Red Sea: Houthi Attacks

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Clearly, the cost of insurance has been impacted by the activities of the Houthis. We have seen much shipping diverted around the Cape of Good Hope, which takes much longer and is more expensive. We are concerned about this. London is host to the International Maritime Organization, so we play a leading role in international maritime security. We continue to monitor closely the implications of this activity on the cost to shipping, which is one of the reasons why the action we have taken has been so decisive. We will continue to work as hard as we possibly can, using whatever levers are available, to prevent this danger to life and to stability in the region.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, one of the things that affect the security of the Red Sea routes, as we have discussed before, is security in the Horn of Africa. With the current inability of Ukraine to export its grain to that region—it is now almost exclusively going to western Europe—Russia has seized the opportunity to back-fill the provision of that grain to the region and to use food as a political tool to spread its malign influence. What are the UK Government doing to counter Russia’s activities in this regard?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The behaviour of Russia in this instance, as in many others, is deplorable. This shows how interconnected many of these conflicts are, meaning that our response to these issues and the posture that we adopt need to be carefully calibrated so that we work very carefully, consistently and with some effect—although we want to achieve far more to make sure that aid can get into Yemen and that the people of Somalia and Ethiopia get the support they need. The activities of Iran and Russia have been devastating to the lives of many people living in those countries.