Yemen

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this debate, having—along with my SNP colleagues—raised this matter and participated in debates on it a number of times over the years. The awful gravity of the situation in Yemen means that it is a matter of profound regret that we so often have to raise these matters and so often have to repeat the harrowing suffering of the people in that country. One of the points that comes up again and again—in fact, it is impossible to have any discussion about Yemen without talking about it—is the shameful fact that the UK Government continue to persist in their sale of arms to Saudi Arabia, which is committing sickening atrocities on Yemeni civilians. Independent reports from a number of sources have shown over the years that by doing so, the UK Government are aiding and assisting war crimes. Yemen has long suffered a deep humanitarian crisis.

The UK Government, as we have heard again today from the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford), obfuscates, equivocates and pettifogs about the legality of arms sales to the Saudis, when it is as plain as the nose on your face that Saudi is a barbaric regime which has perpetrated appalling massacres on the Yemeni people. It is beyond sickening, it really is.

[Alexander Stafford]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Patricia Gibson]

No, I want to make some progress: other people want to speak.

It really is putting profit and trade in death before due and proper consideration for the sanctity of the lives of the Yemeni people and the huge suffering that they have encountered. We have heard today of “heavy diplomatic engagement” by the UK Government, but the arms sales to Saudi undermine and indeed mock any efforts by the UK to pretend to be an honest broker.

Despite the legal and ethical considerations, we have heard today that since 2013 the UK has sold £5.4 billion-worth of arms to Saudi. Let us not forget that the country we are selling arms to is the same country that punishes its homosexual citizens with public whippings, beatings, vigilante attacks, chemical castrations, imprisonment— possibly for life—capital punishment and many other forms of torture. Why do we not take a much firmer line with a mediaeval regime like that in the first place, instead of selling it arms so that it can perpetrate its own forms of barbarism? It is a country based on sharia law where women are legally the property of their oldest male relative. Is it any wonder that Saudi has no respect for the human rights of the Yemeni people when that is how it treats its own civilians?

The Government’s trade and foreign policies are contradictory. They sell arms to that regime so that it can slaughter civilians, while trumpeting their subscription to the global human rights sanction regulations on selling instruments of torture to the Yemenis. It really is time for the UK to stop the warm words, which will not save the lives of the Yemeni people. It is time to stop selling arms to the blood-soaked regime in Saudi, stand up properly, in practical terms, against the slaughter of the Yemeni people, and play a less equivocal role in this conflict.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Front Bench speeches will start no later than 2.51 pm.