Arms Trade: Yemen

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab) [V]]

Thank you, Ms McVey. As hon. Members have said, six long years of war have pushed Yemen into the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands have died, including nearly 10,000 killed by Saudi-led air strikes. Infrastructure has been crippled, and 50,000 people are living in near famine-like conditions while millions of others stand on the brink of starvation.

Since the Saudi bombardment began, the UK has approved £6.8 billion-worth of arms export licences to Saudi Arabia. Planes built in Britain have delivered death from the skies above Marib and Aden. Typhoon fighters, Paveway bombs and Brimstone missiles built here in the UK have all been brought into the service of Saudi Arabia’s brutal assault on Yemen, and all while private shareholders grow rich from the suffering of millions and the deaths of thousands.

I have spoken many times about the vital role that defence spending has to play in supporting domestic industries and improving defence capabilities, but this does not blind me to the importance of ensuring that the arms we manufacture should not be handed to the tyrants who have no regard for human life. British trade policy must have respect for human rights at its heart. Ministers can claim to champion international law and promote democracy abroad, but that does not seem to match their deeds. They seem desperate to abandon the UK’s long-standing humanitarian commitments. In the past year alone, the Department for International Development has been thrown on the scrapheap, the foreign aid budget slashed to a measly 0.5% of national income, and human rights concerns pushed aside, so that the UK can strike trade agreements with regimes that are responsible for brutal abuses. Of course, the greatest stain on our international reputation is our continued complicity in the war in Yemen while we are slashing financial aid to the war-torn hell on Earth.

I hope that the United States’s recent change in strategy regarding arms exports to Saudi Arabia will have caused our Government to rethink their callous policy on arms sales. Sadly, however, British firms are still allowed to export billions of pounds-worth of weapons for use in Yemen, so I join my hon. Friends in urging the Government to change course now. It is time for Britain to stop reaping profit from this human catastrophe, and to start bringing pressure on all parties involved to broker a just and lasting peace.