes of the bombs, the famine, the disease and the warfare that is going on as well.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I pay tribute to him for his work in the all-party parliamentary group on Yemen. The last time I was in Sana’a, it was with him; he took some beautiful pictures of the wonderful heritage there. He is right: these figures on assaults are even more worrying. In the middle of all this war, there are still these assaults going on. They need to be addressed and they need to be contained.

Following the failure of the Geneva talks, the sides convened in Stockholm in December 2018. Two bodies were established, one to oversee the exchange of prisoners —the Redeployment Co-ordination Committee—and the other to monitor the agreement: the UN Mission to Monitor the Hodeidah Agreement. Critical was the establishment of a ceasefire in the governorate of Hodeidah; that would free a vital port and allow much-needed humanitarian aid into the country. But the peace talks appear to have stalled. The original deadline for troop withdrawals was 1 January 2019, yet agreement as to how to implement the first phase was made only on 17 February. Despite Stockholm, the most up-to-date figures suggest that 568 incidents of violence occurred in Hodeidah alone, along with six coalition airstrikes. I ask the Minister: on what date will the peace talks reconvene, and why do bombs continue to fall on Yemen during the peace process?

I thank the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for their efforts to support the peace process. The Foreign Secretary himself travelled to Stockholm—an indication of where his and the Government’s priorities lie. I am also grateful to the Foreign Secretary for, earlier this month, meeting me and other members of the APPG: the hon. Members for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) and for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who are in their places; the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman); my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) and for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg); and the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt).

A meeting of the Yemen Quad of the United States, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates took place in Warsaw on 13 February. When is the next meeting of the Quad going to take place? There have been only five meetings since 2015. They must meet every month until we have peace. These high-level meetings must be followed with action on the ground. We need to ensure that the Yemen Government and Houthi rebels implement the agreements made in Warsaw and in Stockholm.

I understand that the Foreign Secretary is visiting Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates over the next few days. I welcome his efforts to keep pressure on and maintain dialogue with those key countries in the region. I urge him to go to Yemen during that time. What better message could we send our allies and the Yemeni people than to have the British Foreign Secretary himself present in the country and, subject to security considerations, opening a diplomatic presence in Sana’a and Hodeidah? The work of the Yemeni ambassador to the United Kingdom, His Excellency Dr Yassin Saeed Noman, has been important in maintaining our dialogue with the Government in Yemen and President Hadi, who is in Riyadh. I hope that those strong links will continue.

The United Kingdom has long been one of the greatest financial backers of Yemen’s relief effort. That includes £175 million in 2018-19 and £2.5 million for the functioning of the United Nations civilian coordinator’s office, including to assist in de-mining efforts. The £200 million funding announced by the Prime Minister on Sunday 24 February in Sharm el-Sheikh with the Minister for the Middle East, who was in Egypt with her, brings the total amount that the United Kingdom has pledged to £770 million.

But pledges of financial support alone will not feed the victims of this conflict, nor provide the medical help they need, unless the money is spent. We are horrified to hear reports of executions. The Lords International Relations Committee has published a devastating report suggesting that UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia may have been used in Yemen. If that is true, it is a negation of our international obligations.

I commend again the work of the United Nations, the Security Council and special envoy Martin Griffiths for bringing forward resolution 2451 on 21 December 2018 and resolution 2452 on 16 January 2019. Earlier this week, the UN raised $2.6 billion in Geneva at its annual high-level pledging conference, but to the people of Yemen—those who are starving and dying—that is Monopoly money. Around $8 billion has been raised over the past decade, since Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s first pledging conference, but where has the money gone? Where has it been spent, and where is it being held? Since this week’s pledging event, 126 people have died in Yemen.

I am glad that the pledging conference has brought attention to this crisis. Daily, we see individuals and celebrities appealing for financial support on behalf of the Yemeni people. I want particularly to thank Eddie Izzard—who, like me, was born in Yemen—as well as Michael Sheen and our recent Oscar winner Olivia Colman, who have made appeals for Yemen over the last few weeks and who speak in their campaigns for the silent of Yemen.

At last, parliamentarians in other countries seem to be paying attention to Yemen. The US Congress passed House joint resolution 37 on 14 February, calling for an end to American involvement in the Yemen conflict. Congressman Ro Khanna from California, in particular, and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont have been instrumental in maintaining pressure in the United States. It would be good if President Trump could follow their lead and personally participate in these peace discussions.

In Paris in November 2018, at the first inter-parliamentary conference on Yemen, along with Sébastien Nadot, the Assemblée Nationale Member for Haute-Garonne, the APPG and the Assemblée Nationale brought together MPs and activists from across Europe. Following our conference in Paris, a petition was put forward calling for an end to the war in Yemen, which has been signed by 7,600 people.

The next inter-parliamentary conference on Yemen will take place in May in Edinburgh, hosted by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife and the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, who is the secretary of the all-party group. I extend an invitation to the Minister of State to attend that meeting in Edinburgh and join parliamentarians from Europe and all over the world.

Today, we will send a letter, co-signed by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), to the Foreign Secretary, urging him to keep Yemen as his top priority and to maintain pressure on our allies for immediate peace. I hope others will sign it. The all-party group is having a meeting next week on the rule of law in Yemen, and on 19 March, just a week before the bloody war’s anniversary, a meeting on the humanitarian situation.

This is what we want the Minister to commit to tonight: we need an immediate ceasefire—the bloodshed has gone on for too long—and we need a date for the next peace talks. Stockholm was a breakthrough, but it was only the beginning, and it needs to be implemented. When will the next round of talks take place? They need to happen now.

I commend the aid agencies, such as Oxfam, the International Rescue Committee, Médecins sans Frontières, CARE International, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Save the Children, which have provided food and medicines. They have food and medicines waiting at the border, but they cannot access the country while there is fighting around the vital entry points. They are coming to Parliament in 10 days’ time. Without them, so many more Yemenis would have died. The United Kingdom Government must work unceasingly with international partners to allow immediate and comprehensive access for the aid agencies to ensure that humanitarian support can reach those most in need. This Parliament, this Government, our country must lead the world movement for peace in Yemen. There is no point holding the pen for Yemen if we do not use it.

