Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Soames of Fletching
Main Page: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Soames of Fletching's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(7 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe are not supporting them doing that, as the hon. Lady can no doubt imagine. We are working closely with the Saudi Arabians and the coalition to ensure that the protocols and standards that they are using in sustained warfare meet the international standards that we would expect, were we to be involved ourselves. Much of the information that comes from the battlefield is very unclear indeed, but we are enforcing transparency in a way that the Saudi Arabians and many other members of the coalition have never seen before.
Does my hon. Friend agree that, as the Saudi-led coalition intends to restore the legitimate Government in Yemen, it is clearly right and proper that we should support it?
My right hon. Friend knows the region well and he is absolutely right. I want to make it clear, however, that the coalition has made errors. It has made mistakes. It has not endured sustained warfare in this manner before, and it is having to meet international standards as never before. It is having to provide reports when it makes mistakes, and it has never done that before. It has no experience of even writing reports. It wants to meet those standards and to work with the international community. We need to ensure that when errors are made, the coalition puts its hand up in the same way that we do and that the Americans did in Afghanistan only a few months ago.