Yemen

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I thank the noble Lord for his questions. He is right about the situation on the ground in Yemen. It is horrendous. The cholera outbreak he referred to is the worst on record. It is appalling. Nearly 6.8 million people face extreme food shortages. Some 400,000 children aged under five suffer severe acute malnutrition and may die without treatment. This is a man-made catastrophe and it requires a man-made solution.

On working towards a solution, as I said in the Statement, we hold the pen on this at the UN Security Council. There is a quad meeting made up of the US, the UK, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. They met under the chairmanship of my right honourable friend Alistair Burt in New York and a couple of weeks ago in London. We believe that that pursuit of a peaceful settlement is the best solution.

The UK Government take their arms export licensing responsibilities very seriously and operate one of the most robust arms export control regimes in the world. All export licences are assessed on a case-by-case basis against a consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criterion. That said, we recognise that we need a solution. We need talks to recommence between the parties because, as in all conflicts, the parties to the conflict need to be the parties to the peace.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

The extent of the crisis is clear from the sentence in the Statement stating that,

“funding of £155 million this year will provide enough food for 1.8 million people for at least a month”—

which on one view makes a necessary contribution perhaps not very great. What other countries are contributing and to what extent are they matching the level of funds that the United Kingdom has provided? Secondly, who is providing the Houthi with ballistic missiles?