Yemen

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman has a lot of experience of this from his time on the Foreign Affairs Committee. He is absolutely right. A Government of national unity has to cover the whole country. It has to give confidence to the Houthis that despite being a minority, their rights are going to be respected, but it also has to give confidence to all minorities, so I agree with him.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given accusations that gratuitous war crimes have been perpetrated by both Saudi Arabia and Iran, as the key regional proxies in this conflict, and their failure to honestly and openly investigate those accusations, why will the Secretary of State not support an independent UN-backed inquiry into allegations of war crimes perpetrated by all sides in the Yemen conflict? Why is that not included in the United Nations draft resolution?

[Mr Hunt]

Because the draft resolution has to have the consensus of both sides. I support fully independent investigations into everything that has happened. That is right, and it must happen, but we have to go step by step. At the moment, getting agreement to a ceasefire—the first ceasefire that we have had in the entire history of this terrible conflict—is a huge first step, and we would not want to compromise that.