I want to end by quoting Amani, a young Yemeni woman currently living in Yemen who wrote this poem:

“Three years have passed and

an English newsreader told

me home was only

a lost young man holding

his Ak47, with no shoes.

But the shackled arms,

malnourished hips stare

into the distance and arcs

of bones screech waiting

for food parcels to arrive

and slouching shoulders

sitting with an empty

stomach it growls, hoping

war could speak, it would

chop it’s tongue, loose it’s

limbs and hide under the

rubble shattered in regret.

Three have passed and counting

You watch your home

collapse to its ground,

the same ground your

fathers fed this soil with

their blistered hands.

The same ground that

raised you, fed you and

taught you to stand

up straight.

Three years have passed and counting

You ask yourself, ‘Do they know

who suffers the most?’

The people in-between.

The ordinary lives.

The survivors.

The forgotten people,

The forgotten Yemen.”

I beg the Minister to spend every working moment in the Foreign Office keeping Yemen at the top of his agenda. I yearn to return to the country of my birth, to the happy times I spent with my parents and sisters, and to take my son and daughter and wife with me. To do this, we need to stop the bombing, save the children and prevent this beautiful country from bleeding to death. It is in our hands.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alistair Burt]

I cannot give a precise figure, and the current UN pledging conference held in Geneva this week—the right hon. Gentleman referred to that—was seeking a further $4 billion. A lot of money has been spent, but the figure is imprecise—I will provide an exact figure in due course. We give funding to the agencies, but they cannot always get through and sometimes the grain is not available. Money has to be pooled to be used, but practical difficulties on the ground mean that straightforward easy accountability, and providing a profit and loss account on a regular basis, is more difficult. It is important to ensure that resources are there. The tragedy is that although, as Mr Beasley tells me, food resources have been there, we must keep up the interest in Yemen to ensure that resources exist to provide for more, and the difficulty is in getting it into Yemen.

I will put my brief to one side because I do not have time, but let me get to the practicalities of this issue. The right hon. Gentleman asked about process and when the next conference will take place. Martin Griffiths, the special envoy, has described a process of trying to encourage confidence between the parties, because confidence is extremely low.

I will be blunt about something else. There are people who want to keep the war going. Everyone in this place and in our country assumes that people want to end the conflict. Would it were so. People make money out of the conflict on the ground. If someone can secure a position of power and control the flow of goods, they can do well out of it. We have to make sure that it is no longer profitable for people to continue to wage war, and that requires people to have the confidence that others will not take advantage of them and that there are benefits to peace.

That is what Martin Griffiths is patiently working at. There is no easy timetable. It is not possible to say, “In three weeks, you must meet again and decide” so and so, because they will not. We have to work on a process to get people together and know that, when they do meet, they are prepared to make an agreement and stick to it, and that takes time. It takes much too long, but if it was a process in which we demanded people do things, we would not be where we are today.

[Keith Vaz]

What is the key blockage? I know that it is very complicated and there are lots of different factors, but is there one key issue? It was prisoner swaps before. Is there something else holding this up?

[Alistair Burt]

I do not think so. Actually, the parties are still discussing prisoners, but the fact that they are talking—through the UN envoy—is an advance on where we were. It is difficult, even impossible, to urge patience on the people about whom the right hon. Gentleman spoke so eloquently, but this will be brought to an end only by that gradual development of confidence between the parties—confidence that is so delicate at the moment.

We do what we can. The right hon. Gentleman rightly says that the Foreign Secretary is there this week with those involved in the coalition. I was there just last week. I spoke to the Government of Yemen in Riyadh, to the Saudi Government, to the UAE and to Bahrain. Ministers are constantly engaged in what we can do. We speak to those who have some opportunity to influence the Houthi as well—we do not speak directly, but we try to influence them. We raise all the issues that he did about the misery and the suffering of people. There is no part of this conflict that justifies the suffering of people, but we are constantly trying to do this, and we work through agencies to do so.

The right hon. Gentleman and the House can be sure that our political efforts will always be designed to support the work of the UN special envoy and to encourage progress. In conflict, as we know, there is weariness. It must be clear to all the parties that there is no military solution, but people who have established positions, including those involved in the coalition, want to make sure that Yemen does not become ungoverned space—a Beirut in Sana’a with Hezbollah available in empty space to conduct actions against Saudi Arabia—and we want to make sure that the Yemeni people can bring forward a political process. We are working on all this while also providing the economic and humanitarian aid he described. We will continue to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

We also have strong relations with the Malaysian Government, and I am very disappointed that they have made what I feel is a fundamentally wrong decision. As my hon. Friend has rightly pointed out, those Israeli Paralympic athletes should not be banned from competing. I shall be seeing the Malaysian Education Minister this afternoon—with, I think, a senior representative of the high commission—and I promise to ask for an assurance that this will be dealt with properly, as a matter of urgency.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

T4. I thank the Foreign Secretary for travelling to Stockholm for the peace talks, and for resolution 2452. Yesterday, however, five aid workers were killed in Yemen as they tried to de-mine parts of the country. Will the Foreign Secretary ensure that the safety of aid workers is a priority during the talks? [R]

[Mr Hunt]

Absolutely. In fact, I had an exchange with Martin Griffiths, the Yemen special envoy, yesterday. De-mining the road between the port of Hodeidah and Sana’a so that food supplies can come from the port into the rest of the country is essential, and I think that the whole House will wish to express our admiration for the bravery of the aid workers who are in Yemen right now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to do that. We have circulated a text, and the truth is that we will finalise that text after the talks have concluded. If we could choose what the text would say, we would love it to announce a ceasefire, but there is no point doing that unless it is agreed by all the parties. That is why we want the peace talks to succeed.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I thank the Foreign Secretary for the amount of time that he has spent on the Yemen issue since assuming office? This is a very special moment. The guaranteed treatment of the Houthis in Oman is critical, but may I ask the Foreign Secretary to go to Stockholm on one of the days and show the support of the highest level of this Government for the peace process?

[Mr Hunt]

In principle, I have no problem with doing anything that will help this process along. As my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) said, this is by far the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today and possibly the worst that we have had for 100 years. However, I will always be guided by Martin Griffiths on whether my presence would be helpful.

