Yemen

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, it is too soon to say what involvement we might have, should a peace agreement be reached. The talks are facilitated, as I mentioned, by the United Nations, and we are working closely with it to encourage the parties to engage in good faith without preconditions and to respect the ceasefire which began on 10 April.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords,

“Information is power. It lets people hold the powerful to account”.

Those were the words of the Prime Minister on 6 July 2011, when he said that his Government were,

“creating a new era of transparency”.

The Defence Secretary, on the same theme, said in December last year that the Government were committed to transparency in the operations of troops embedded in other nations’ armed forces. Why did the self-same Defence Secretary say on 18 April this year that in future, Parliament will not be told when the Government commit British forces to conflict where they are embedded in and under the command of the armed forces of another country? Why is Parliament being bypassed?

[Earl Howe]

Parliament is not being bypassed. It has been the practice of successive Governments not to comment in detail on embedded personnel who are under the chain of command of the nation with which they are serving. However, we are transparent and publish figures on the numbers of our personnel who are embedded, so the transparency exists.