Yemen

Layla Moran Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the situation in Yemen.

I am delighted to move the motion, and I am aware of the very great interest in this debate, so I will make my comments as quickly as possible. If people would not intervene, that would be helpful, and I do not propose to take the few minutes at the end to respond to give as many Members as possible the opportunity to come in. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate. We have tried many times—it was aborted some six months ago because of lockdown—but now, at last, we are able to debate this situation.

The trouble is that the situation has not got any better. I am not surprised that there is so much interest in Yemen today, because it has become the victim of the most lethal and complex cocktail: an extended and ostensibly insoluble civil war with international ramifications; various other man-made disasters; numerous natural disasters and potentially catastrophic environmental ones; an economic meltdown; and now, on top of it all, a deadly pandemic that Yemen was least prepared and equipped to deal with.

There is also great interest beyond Parliament; I gather that more than 210,000 people have signed a petition calling for a ceasefire, and that that petition has been tagged to this debate. Alas, in the six months spent trying to secure this debate, the situation has deteriorated yet further on multiple fronts. It is vital that, despite all the distractions at home and across the world in dealing with the pandemic, we neither forget nor neglect the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, which Yemen remains.

I chair the all-party parliamentary group on Yemen, and I pay tribute to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), who I am glad to see will be participating in the debate, and to the secretariat provided by Jack Patterson, who has kept members updated and arranged briefings, including just this Tuesday with the British deputy ambassador in Yemen, Simon Smart, the military attaché and representatives from Oxfam and Médecins Sans Frontières, which, with many other agencies, are doing such an amazing job in almost impossible conditions in Yemen. I pay tribute to all those agencies and workers

To deal with the political and military situation first, 2020 marks five years of a devastating conflict in Yemen and almost 10 years of chaos since the Arab spring in that country. Yemen desperately needs an effective and lasting ceasefire. Out of a total population of some 30 million, 24 million people rely wholly or partly on aid, and they desperately need protection now.

Yet ceasefires and peace agreements in Yemen have a reputation for being broken almost as soon as they are brokered. The comprehensive Stockholm agreement, brokered in December 2018, set out a comprehensive peace plan. It was backed in January 2019 by the United Nations’ unanimously adopting the UK-drafted resolution 2452, which established a special political mission and special envoy, Martin Griffiths, who has worked tirelessly to secure a settlement.

The agreement promised the withdrawal of Houthi and Government-led forces from Hodeidah, a large-scale prisoner transfer, UN observers and various other urgently needed measures. The United Arab Emirates, which had been very involved with the conflict, ostensibly stepped back and withdrew its troops from Yemen. The position has been complicated, though, by the emergence of the Southern Transitional Council, who have taken control of Aden, fragmenting the Government position in trying to present a united resistance to the Houthis.

Great importance has been placed on the Riyadh agreement, signed in December 2019 between the Yemeni Government and the STC, outlining a series of measures to bring peace to the south of Yemen; but the agreement broke after just eight months, although Martin Griffiths and others work hard to revive it. The fragile pause in the conflict in 2019 broke down in 2020 after an attack in northern Yemen. A unilateral ceasefire by the Saudi-led coalition in April 2020 in the light of covid-19 expired in May, but The Guardian reported that the Houthis had broken a truce no fewer than 241 times in the space of just two days.

I could talk about abuses on all sides: the 42 airstrikes in July alone, which particularly impacted and killed civilians; drones dropping grenades on civilian targets; and Houthi missile strikes on Riyadh in Saudi Arabia just earlier this month. The catalogue of abuse, devastation, destruction and mistrust on all sides goes on. As a result, 10 new frontlines have emerged since the beginning of 2020, with particularly intense fighting in the past four months, especially around the strategically important areas of Ma’rib, which controls access to the oilfields, Taiz and in the Hodeidah governate on the west coast.

Peace is as elusive as ever, yet death and suffering are worse than ever. More than 250,000 Yemenis, at least, have died since 2015, including 100,000 as a result of combat and 130,000 from hunger and disease. That is probably a very conservative estimate. It includes an estimated 1,000 civilians killed or seriously injured in the conflict in the first six months of this year, including 100 children. There are more than 2 million internally displaced people, with a majority in and around Ma’rib, which is currently under siege from the Houthis, who are throwing everything at that city, despite suffering very high casualties. Clearly they view the lives of their troops as cheap.