Yemen

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We have to be very clear that that must not happen and should not happen. That is another reason to be very careful with the wording that we are putting forward. What we actually want is a ceasefire, backed up by a UN Security Council resolution that does pass and is respected on the ground. I do not think we can get to that point in the next couple of weeks, but we want to make a step in that direction.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) for asking the urgent question and you, Mr Speaker, for granting it; otherwise, we would not be having this discussion. I also thank my right hon. Friend for coming to Paris recently with nine other hon. Members for the first conference of parliamentarians. It is not just our House that is outraged; people in the French Assembly and elsewhere are concerned. My right hon. Friend is right that there has been a change of tone at the top of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, although not in the middle ranks. The Minister for the Middle East has always been a friend of Yemen and we should not forget his contribution.

I say to the Foreign Secretary that fine words are not enough, although he has given them today. If he holds the pens, he has to use them—not just look at them. That means, first, convening a meeting of the Quint—getting together the Foreign Ministers of the countries involved. He can do that; his predecessor was reluctant to do so. Secondly, he must guarantee the Houthis’ safe passage to Sweden. One reason they did not come to Geneva was that they thought they would not get to Sweden. Thirdly, he must remember that every single day more Yemenis die, so we cannot wait even two weeks; we have to do this now. With every single hour of delay, another Yemeni dies. Five Yemeni children die every single day. So, we cannot wait to be nice to people; we need to get on and table the resolution.

[Mr Hunt]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question and welcome the urgency with which he is encouraging the Government to act, because he is absolutely right. He is also right that this is not about words. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State has done an extraordinary job in terms of the patient diplomacy that he has shown over many years. At the United Nations General Assembly in New York, I had a meeting with the Foreign Ministers who are directly involved. I have been pressing them continually, since even before that meeting. The right hon. Gentleman is right that the safe passage of humanitarian aid is essential, but what has been missing up till now is a willingness on all sides to properly engage in talks. I think we have a change now. There is still a long journey ahead, but this is the moment and we have to grasp it.

Yemen

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I commend my hon. Friend on his excellent speech.

It is deeply disappointing that the peace talks did not proceed, but does my hon. Friend not agree that here is an opportunity for our Government to call together the Quint in London in order to keep the peace process going? We simply cannot wait for Martin Griffiths; we need to take the initiative and we need to hold talks here. President Macron managed to do it in Paris; we should be doing this in London.

[Stephen Twigg]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend’s work, not least with the all-party group on Yemen. Again, he has anticipated the next part of my speech. A meeting of the Quint would be a very welcome move by the UK, and of course we hold the pen on Yemen in the UN Security Council, which places a responsibility on us to increase our efforts to bring the parties around the table and seek a peaceful solution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a huge pleasure to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). He spoke with great passion and huge knowledge. His connection with Yemen—he learned Arabic when he was in Yemen—is known to us all. As Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, he has to cover the world, so I thank him for coming here today and participating in this debate.

I particularly want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg)—he is a dear friend whom I have known for more than 30 years—not only for securing this debate but for his very hard work as Chair of the International Development Committee over the past four years. I also thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this important debate. At a time when there is so much business in the House, you have understood the importance of having an emergency debate. The debate allows us to send a message to the world that, even though there is other business and even though people call this a forgotten war, here in the British Parliament it is not forgotten and many Members of this House are here today to participate.

I also take this opportunity to thank the newly re-elected officers of the all-party group on Yemen: the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) who works so very hard and who is a great and passionate voice for the Yemeni people; my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss); the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman); and the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who went on a visit with me to Sana’a. We had to send out the guards because he had gone out of the hotel without permission and we were very worried about what had happened to him. He was actually taking some marvellous photographs. That was the last time that we were able to take photographs in Sana’a. It must be very, very different today.

The all-party group released its report on the UK policy towards Yemen in May this year following a six-month inquiry. Entitled “Yemen: The continuing Tragedy”, it is now available on our website. The group made 20 recommendations in consultation with its partners. Present at the launch were my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East, who is always coldthere when we discuss these issues—I am grateful, as are others, for his very hard work on this subject; the shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry); the Scottish National party spokesman on Europe and foreign affairs, the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins); the shadow International Development Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor); along with Mr Eddie Izzard who, like me, was born in Aden, Yemen, and many others.

The report was described by the shadow Foreign Secretary as a “blueprint” for UK policy, but, sadly, four months later, we are still awaiting a response from the Foreign Office to that report. Many of the recommendations are even more pressing following the bloody summer that Yemen has just endured.

I have to say to the shadow Foreign Secretary that she made a stunning speech today, and I was very pleased to see the Leader of the Opposition in the Chamber during part of the debate. As a Back Bencher and as Opposition Leader, he has been a great friend of the Yemeni people.

The current situation in Yemen is a scorecard of shame for the world. We have heard some of the statistics: 22.2 million Yemenis are in urgent humanitarian need; 8 million are at risk of famine; and 11 million people are water insecure. Estimates suggest that, since 2015, more than 6,000 children alone have died because of this conflict; 14.8 million people do not have access to basic healthcare; more than 20,000 people do not have access to critical health facilities; violence against women has increased by 63% since the conflict began; child marriage is up 66% since 2015; and food prices have risen by more than 40% since the conflict began. Fact upon fact brings many of us to tears when we have to recount them.

The escalation in fighting over this summer has been shocking. Back in June on Yemen’s west coast, the coalition forces began an advance towards Hodeidah. This would have had disastrous humanitarian consequences, with the United Nations predicting that it could have displaced 300,000 people. To give him credit where it is due, the Minister did tell Members of this House that the Government were against the advance on Hodeidah and had made that very clear to coalition partners, who, sadly, did not listen to them.

In June, I, along with the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, co-authored a letter to the Prime Minister calling on her to stop military assistance to the coalition if an attack on the port occurred. This letter has been signed by more than 95 Members of this House, including three Select Committee Chairs, and the leaders of the Liberal Democrat party, the SNP and the Green party. We must all now accept that this conflict will never be settled on the battlefield.

As we have heard, the first report of the UN group of eminent experts was released 14 days ago. It has been eagerly anticipated since the establishment of the group in September 2017. It produced a damning indictment of all sides in the conflict and said that the violations amounted to “war crimes”. The report came out just 12 days after a school bus containing 40 children was blown up by a coalition airstrike, which was allegedly as a result of a US-provided missile.

