Yemen

Mark Menzies Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

I think most of us in this House would recognise that Saudi Arabia is a country in transition. It has come a long way in a relatively short space of time in order to address some of the concerns that we in this House have articulated. To deny that it has made progress is to deny the facts. I think we all share the concerns about what we have seen taking place in Yemen. No one could defend the bombing of a wedding party and the deaths of civilians. However, when we stand back and look at the conflict in its totality, and the crimes that the Houthis are responsible for, such as the capture and the killing of Saudi personnel and intrusions across the Saudi border, we have to recognise that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, like any sovereign state, has the right to defend itself.

As someone who has visited Saudi Arabia, I have not been shy about criticising aspects of its Government’s direction of travel, but neither should we be blind to the fact that the kingdom has made some great strides forward in recent years to address the concerns of many Members of this House.

I think that we would be wrong to withdraw support in an attempt to influence the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A withdrawal of support, which is implied in Labour’s motion and made explicit in the SNP’s amendment, relates to the withdrawal of arms sales. I unashamedly defend our right to sell defence equipment legitimately, with export controls, as we do, to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In my constituency, 6,500 men, women and apprentices are employed by BAE Systems at Warton, 4,000 over at Samlesbury and another 1,000 over at Brough, working on Hawk trainer aircraft, Typhoons and Tornado upgrades. Without the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and without those arms exports, 16,000 people would be out of work.

It is all very well for people to sit as though they were at an Islington dinner party and, over their latest glass of Uruguayan wine, say “Let’s stop arms sales,” but let us look at one key fact: every single one of those people is a human being, not a number; they have mortgages to pay, they have skills and they have jobs. Twice in my time as a Member of Parliament I have been at the gates of BAE Systems in Warton when redundancies have been made. My goodness, when you see proud working people at the risk of losing their jobs, it is a humbling moment. So when I see people in this House tabling motions calling for those people to lose their jobs—that is what is happening—I question their moral judgment. These are supply chains. If we seek to suspend the sale of this defence equipment, these people do not just go somewhere else; they do not just switch to manufacturing for someone else—they lose their jobs; that is what happens. When people feel really proud that they have said and done the right thing, there are also people who will lose their jobs—tens of thousands of them up and down this country.

I am not going to sit and take lessons from the Scottish National party about what we are doing morally. I know what we are doing morally: we are controlling arms sales, and I support the Government’s actions on this issue. We are controlling arms sales through the rigorous approach taken by the Government, and anyone who seeks to deny that is denying the truth.