Yemen

Debate between Keith Vaz and Kirsten Oswald

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the House for allowing this vitally important debate. I was surprised that a Minister from the Department for International Development and not the Foreign Office is representing the Government, as this debate is primarily on foreign affairs matters. Observers have always feared that the FCO would like to take control of DFID: perhaps tonight we are seeing a reverse takeover. The Minister’s knowledge of this area, however, is not in doubt and I am pleased to see him in his place.

This debate occurs at one of the most critical moments in Yemen’s long history. In August, UN-backed peace talks in Kuwait between the Houthi rebels and the Yemeni Government broke down, leading to intense fighting and a restarting of the airstrikes. Thousands have died in the following months. Only last week, 140 people were killed and 500 injured in an airstrike on a funeral in Sana’a. The Saudi Government have now apologised for that incident, blaming the bombing on bad intelligence. What a terrible reason to die.

This morning, a 72-hour ceasefire was announced by UN Special Envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed. It will begin at midnight tomorrow. All our eyes may be on Syria and Iraq, but tonight we in the British Parliament invite the world to focus on Yemen’s forgotten crisis. Our message to the Government is quite simple: either we stop the fighting permanently or Yemen will bleed to death.

I have been privileged to serve as chair of the all-party group on Yemen since joining Parliament. I am very proud that there are so many Members who are interested in Yemen and so many Members present today. Several Members of this House were born in Yemen, including myself, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) and the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond). She is an officer of the all-party group, along with the hon. Members for Charnwood (Edward Argar) and for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss). Other Members have served the armed forces in Yemen, including the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). Those who represent constituencies with large Yemeni communities have worked hard on behalf of their constituents, including my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) and for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty). This includes the late Harry Harpham, who served as the group’s secretary. I am delighted that his successor, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss), is equally dedicated. Tomorrow, the group will meet representatives of all of the major charities to hear from the former Foreign Minister of Yemen, Dr Abu-Baker Al-Kirby.

These parliamentary ties further demonstrate the unique relationship our country has had with Yemen over the past 150 years. When Yemen was last in crisis, during the Arab Spring of 2011, it was the British Government, in particular the current Minister of State at the Foreign Office, the right hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan), who was later the Prime Minister’s envoy to Yemen, who worked with the Yemeni Government. We supported Yemen through that crisis, which, other than Tunisia, was the only peaceful democratic revolution in the middle east. We continue to be one of the largest bilateral aid donors, and the International Development Secretary has just raised our contribution to a total of £100 million. In turn, Yemenis have a great love of Britain. When the Yemeni Foreign Minister Riad Yassin visited Parliament last year, he brought with him a video. It was not a video of the ongoing conflict, which we were aware of, but of our Queen’s last visit to Aden, where the local hospital I was born in was named after her.

This positive history therefore makes the current situation all the more tragic. Through a sluggish, confused and weak approach to the crisis, the international community as a whole should be measured against a scorecard of shame: over 10,000 people have been killed in the past 18 months; at least 1,200 children have been killed, with another 1,700 injured; 3 million people are now suffering from acute malnutrition; 21.2 million people, four-fifths of the entire population, require urgent humanitarian assistance, 9.9 million of whom are children; 3.2 million people are internally displaced; 19.3 million people are in need of health care and protection services; and 14.1 million people, equivalent to the combined populations of London, Birmingham and Glasgow, are at risk of hunger.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

The impact on the most vulnerable in society in Yemen is simply immeasurable. It is our job in this House to stand up against what is wrong. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we are instead enabling that?

[Keith Vaz]

I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Lady. I commend her party and its Members for the way in which they have raised Yemen on so many occasions. I am grateful, and the House is very grateful, for that. She is right that we need to do much more. Organisations such as Save the Children, UNICEF, Islamic Relief, Médecins sans Frontières and the Red Cross are performing wonders on the ground, but they are struggling to get the funding needed for emergency programmes.