In May, the all-party group recommended that the United Kingdom should cease selling arms to all sides until the report of the UN eminent experts had been published. In the aftermath of the findings of the UN and of this horrific attack, it is clear that the UK must urgently review its decisions to grant export licences to parties involved in the war in Yemen. To be associated with such actions does a great deal of damage to the idea of global Britain. The United Kingdom Government must use all their leverage with allies to ensure that they continue to champion British values of fairness, justice and human rights in all aspects of foreign policy. As we have heard from the Chair of the Select Committee, the mandate of the eminent experts must be extended to allow them to continue to do their work, especially in the upcoming session of the Human Rights Council.

We have heard about the involvement of Iran in Yemen. It cannot be disputed. The Houthis have continued to fire weapons at Saudi Arabia and these attacks are totally unacceptable, but the response to them must be proportionate. There is also concern about the threat that they will target ships in the Bab el-Mandeb strait—a busy but vital shipping lane.

As we have heard in every single debate, the United Kingdom holds the pens in Yemen. But we seem very reluctant to use these pens. I respect the important work that has been done by Martin Griffiths, and he must be allowed to continue his work, but we urgently need a new resolution before the United Nations so that we can include a ceasefire and stop the prevention of the passage of humanitarian supplies. Through our ambassador, Karen Pierce, we can table this resolution immediately. We held a meeting of the United Nations Security Council only last week, after the events in Salisbury. If we can call such a meeting—if we can use our power as a permanent member of the Security Council for that very important reason—we should also do so for Yemen.

The peace talks convened by Martin Griffiths were, as we have heard, the best chance for peace in Yemen for some time. For the first time in two years, there was a prospect of us moving forward. As the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield said, Martin Griffiths deserves our praise for the way in which he has persevered with all the groups—the absence of the Houthis was a bitter blow—but we must ensure that we pick up where he left off. I urge the new Foreign Secretary to invite Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over to London with the Foreign Secretaries of all the other Quint countries so that we can continue the Geneva peace talks in London. Like the Dayton peace accords in the 1990s, this should be driven from the top down. We need to try and try again. It is no good blaming others; we have a responsibility and we must make sure that it is followed.

[Graham P. Jones]

We all want peace, but there is a pattern that seems to be a roadblock to peace. The Geneva talks have collapsed twice because the Houthis refused to turn up and leave Sana’a. The Kuwait peace talks collapsed because the Houthis refused to come to the peace table. When the outgoing special envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ahmed, had a peace deal on the table in January, he told the UN that the Houthis simply walked away and were not interested in peace. Again, the Houthis did not bother turning up in Geneva last weekend. Does my right hon. Friend recognise a pattern?

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

Yes, there is a pattern, but in difficult and complex problems it is always difficult to get people round the peace table. My hon. Friend knows; he is a politician who perseveres, no matter whether people say that he cannot do something. He carries on and is determined to achieve what he wants to achieve, and that is what we have to do.

The former Foreign Secretary was asked by the all-party parliamentary group on so many occasions why the Quint had not been called together in London. The Minister is one of the most—if not the most—liked Ministers and Members of this House. He is hugely respected and liked. Whenever there is a reshuffle and he is forgotten, there is a huge groundswell of opinion and the Prime Minister has to relent and give him back the job. This is his chance to become Alistair the peacemaker. This is an opportunity that he must follow; I urge him to do it.

We parliamentarians are not going to stand by and wait for Governments. We have identified a number of parliamentarians in Parliaments of Europe—Norway, Sweden, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands—and Congressmen and Congresswomen in the United States, some of whom were mentioned by the Chair of the Select Committee, who are willing to join a parliamentary coalition of peace. On 8 November in Paris, the all-party group will be co-hosting an international parliamentary conference on Yemen, alongside the French National Assembly’s France-Yemen friendship group. President Macron at least tried to seize the initiative by holding a humanitarian conference in Paris. I know that our Prime Minister is incredibly busy, but I hope that the Minister will urge her to take the lead as President Macron has done to ensure that we have a conference here on Yemen.

I thank Sébastien Nadot, the Member of the French Assembly for Haute-Garonne, and Fabien Gouttefarde, the chair of the France-Yemen friendship group and a representative of his country, for agreeing to work with the all-party parliamentary group. If Governments are too slow, we in Parliament must move this forward.

[Leo Docherty]

The right hon. Gentleman is making an eloquent and powerful speech. How does he think that Iran and the Houthis can be compelled to attend such peace talks? Unless there is a compulsion, they will not attend, when—as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) said—they have so cheaply bought such chaos in Yemen?

[Keith Vaz]

I did not think that I would say this, but if President Trump can meet the leader of North Korea, which I never believed was possible, it is possible for others to sit down at a table. We just have to make them sit down together. This is the art of diplomacy. It is 17 or 18 years since I was a Foreign Office Minister, so I cannot remember how it is done, but it is possible; and the British Foreign Office is the best at it. If anyone is going to do it, the Foreign Office is. And that is what we need to do.

Let me end by mentioning the horrifying image of the bus attack last month that can be seen on the internet—the haunting image of children, most of whom were under the age of 10, singing and clapping as they went to school. The second film shows the agony of dozens of tiny, bloodied UNICEF backpacks strewn in the aftermath of the destruction. In a conflict that has led to unconscionable destruction and death across Yemen, this incident, which has been highlighted by every single speaker in this debate—and, Mr Speaker, which I hope was one of the reasons that you granted this emergency debate—will live with us for ever.

When the Minister comes to the Dispatch Box, will he please announce a new round of peace talks? I long to return to Aden—that beautiful city. I actually want to end my life there; I want my last days to be in the beautiful city of Aden, where I was born. Every time I think of the country, what it has been through in the last few years and what we have failed to do, it brings me to tears. Now we see a whole generation being wiped out. Before that, there is a whole generation who are going to hate those who have rained bombs upon them. Britain’s task as a leader in world affairs is to convene these peace talks. I beg the Minister to do so.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I encourage colleagues to restrict their speeches to no more than 10 minutes, because it is important that the Minister of State has adequate opportunity fully to respond. There will be a Front-Bench speech from the Scottish National party, which is not time-limited. If there is time, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), who initiated the debate, would ordinarily be asked to conclude it. Therefore, let us ensure that Back-Bench speeches last for a maximum of 10 minutes, although this is an informal exhortation at this point.