Some 24.3 million people need humanitarian aid—24.3 million out of a population of 30 million. That includes 12.2 million children. A total of 20.1 million people are food-insecure, and 20.5 million people lack clean water or sanitation. There have been more than 2.3 million cholera cases since 2017, as a collapsed health system has been woefully inadequate even before covid hit.

The exact impact of covid is unknown; the 1,000 cases reported in Sana’a is surely a woeful underestimate of the reality. We all saw the images on the news of mass graves being dug in the capital. The International Rescue Committee projects that the most likely scenario is that covid could infect nearly 16 million people and kill more than 42,000, making the fatality rate in Yemen one of the highest in the world. There is little chance of testing. We might think we have a problem with testing in the United Kingdom, but there are just 118 tests for every 1 million people in Yemen, compared with 41,500 in the UK. Just 0.01% of the population stands a chance of being tested, and there is no clue about how they will cope if they are hit by a second wave.

Since 2015, air raids have hit water and health facilities more than 200 times. Oxfam reports that those remaining often lack electricity and fresh water, and even if a hospital is operating, fuel is so expensive that people in remoter areas cannot get transport to hospital, and their conditions worsen untreated. Médecins sans Frontières, whose volunteers have done incredible work under fire, reports that many medical staff—if not most—have not been paid for years, and they struggle to survive and carry on their jobs in the most extraordinary circumstances.

The water shortage has brought big challenges for food supply, as farmers cannot irrigate their crops, and more than 90% of Yemen’s food is now imported. With a collapsing currency and an economy that has shrunk by 45% since 2015, UNICEF forecasts that the number of malnourished children under the age of five will grow by 20% over the next six months, to reach 2.4 million—2.4 million malnourished children.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for leading the debate; he is making it clear just how heartbreaking the situation is for the people on the ground in Yemen. Does he agree that that is why we should stand proud and firm by the 0.7% of gross national income that this country gives in aid to other countries? It is so sorely needed, especially during this pandemic.

[Tim Loughton]

I agree with the hon. Lady, and I will finish on the figures about the United Kingdom. We have been the third largest donor and are one of the most important donors at the moment. The reasons are obvious, and the results are so important.

To cap it all, ironically, recent floods in Hajjah and Amran have destroyed crops, and they have now been hit by swarms of locusts—truly a human tragedy of biblical proportions. Added to that, the Red sea faces a potential environmental catastrophe from the FSO Safer, a 45-year-old oil tanker loaded with more than 1 million barrels of crude oil, anchored 60 km off the rebel-held port of Hodeidah and left to decay for the last five years, with no agreement over access for engineers.

So we can see why the country is almost totally dependent on aid from the international community and the heroic efforts of aid organisations and their staff, who are working in extremely dangerous conditions as a result of conflict and disease, with the added challenge of getting aid in through blockaded ports under fire or via the main airport, which has now closed again, as well as the everyday problems of corruption and bureaucracy on all sides using access to aid as a military weapon. Indeed, the Houthis tried to impose a tax on aid supplies coming in. NGO buildings have been looted and aid workers arrested.

The aid itself is now seriously in question. So far this year, only 37% of the requested funding in the humanitarian response plan has been met, as some of the most generous donors previously—including the US, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait—have reduced or withdrawn their funding at the worst possible time. As the International Rescue Committee points out, it was that funding that narrowly prevented famine two years ago, but now more than 9 million Yemenis have seen their aid cut, driving them to the brink of starvation; 12 of the UN’s 30 major programmes have already been scaled back; and a further 20 programmes could be reduced or closed completely if funding fails to emerge urgently.

Yemen is facing a perfect storm of a crumbling economy, reducing aid, restrictions placed on humanitarian access by warring parties, the continuing impact of an intractable conflict and now the additional pressures of covid. Amid all this, the support and financial aid from United Kingdom has been a rare, but desperately needed, constant. We are the third largest donor behind the US and Saudi Arabia. The UK has committed nearly £8 billion of assistance since the conflict began, including £160 million at the recent pledging conference. UK support has met the immediate food needs of more than 1 million Yemenis every month. It has treated 70,000 children for malnutrition and provided more than 1 million people with improved water and basic sanitation. The new money in the latest round will provide medical consultations, train 12,000 healthcare workers, boost 4,000 crumbling health centres and help in the fight against covid. The Education Cannot Wait campaign has helped girls, especially, who are missing out on education and helped programmes against the rise in violence against women and girls in particular, and against child labour. These are all problems affecting Yemen, as if it did not have enough problems already.

