Yemen: Humanitarian Situation and Children’s Rights

Kenny MacAskill Excerpts

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship Mr Pritchard. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) not only for securing this debate but for making an eloquent and touching speech. I endorse everything that she said. The situation is tragic and ongoing.

I wish to start by putting on record a press report. I have a cutting that says:

“Gross violations of international law. Missiles raining down on houses. Kleptocrats laundering their ill-gotten gains through London and buying political influence. Aggressive, powerful states attacking a poorer neighbour; backing separatist rebels; illegally occupying its land; dropping cluster bombs and conducting crippling cyber-attacks.”

The article asks if that sounds familiar. But that is not Putin; it is not Bakhmut. It was a year ago and written with regard to the war in Yemen. We see support and the flags flying, even here, for Ukraine. We have hosted President Zelensky. We have condemned President Putin unreservedly, and rightly so. Yet everything that is going on in Bakhmut is being replicated in Yemen, and little is being done.

The comment has been made that it takes two to have a fight, and I am not here to support one side or other, but, as other hon. Members have mentioned, the bulk of the danger is being created by the weaponry, especially of the Saudi Arabians and the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai are principally supported by the British military, and that is something that we have to address. We are providing aid to Yemen and commenting on the ongoing horror, yet as other hon. Members—especially the hon. Member for Glasgow North West—have said, we are fuelling and funding that situation by providing the weaponry that is wreaking the horror there.

[Mrs Drummond]

I mentioned earlier that the situation in Yemen is completely incomparable to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This was very much under UN resolution 2216. The hon. Gentleman has not mentioned the fact that Iran has also contributed weapons to the Houthis.

[Kenny MacAskill]

I condemn Iran for its role, as I condemn it for its drones that have been causing horror in Ukraine. But we all bleed the same. A Houthi or a Yemeni bleeds the same as a Ukrainian or a Russian, and we have to recognise that. We cannot exculpate ourselves by saying that they are slightly different.

I wish to put on record the importance of recognising the role that the UK and, indeed, Scotland, is playing. The UK is the principal arms supplier for Saudi Arabia, which is why we turned a blind eye when Khashoggi was murdered: “Who cares? Let us look away and invite Mohammed bin Salman or whatever—it does not matter so long as we continue to sell.” The hon. Member for Glasgow North West and others have rightly put that on record. The tragedy is that Scotland has a role in this. As the report I quoted goes on to say, we are aware that missiles provided by Raytheon are causing death and misery in Yemen, indiscriminately killing children from whatever side. The fact of the matter is that the laser guidance systems for Raytheon’s missiles are made at Glenrothes, in Scotland.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I was born in Aden and lived the first 10 years of my life there. I want to thank hon. Members who, throughout the time that I have been here, have raised the issue of Yemen, which does fall off the agenda. Hon. Members have done a good job—whether the Government or the Opposition or even Back Benchers, we have put it on the map. We are getting to a position now—I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees—where people are talking, and it is much better that they talk than they fight.

I have not been allowed to go back to Yemen, but the hon. Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) and I and the Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson are possibly going on a trip, and that would be an incredible thing for all of us because we have not been back there. I hope that the hon. Member for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill) accepts that it is becoming a safer place—it will never be completely safe until everyone is around the table and accepts the rule of law—but at the heart of this debate is the fact that there are children suffering and people starving. We see pictures of babies who are skeletons. It is quite horrifying. I just gently remind the hon. Member that all hon. Members are aware of the suffering that is occurring. It is why we are having this debate today. I thank him for allowing me such a long intervention.

[Kenny MacAskill]

I am happy to accept that intervention and, indeed, to put on record that I welcome progress being made. The right hon. Member obviously knows much more about this than I do. Any progress is to be welcomed. I am also aware that the deaths and misery being inflicted on children come more often not from weaponry but from disease and all the disasters as a result of the fragmentation and breakdown of society. But the UK does have a role, both in funding and providing support and in diplomacy. I just wish that in other conflicts we would listen more to Pope Francis, and perhaps seek to take his guidance.

We have to put on record, as has been done, that the UK has a role in arming Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It is also important to put on record that Scotland has a role due to the provision of laser-guided missiles from Glenrothes by Raytheon. I was in the Scottish Government when Raytheon was there, and I have to confess that my hands are implicated in this, but times have moved on. I was a Minister from 2007 to 2014; we are now in 2023. I recall some seven years ago, when I was not in politics at all, writing in defence of the Scottish Government that it is very easy to be condemnatory, but one has to accept that there are quality, skilled jobs that cannot be easily replaced in Glenrothes, where there will be high unemployment. I wrote that there were people working hard there and we had to provide protection.

However, there must come a time when we say that this cannot go on. We have been funding Raytheon; we have been giving it grants to come to Scotland and stay there. There has to come a time when we say, “No, we won’t.” We cannot simply say that it is wrong that the United Kingdom provides armaments to Saudi Arabia, but that it is okay that we in Scotland are prepared to fund Raytheon to provide the laser guidance for the missiles that will be fired. I have to put that on the record. Do I expect Raytheon to up and move out of Glenrothes? No, that would be an economic disaster for the area, but we have to say that we are not going to fund it any more, and that we will try to encourage it to find a better use for the site.

There has to come a time when Scotland recognises that it is not enough simply to say that the role of the United Kingdom is wrong. Scotland must say that it also has a role, albeit smaller and far less serious. The kids who die do not care where the missiles came from. They just want them stopped. That is what I want to put on record. I fully accept the comments that have been made by hon. Members, and I fully endorse the points made by the hon. Member for Glasgow North West.