Yemen

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the reports of an imminent attack by the Saudi-Emirati-led coalition on the port of Hodeidah and the humanitarian impact of such an attack.

[The Minister for the Middle East (Alistair Burt)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) on both his length of service and his question. Last Thursday, it was 35 years since I was first elected to the House—so there are a few of us old ones knocking around.

[Alistair Burt]

On these occasions, I am grateful that you have such a gift for words, Mr Speaker.

On a serious matter, reports have been circulating for some time of a possible assault on either Hodeidah or Hodeidah port. Information at the beginning of last weekend, including from troop movements, suggested that such an attack might be imminent. In view of our responsibilities to aid agencies, the Department for International Development issued a statement based on that information. It read:

“We are doing everything we can through diplomatic channels to discourage an assault on Hodeidah. However despite these actions, a military assault now looks imminent. The Emiratis have informed us today that they will now give a 3-day grace period for the UN [and their partners] to leave the city. Please take all precautions necessary to prepare for this and let us know if there is anything we can do to assist you in any way. We are thinking of you and your staff at this very difficult time.”

That is the email that was reprinted in The Guardian today.

The Government are and have been concerned about the potential impact of any assault on the city and port of Hodeidah for some time and have made their concerns clear to the Saudi and Emirati Governments. The UN assesses that an attack on Hodeidah could displace up to 350,000 people and leave hundreds of thousands of Yemenis without access to basic goods or healthcare. The Foreign Secretary spoke to his Saudi and Emirati counterparts over the weekend, and we are in close touch with the UN humanitarian co-ordinator and the UN special envoy.

The majority of Yemen’s food and fuel imports enter through Hodeidah and Saleef ports and it is crucial that humanitarian and commercial imports continue to flow through the port. We urge all parties to facilitate access for essential imports of food, fuel and medical supplies into the country, including through Hodeidah. As with all aspects of the conflict, all parties must respect international humanitarian law and protect civilians.

No attack has yet taken place. Accordingly, we continue to urge all sides to de-escalate as a matter of urgency and to engage in the political process in good faith. The UN special envoy has previously expressed concern that conflicts in Hodeidah could take peace off the table “in a single stroke”. It is essential for him to be given the time that he needs to facilitate a negotiated solution that avoids conflict in the city and we support his efforts to do so.

It is important to recall the wider conflict. The conflict in Yemen is now in its fourth year. Houthi rebels took the capital by force in 2014 and displaced the legitimate Government of Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition action is designed to facilitate the restoration of effective governance. The Houthis have consistently failed to adhere to UN Security Council resolutions: they have, for instance, launched missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, prevented access to humanitarian supplies—which has led to significant damage to civilians—and prevented vital vaccinations.

We have been clear about the fact that there can be no military solution to the conflict. We continue to encourage all parties to show restraint, to return to negotiations and to engage in the UN-led political process in good faith, to work towards a comprehensive political settlement.

[Keith Vaz]

Thank you for granting the urgent question, Mr Speaker, and for your kind words. I also thank the Minister for what he has said.

The port of Hodeidah accounts for the entry of between 70% and 80% of humanitarian aid. As we have just heard, it is at risk of an imminent military assault by forces supported by the Saudi and Emirati-led coalition—a coalition strongly supported by this Government, who, of course, supply it with arms.

The three-day period that has been given to the aid agencies is simply not enough. Hodeidah has been the last lifeline to Yemen’s civilians since the conflict began —2.2 million people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance—and an attack on the port would be a catastrophe. The United Nations estimates that it could lead directly to the deaths of a quarter of a million people, roughly the population of the city of Leicester. It would devastate the peace process. As we heard from the Minister, Martin Griffiths, the UN envoy to Yemen, who has just taken up his post, has said that such an assault

“would, in a single stroke, take peace off the table.”

Will the Minister ask the Prime Minister today, after her statement to the House, to speak to Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates, and tell them that they must immediately stop the military preparations for the offensive? Will he instruct our UN ambassador, Karen Pierce, to convene an emergency meeting of the Security Council to discuss this matter? At that meeting or before it, will the Government make a statement directly condemning an attack on Hodeidah and calling for a ceasefire as a matter of urgency?

Will the Minister convene, as a matter of urgency, a meeting of the Quint nations on Yemen this week? That was promised several months ago. Finally, if an attack on the port does take place—against the wishes of our Government—will we reconsider our support for the coalition, or in what way will we ensure that the peace process succeeds?

I know that the eyes of the world are on Singapore at this moment, but they should be on Hodeidah. Failure to take this action will lead to more slaughter of innocent Yemenis, and will be a stain on the conscience of Ministers, the Government and the House.

[Alistair Burt]

Obviously, we share much of the concern expressed by the right hon. Member for Leicester East. That is why we have consistently made the case to the coalition that an attack on Hodeidah could have very serious displacement effects, and we have expressed our concern over a lengthy period. We will continue to do so. The Foreign Secretary did so over the weekend and those conversations will continue. I stress that no attack has yet happened and, even as we speak, the UN special envoy is engaged with both sides to see whether anything in the imminence of circumstances might move the negotiations along.

I have made the case to the House before that this is not a one-sided conflict. Areas under Houthi control have prevented humanitarian access. Abuses of international humanitarian law have occurred. The Houthis stop vaccinations and steal medical supplies.

The coalition came into effect to restore legitimate government to the people of Yemen. We have expressed our concern about any action taken by the coalition that might be in breach of international humanitarian law. We will continue to do so. The Foreign Secretary is in contact with other members of the Quint and those who are concerned about potential action. However, it remains the case that a negotiated solution could still be found. We are continuing to urge that the UN special envoy has the space to be able to do that. That has been our consistent approach over a lengthy period and we will continue to do that.

Oman, UAE and Iran

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is a pleasure to welcome back to his place the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz).