As the penholder on Yemen at the UN Security Council, the UK is in a crucial position. It is leading the international community to do more to respond to the Yemen crisis, and Martin Griffiths is doing an extraordinary job. We have a proud record of support and I hope that when the Minister speaks, he will confirm that that support will continue. However, there can be no real progress without a sustainable ceasefire leading to peace talks that are broad and inclusive, not just with Government forces, the STC and the Houthis but with all aspects of civil society and with the support of the regional powers, who will hopefully return to the donor table. Again, I hope the Minister can update the House about the UK continuing to play a leading and proactive role to help to bring this about.

Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, and the world’s preoccupation with fighting covid at the moment cannot be an excuse for sidelining the unfolding tragedy that continues to engulf the Arab world’s poorest nation. It is difficult to think of a more tragic combination of circumstances affecting a nation and its people quite as toxically and systematically as is happening now in Yemen, and it has been going on for far too long. It is time for peace. It is time for the world to put pressure on the warring factions and their backers, and time to rally around the people of Yemen to regroup, recover and rebuild. I am sure that the whole House will want to show its support for that.

Occupied Palestinian Territories

Layla Moran Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee, but also the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) for leading this debate and the other Members who have brought it to the House. It is incredibly important—I thank those who have contributed—and I think many of the facts and figures that have been thrown around are well understood. I rise as the first British Palestinian MP, and I thought the best thing I could do would be to give some human colour to the debate.

When I saw Trump’s peace plan, which we asked to debate back in March, my heart sank. The reason why it sank was that there is no one more than me and my family, and my cousins and aunts and uncles back home, who wants peace. We want peace—of course we want peace—and Hamas does not speak for me. I stand here as a friend of Israel as much as I am a daughter of Palestine. To those who suggest that this is in some way a weird thing for a Palestinian to say, I reply that most Palestinians I know actually say that. All Palestinians I know recognise Israel and all Palestinians I know want peace. This is not some black-and-white situation; that is where we want to get to.

In that plan there was mention of Jericho. My family is a Greek Orthodox family, and we had a long history of living in Jerusalem within the city walls, but after 1967, the family moved away because it was no longer safe to raise my mother there. She and her five siblings went to live in Jericho, which is where she grew up. The plan that Trump was putting forward would essentially have meant a suffocation of Jericho. A farmer in Jericho would, under this plan, have had to seek a permit to go and tend to their land. When Members say—I noted the words of the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb)—in the old ways of thinking, “Why don’t people just engage?” it is the equivalent of someone going to where they have grown up and saying to them, “We are going to suffocate the very village where you grew up or where your mother grew up, and you should be grateful that we have come up with this great plan for your family.” In response, Members would turn around and go, “No!”, yet that is what is going on in this case.

It is very obvious that this plan was never going to work. It is very obvious that the peace plan between the UAE, Bahrain and Israel—good for them; all peace is good, and the more peace, the better—is not going to help Palestine. Let us not fool ourselves. What we can do in this House and what this Government can do is recognise my other country, the one I love equally with this one. What that would do is give hope, because ultimately that is what keeps being eroded with every annexation, with every so-called peace plan and with every intervention by Trump. Frankly, he does not believe in peace; he just wants to be re-elected. What we need now is hope, and that is what is in the gift of this Government.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. One reason for integrating, not just in the new Department but in the structures that we have across Government, is to make sure that all aspects of our foreign policy are joined together. Trade and the work that the Secretary of State for International Trade is doing—she is doing an absolutely fantastic job—is critical, not just in countries such as the US and Australia but in the poorest countries, where a liberal approach to free trade can lift millions out of poverty.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Coronavirus, climate change—it has never been more important to understand that we all share one planet and that it is in our interests to help others through the sustainable development goals and by staying with 0.7% unequivocally, so I will try one more time: will the Secretary of State commit, right here and now, to fighting for all that money to be maintained in his budget to be there for poverty reduction and economic development?

