Yemen

Debate between Keith Vaz and Martin Docherty-Hughes

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

Yes, I will. We do need to support those organisations. I think that I am able to give way so often thanks to the BBC debate running a little short. Whether we like or hate the BBC, we should thank it for allowing us this extra time.

A generation of Yemenis now risk learning how to hate Saudi Arabia and the west. At a recent meeting organised by the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, journalists Nawal al-Maghafi and Peter Oborne, who had recently returned from Yemen, said that the long history of goodwill towards Britain was almost eroded. The strength of that criticism means that when we are critical of Russia’s actions in Syria, it is now pointing at Yemen and claiming moral equivalency. That is not sustainable. Yemen is now the Achilles heel of western diplomacy. Quite simply, it is in everyone’s best interests, including Saudi Arabia’s, for the airstrikes to end permanently.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on initiating the debate. Does he agree that if the United Kingdom Government’s review of its arms sales uncovers breaches of international law by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Yemen, there should be not only an end to the sales of arms to Saudi Arabia, but a root-and-branch review of our relationship with the kingdom?

[Keith Vaz]

That is a very important point. The Chair of the Committees on Arms Export Controls will have heard what the hon. Gentleman has said. I think that this is one of the issues that the Committees, and other Committees of the House, will have to examine—indeed, they are doing so as we speak.