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s visit and his discussions on Yemen. Death continues to hang over Yemen—death from the humanitarian crisis; death from the escalating bombings; and death from the fighting that has now broken out between supporters of former President Saleh and the Houthis. In the 14 days between now and Christmas, another 1,802 Yemeni children will die from preventable causes unless we take action. Is the Foreign Secretary now saying to me that Iran is welcome to sit at the conference table in order to progress peace talks? In my discussions in Riyadh recently with the Saudi Foreign Minister and the President of Yemen, they were very clear that they did not see a role for Iran. Will the Foreign Secretary also confirm that when the President of Yemen comes to Britain next week the Prime Minister will see him, contrary to the advice given by the British ambassador to Yemen, who said that the Prime Minister has no time to see the President?

[Boris Johnson]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman’s vast learning on the subject of Yemen, and he is entirely right to say that there is a critical situation in Sana’a, where the Houthis are, in effect, trying to wipe out the supporters of Saleh—the General People’s Congress—or bring them over entirely to their side. One thing we must achieve is preserving a plurality of political voices in Yemen if we possibly can, which is one reason why we want to move forward with the talks I have described. To prevent further starvation and suffering, it is essential to get supplies flowing through Hodeidah, but to do that we must help to reassure the Saudis and others that that port is not being used to smuggle weaponry and to support those who are attacking civilians. That is one of the jobs in which the Government are now engaged. As for the forthcoming visit by the President of Yemen, I will undertake, on behalf of the right hon. Gentleman, to discuss with the Prime Minister her timetable, and will revert to him as soon as is convenient.

Yemen

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Graham P. Jones]

rose—

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Mitchell]

I give way to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who leads the all-party group on Yemen.

[Keith Vaz]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. He was present at the meeting earlier this week when we heard from the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister, who said that the Saudi Arabian Government do not believe that this war can be won. What is the point of continuing with a war that cannot be won?

[Mr Mitchell]

Well, I will now turn directly to the position of Saudi Arabia, whose impressive Foreign Minister, Ahmed al-Jubeir, generously came to the House of Commons on Tuesday this week to speak to the all-party group, as the right hon. Gentleman has just said. During the course of the conversation, during which the right hon. Gentleman and I were pretty forthright, he asked for advice, making it clear that Saudi Arabia had not fought a war of this nature before.

My advice is as follows: there must be an immediate end to this appalling blockade. Of course, working with the UN, the Saudis are within their rights to search shipping and other transport for illicit weapons, but they cannot impound or obstruct vessels carrying vital food and medical supplies. Currently, the Saudis are refusing to allow 26 ships that have been cleared by the UN to be offloaded. If the Saudis have doubts about the effectiveness of UN inspection, they must of course be part of it.

There must be an immediate ceasefire and a return to reinvigorated, inclusive peace talks. A new Security Council resolution is long overdue. It is widely recognised that resolution 2216 is an anachronism that constitutes a barrier to any peace process. There can be no preconditions from either side. The Houthis and the General People’s Congress are in control of Sana’a; they will not be easily shifted—certainly not by an air campaign that day after day consolidates support for them on the ground and directs the hatred of the local population to those who are dropping the bombs.

The Houthis did not start out as allies of the Iranians; the Houthis are Zaidis, not Shi’a. But of course in a region where “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”, it is not hard to understand why the Houthis look to Iran, although, given the blockade, it is not easy for Iran to arm the Houthis in any significant way. The prolonging of the conflict and the resulting cost to Saudi Arabia in regional instability is a gift to Iran.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

However we got here, it cannot be made better by there being a blockade and millions of starving children. It is my view—and I believe the view of this House—that the blockade should be lifted and that we must find a peace process and a way of moving the sides apart to allow these children to survive over the winter.

When a tactic of surrender or survive was used by President Assad in Syria, the Foreign Secretary was happy to condemn it, but he has uttered not a single word of criticism when the same tactic has been used by his friend Crown Prince Salman of Saudi Arabia, the architect of the Yemen conflict, or, as the Foreign Secretary likes to call him, “a remarkable young man.” So let me ask the Minister this specifically: while the blockade was fully in place over the past three weeks, apparently in clear breach of international humanitarian law, were any export licences granted for the sale of arms from the UK to the Saudi-led coalition?

When my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East raised this issue last week, the Minister seemed to suggest that the blockade was justified from a military point of view because of the alleged smuggling of missiles from Iran to the Houthi rebels. But I ask him again why he disagrees with the confidential briefing prepared by the panel of experts appointed by the UN Security Council and circulated on 10 November. That briefing has been referred to already, but let me quote from it:

“The panel finds that imposition of access restrictions is another attempt by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition to use…resolution 2216 as justification for obstructing the delivery of commodities that are essentially civilian in nature.”

It goes on to say that, while the Houthis undoubtedly possess some ballistic missile capacity:

“The panel has seen no evidence to support claims of”

ballistic missiles

“having been transferred to the Houthi-Saleh alliance from external sources”.

If the Minister disagrees with that assessment, which I understand he does, can he state the evidence on which he does so, and will he undertake to share that evidence with the UN panel of experts? However, if there is no such evidence, I ask him again: how can the blockade be justified from the perspective of international humanitarian law, and how can the Government justify selling Saudi Arabia the arms that were used to enforce that blockade?

We know that, even if the blockade of Yemen’s ports is permanently lifted, the civilian population of Yemen will continue to suffer as long as this conflict carries on, and the only way that suffering will finally end is through a lasting ceasefire and political agreement. As the whole House knows, it is the UK’s ordained role to act as the penholder for a UN ceasefire resolution on Yemen. That is a matter I have raised many times in this House, and I raise it again today. It has now been one year and one month since Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, Matthew Rycroft, circulated Britain’s draft resolution to other members of the UN Security Council, and this is what he said back then:

“We have decided…to put forward a draft Security Council resolution…calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities and a resumption of the political process.”

That was a year and a month ago, and still no resolution has been presented. That is one year and one month when no progress has been made towards peace, and when the conflict has continued to escalate and the humanitarian crisis has become the worst in the world.

[Keith Vaz]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much for what she is saying, and she is absolutely right. Twelve months have elapsed since the promise that there would be a resolution before the UN. The Quint met last night in London, and the Foreign Secretary tweeted a photograph of himself with the participants, but there is no timetable. Does my right hon. Friend agree that these meetings are meaningless without a timetable for peace with all the parties at the table at the same time?

[Emily Thornberry]

My right hon. Friend is right: warm words butter no parsnips, as my grandmother used to say. Matthew Rycroft says now that

“the political track…is at a dead-end. There is no meaningful political process going on”.