[Dominic Raab]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her new shadow position and congratulate her on and pay tribute to her leadership campaign, which she conducted with conviction and integrity, as ever. She is absolutely right that we must look after the poorest. We have had an ODA review because of the impact of coronavirus on the economy and on gross national income. We have made it clear—I think this can give her the assurance she seeks—that we are absolutely committed, as we were in that review, to safeguarding the money for the very poorest, for girls’ education and for COP26 and our climate change goals. I agree with the hon. Lady about COP26. We are making sure that we use our aid money and our development expertise to provide 26 million people with access to clean energy and we are supporting farmers to grow climate-resilient crops. In all those ways, the bringing together of our development expertise with our Foreign Office reach and clout can show that we can have even greater impact in the months and years ahead.

Hong Kong National Security Legislation: UK Response

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. Of course, we are dealing with a major economic power that relies on all its economic and political leverage and, indeed, other means, to bring different countries and Governments to its way of thinking or just to quieten them down. Our approach—as I have described, based on principle and international law—is therefore the most likely to be effective in building up that groundswell of support that has the best chance of changing China’s behaviour.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

As far back as 1989, the late, great Paddy Ashdown called on the Government to institute safeguards just in case one day China not just overreached but breached the joint declaration. We now potentially find ourselves in that position. Hongkongers are finding that the world is shifting beneath their feet, with nowhere to go. I understand that former Foreign Secretaries have written to the current Foreign Secretary, asking him to set up an international contact group to look at international human rights and also a lifeboat policy for Hongkongers. Has he considered their call and will he set up such a group?

[Dominic Raab]

I pay tribute to the late Lord Paddy Ashdown for all his work. The UK is in the vanguard of the international response on Hong Kong. I am not sure that we are quite in the same situation with China and Hong Kong as we were with the former Yugoslavia, on which I worked as a war crimes lawyer in the early 2000s. None the less, the spirit of the hon. Lady’s question is absolutely right. As I have described, we want to build up a groundswell of those who share our commitment to the basic tenets of international law. That is most likely to be effective in getting China to think again about Hong Kong and all those other areas. We have raised China’s conduct on human rights issues in the Human Rights Council and the United Nations Security Council, and we will raise Hong Kong in every appropriate forum that we conceivably can.

Covid-19

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

We have been following the course of the Silver Shadow very carefully. I can tell my right hon. Friend that there are 300 passengers on board, of whom about 120 are British nationals—that goes to my earlier point about the need for an international team effort. Royal Caribbean, the parent company of the ship, has indicated that it will offer at least three charter flights to get passengers home—one to the UK, one to the US and one to Canada, and possibly also one to Australia. That gives my right hon. Friend a sense of not just the challenge we face, but how we are straining every sinew to deal with constituents such as her own.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I would like to add my voice to those thanking FCO workers, who I am sure are working around the clock. I am sure that they are wanting to get home, but they are staying to help others. I have been listening very carefully to what the Secretary of State has been saying about repatriation, and I understand his arguments about the airlines, but we have to accept that the reason why the airlines are not running flights is that they cannot afford to, and they are worried about coming out of this at the other end. Would he consider providing a subsidy for the airlines to enable them to run these flights, particularly from areas where flights have been cancelled or shut down completely?

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Lady raises a really important point. On the one hand, we do want commercial airlines to fly, but they are clearly under severe financial pressure, given the domestic restrictions being placed on them, and indeed other Governments, including our own, changing their travel advice. We will work with the airlines to see what support we can provide, and our priority continues to be to make sure that commercial flights can access as many areas as possible to get people back in the kind of scale and volume that is necessary to address the challenge we face.

Middle East Peace Plan

Layla Moran Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

It would be unwise to completely dismiss out of hand something of this nature, created and built by one of our closest allies, but that appears to be the position of those on the Opposition Front Bench. We need to get to a position where we have the start of a negotiation. That is, as I have said, baby steps, but if we can see a way forward to the start of a negotiation, that would be a good thing.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

This is not a plan. This is a scam. The Minister wonders why those of us with Palestinian family, but also anyone else who believes in the international rules-based order, are suggesting that our Government should reject it. This is an insult. The Palestinians were not consulted during its wide gestation. This is not the best of us. We should reject it outright.

I remind the Minister of our Prime Minister’s words when he was Foreign Secretary:

“What we are saying is that you have to have a two-state solution or else you have a kind of apartheid system. You have to go for a two-state approach, that is the long-standing position of the government”.

This plan is not the basis for a viable two-state solution. Does the Minister therefore accept that these are baby steps, to use his words, towards an apartheid system that we should reject outright?