If we are wrong about that, we would be very grateful for some reassurance from the Minister, but we have been waiting and waiting, and children are dying, and we have to do something about it.

We are bound to ask, for example, what has happened to that draft resolution: why has it been killed off—indeed, has it been killed off? Is the situation as the Saudi ambassador to the UN said when first asked about the UK’s draft resolution this time last year:

“There is a continuous and joint agreement with Britain concerning the draft resolution, and whether there is a need for it or not”?

We must ask this Minister: is that “continuous and joint agreement” with Saudi Arabia still in place? If so, why has it never been disclosed to the House?

The fear is that Saudi Arabia does not want a ceasefire and that it sees no value in negotiating a peace—not when Crown Prince Salman believes that the rebellion can still be crushed, whatever the humanitarian cost. If he does believe that, are we really to accept that the UK Government are going along with that judgment?

The Minister will, of course, point to the so-called peace forum chaired by the Foreign Secretary this week—the Quint—and say that that is evidence that the UK is doing its job to move the political process forward, but when the only participants in the peace forum are Saudi Arabia, two of its allies, and two of the countries supplying most of its arms, that is not a “peace forum.” I respectfully suggest that far from being a peace forum, it is a council of war. What we really need—what we urgently need and have needed for more than a year and a month—is the moral and political force which comes from a UN Security Council resolution obliging all parties to cease hostilities, obliging all parties to allow humanitarian relief, and obliging all parties to work towards a political solution.

I ask the Minister: how much longer do we have to wait? When will the Government finally bring forward the resolution? If the answer is that, because of opposition from the Saudis and the Americans, they will never present that resolution, do they not at least owe it to fellow members of the UN Security Council, and to Members of this House—and, indeed, to the children of Yemen—to admit that the role of penholder on Yemen is no longer a position they can in good conscience occupy and that they should pass on that role of drafting a resolution to another country which is less joined at the hip to Crown Prince Salman and President Donald Trump?

Let me close by quoting my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition in his last letter to the Prime Minister on the subject of Yemen:

“Whilst the immediate priority should be humanitarian assistance…it is time the Government takes immediate steps to play its part in ending the suffering of the Yemeni people, ends its support of the Saudi coalition’s conduct in the war and take appropriate action”

through the UN

“to bring the conflict to a peaceful, negotiated resolution.”

Those are the three tests of whether the Government are willing to take action today, and I hope that by the end of this emergency debate we will have some indication of whether they are going to take that action, or whether it is just going to be more of the same.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

I thank the Minister for updating the House so regularly and for engaging with the all-party parliamentary group on Yemen and its officers, the hon. Members for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) and for Charnwood (Edward Argar) and me, on these issues.

The meeting of the Quint was yesterday. What is the timetable to mandate the Omanis to bring the Houthis to the negotiating table so that we can conclude this matter? That is the issue, is it not?

[Alistair Burt]

Again, if we could have a timetable we would have one, but we cannot because we are dealing with people who are not yet parties to this process. They have been and need to be brought back into the process. The only words that can adequately describe it, as the House would wish, are, “As soon as possible.” The Houthis should be re-engaged with the UN in a process to start the descaling that will lead to the end of the conflict. That is what we have been seeking, and that is what we are continuing to do.

I will conclude, because the House has been generous in giving me a great deal of time. I have not, although I could have, said a lot about the direct humanitarian aid that is being delivered by the United Kingdom—that aid is significant and important. We have been working consistently, and £155 million has gone in to support the people of Yemen, and it has been used through indirect agencies, the UN and various non-governmental organisations. I entirely concur with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield said about the bravery of those who are engaged, and it would help if the Yemeni Government would pay public health workers in particular. Some of the work that is needed to prevent the return of cholera could then be done, and it would assist food distribution. The aid agencies have worked extremely hard in the circumstances, but the only thing that would allow their work to be effective is an end to the conflict, which we are working so hard to achieve through the negotiations.

Although it has taken some time, and although it is clear how strongly Members present and people outside the House feel about the issue, to believe that there is more the United Kingdom could do is, to a degree, unfair, but it does not matter. We are the Government, and we must do all we can on delivering humanitarian aid, on engaging with the parties who can do something about it and on ensuring that we are on the right side of the law.

Should there be anything in the record that needs correcting, I assure my right hon. Friend that I will correct it. I am confident about what I read out earlier but, if there is anything I need to correct, I will do so. We seek to do what we can in this dreadful situation. The most important thing is that there is a continued release of the restrictions on the ports, which is what we are working towards at the highest level, as Members can tell from the Prime Minister’s speech. If we do not achieve our aims, I know the House will bring us back again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy). He did himself a huge injustice in saying that he did not know much about the subject; he knows a great deal, and his passion was evident in what he said. I thank him for his remarks. I also commend the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), not only for calling this debate but for his incredible work as International Development Secretary. I think that he will go down as one of the best we have ever had. While he occupied that post, he did so much for Yemen and gave it so much of his time, for which we were very grateful. He gave a brilliant speech today.

It is important that we discuss Yemen on the Floor of the House. We do not get the opportunity to do so often enough. As chair of the all-party group on Yemen, and as one of two Members born in Aden, I believe that this has become a forgotten war, as the Foreign Secretary said. Allowing us to discuss this in prime parliamentary time means that it is forgotten no more.

I thank the hon. Members for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) and for Charnwood (Edward Argar) for being such excellent officers of the all-party group. Yemen has very many friends in the House. This is a Thursday afternoon, but the House is packed. I also thank the young and swashbuckling Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who learned about Yemen when he went to live there to learn Arabic, and who spoke beautifully about its contribution to the history of the Arab world, and of course my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), who has made this a priority in his role as Chair of the International Development Select Committee. I miss Flick Drummond and Angus Robertson. Both, whenever they spoke about Yemen, made sure the House listened, and I am glad that the shadow Foreign Secretary, who is extremely busy, came to speak today. It shows that she is very concerned.

As we approach 20 December and the 1,000th day of Yemen’s war, it is clear that the conflict is still no closer to being resolved, and the United Kingdom is sadly no nearer to developing a coherent policy on Yemen. Time and again, I and others have stood in the Chamber calling for our Government to utilise all their immense diplomatic skills, talent and muscle to bring an end to the conflict, but it has not happened, and we are here again asking for the same thing. This debate demonstrates the cross-party consensus in Parliament for an end to this awful war.

As we stand here today, Yemen continues to bleed to death. Yemenis face death from cholera, malnutrition, bombing and starvation. The cloud of death hangs over Yemen: 10,000 dead from the fighting, 40,000 mutilated; each day, 130 Yemeni children dying from preventable causes. As the hon. Member for Glasgow Central said, by the time this debate ends, another 17 Yemeni children will have died. Some 20 million people are in need of urgent humanitarian aid. By the end of the year, 1 million people will be suffering from cholera, which is more than the entire populations of Edinburgh, Newcastle and Hull combined.

The war has destroyed Yemen’s civilian infrastructure. Its hospitals—including the one where I and my sisters were born—and water sanitation facilities have been decimated by the fighting and bombing. As we have heard, state sector workers have not been paid for well over a year, and aid agencies have been asked to fulfil all major functions of the state. It is an impossible task.

The all-party parliamentary group on Yemen will be launching its inquiry into UK policy towards Yemen on 13 December—on Yemen day, to be held here in Parliament. We will hear contributions from all the agencies that have been taking part in this action of mercy: Médecins sans Frontières, Oxfam, Islamic Relief, the Norwegian Refugee Council, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Rescue Committee. I hope that many Members of the House, especially those representing the diaspora in Cardiff, Liverpool, Sheffield and elsewhere will come to Yemen day because it will allow us not just to grieve but to press for the action that, I am afraid, is still lacking.

The conflict in Yemen has raged for the past two and a half years, but there has been a sharp escalation this month. On 4 November, an Iranian-supplied missile was fired at Saudi Arabia from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen, landing near Riyadh airport. We condemn this missile attack in the strongest possible terms. One death is not a justification for another, and targeting civilians at an airport is a cowardly act. The response by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to this attack has been quick and deadly, increasing bombing raids in Yemen and issuing a full blockade of the country. Despite an outcry from humanitarian groups and the United Nations, the full blockade lasted for three weeks. We have heard the passionate arguments that this is in breach of article 33 of the Geneva convention.

Although I welcome the ending of the blockade announced this week, acknowledge that the start of the aid has begun and welcome the update given to us by the Minister today, this is not a solution to Yemen’s problems. Aid access to the country is still far lower than is required by the 20 million people who need immediate assistance. Yemen is a country that imports 90% of its food. Restrictions on commercial imports are still present, while Yemeni citizens are starving to death. A return to the pre-November status quo is an unacceptable outcome. It is clear that the only way to stop the suffering of the Yemeni people is with a peace agreement between the parties, and I will not rest until there is peace in Yemen.

In recent months, I have been meeting some of the key interlocutors in the region. Six months ago, I went to Oman and Doha to meet Ministers there. I was on my way back to Aden, but never made it. I was told that if I landed at the airport, there was no guarantee that the plane would take off again. I have also meet the ambassador from Iran to the United Kingdom, Hamid Baeidinejad, who told me that Iran was not involved in Yemen and that Iran wanted peace. But in recent weeks, I have meet the Saudi ambassador, Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz, and the Saudi Foreign Minister, Adel bin Ahmed al-Jubeir, both of whom wanted peace and both of whom made it very clear that Iran was involved in supplying arms actively to the Houthis. I think we all have to accept that it is clear that that is the case.

The United Kingdom has the capacity to end this conflict as the penholder of the United Nations. It is good to see what the Prime Minister said in Riyadh today, and that she is there to address the Yemeni issue, but I would like her to stay in the region until she gets everyone back at the peace table. A speech is welcome, but it is not enough. We need to get people back and this is a huge opportunity. There is a clarion call for peace all over the world. Three weeks ago at the United States Congress, Democrat Ro Khanna and Republican Congressman Mark Pocan introduced a bipartisan Bill concerning arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Last week, the Leader of the Opposition wrote to the Prime Minister, calling for arms sales to Saudi Arabia to be suspended, and the Scottish National party has had this position for some time. On no other issue except Yemen would we see an alliance that brings together the United States Congress, the Leader of the Opposition and the Scottish National party.

Yesterday, after a long wait, the Foreign Ministers of the UK, the USA, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman met in the Quint meeting. But there is no timetable for peace. Unless we have a timetable, we cannot get peace. The Foreign Secretary tweeted a picture of himself after the meeting yesterday. My message to him is that we need to spend less time talking about Brexit and more time talking about Yemen. His predecessor, Lord Hague, took an active role in the peaceful transition from President Saleh to President Hadi, and I want to see this Foreign Secretary do the same.

I thank the Minister for the Middle East for his work on the issue. He is always willing to meet, engage and come to Parliament in order to update us.

There was a slight dispute between the Minister and the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield. The Minister has known him for 30 years, and I have known him for 40 years; he is responsible for my entering politics because he gave me my first speech at university, and I have not stopped since, so he is to blame. However, the fact is that the Saudi Foreign Minister did tell us that the British were there to help them with targeting the bombing. The Minister was not there, but that is exactly what the Foreign Minister said we were doing, and he thanked us for it. Maybe clarification is required on exactly what that means, but I must defend the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield: that is exactly what we all heard.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you will know that this is my 30th year in Parliament. Some may say that is too long, but for my remaining years in this place, I want to dedicate myself to ensuring that there is peace in Yemen. I cannot bear to think of what is happening to this once beautiful country—it fills me with such pain. The images broadcast by the BBC and al-Jazeera this week are just too harrowing to watch. My children had to turn away from the television set, it was so terrible. One day, I want to return to Aden and to have breakfast on the veranda of the Crescent Hotel, overlooking the Arabian sea, where my sisters and I spent so many happy days as children, watching the great ships on their way to the Suez canal.

This is no biblical disaster, but a disaster that has been made by men. In a recent letter to the Prime Minister, I suggested that just as parliamentarians of the 20th century were judged on their reactions to the genocides in Rwanda, Kosovo and Somalia, we will be judged on our reactions to the tragedy in Yemen. Once fabled as the land of the Queen of Sheba, Yemen is now the graveyard of the middle east, and our lack of action is an object of shame for all of us. Unless we act now, the verdict of history will be very harsh indeed.