[Dr Murrison]

I think the hon. Lady needs to be a little careful with her language, if I may say so. If I may quote the EU High Representative—this is important, particularly in the context of the hon. Lady’s party and our incipient departure from the European Union—he said:

“Today’s initiative by the United States provides an occasion to re-launch the urgently needed efforts towards a negotiated and viable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”

He is welcoming this—[Interruption.] Yes, he is. I could read out any number of comments made along those lines by international leaders over the past 48 hours. The important thing is that this may be the start of a process after a very long period of stand-off between Palestinians and Israelis. If that proves to be the case, I would welcome it.

Sudan

Layla Moran Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

To the hon. Gentleman’s latter point, we believe it is important to raise those concerns with the relevant countries at the earliest possible opportunity, and I can assure him that we will be doing that. With regard to the documentation and the closing down of the internet, he makes some sensible suggestions on the ways in which we must try to ensure that we continue to be able to hold people to account for their actions, and I look forward to updating the House about the actions we have taken in that area.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Despite the telecommunications blackout, we have heard that the UN has had reports that 19 children have been murdered and that 49 or so are believed to have been injured, some of whom have been sexually assaulted. On that specific point, will the Minister tell us what the Government can do to press for the protection of the most vulnerable, including children, during the horrific violence that they are seeing in their country?

[Harriett Baldwin]

As far as Darfur is concerned, the crucial organisation there is UNAMID. With regard to Khartoum, the important way forward there is to ensure that the Transitional Military Council and the Forces of Freedom and Change are able to continue with the current dialogue and that they recognise that peaceful protest needs to be part of this transition. We will try to ensure that all abuses and violations are documented and that people are held to account.

Yemen

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I gently point out to the hon. Gentleman that there is no point in setting up an independent process that is one of the strictest in the world if we then do not go on to follow it, and that is what we are doing.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Eighteen thousand children, some as young as 10, have been used as soldiers in this horrific war. They have been forced to torture and to kill with the promise of money for their families, largely by the Houthi rebels. Officially this has been denied, but Associated Press has interviewed no fewer than 18 child soldiers who have been exploited. When the Foreign Secretary met the Houthis, did he raise this matter? What discussions has he had with, and what assurances has he sought from, the UN envoy to Yemen to seek to ensure that the protection of all children is paramount and not an afterthought?

[Mr Hunt]

I can absolutely reassure the hon. Lady that the protection of children, and indeed everyone vulnerable, is on all our minds, but certainly on the minds of the people who are trying to get the two sides together, because it is the escalating humanitarian crisis that has been a real engine for the talks. In terms of when we raise the issue of terrible behaviour with participants on all sides, there is a time and a place to do that, and at Stockholm we were trying to bring everyone together. So while we are setting up accountability mechanisms, we also have to recognise that the primary objective now is to get the fighting to stop.

Institute for Statecraft: Integrity Initiative

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I believe that I would be right in saying that perhaps the reason for this is that NATO is also a funder of this activity. Therefore, I imagine that the name to which the hon. Gentleman refers has a connection with NATO. However, should this be inaccurate, I will of course write to him straightaway.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

In the end, this is about trust. In a recent parliamentary question to do with public money to fund social media ads to promote the Brexit deal, I asked the Government whether they would place the contents of these ads in the Library for us all to see. Unfortunately, this request was declined. Does the Minister agree that, to ensure public trust and transparency, the content and audiences of any ads paid for by public money should be published centrally as a matter of course?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

The Foreign Office funding for the Integrity Initiative does not really pay for advertisements, so that is not really relevant to today’s urgent question. May I just refer to the earlier question regarding when we knew about the hack? We first knew about it on 23 November.

Oral Answers to Questions

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

There are strict controls, as there must be, on the passage and entry of goods into Gaza, to make sure that they are not used for the wrong purpose. The United Kingdom makes sure that all its aid that is delivered to Gaza goes through international partners, so that there cannot be such diversion. It is an issue and it must be dealt with, alongside a variety of issues for the people of Gaza.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

T7. Mr Erdoğan’s re-election heightens the fear that he will step up the persecution of academics. Universities such as the University of Oxford have a proud tradition of being safe havens for bona fide dissenters; will the Minister do all that he can to make sure that our consulates are poised to act if they are asked for help?

[The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)]

As I am sure the hon. Lady understands, our consular services largely extend to British citizens. I hope that her fears that all these things will be stepped up following the election will be unfounded and that, contrary to those fears, steps will be taken towards relaxation, particularly in respect of the lifting of the state of emergency.