Human Rights and Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia

Debate between Peter Grant and Charlotte Leslie

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am pleased to be able to speak in the debate, Mrs Gillan. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) for her determination to ensure that however hard the Government try, the issue will not go away until arms sales to the brutal regime in Saudi Arabia have been stopped.

It is sometimes said that politics is about compromise; I think it is much more important to say that politics is about knowing what is a compromise, and what should never be compromised—some things are absolute. It is all very well to talk about complex geopolitical, diplomatic and international reasons—whatever gobbledegook was used—but there are moral absolutes in this world and, if we lose sight of them, we are on a slippery slope from which there is no return.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, given the short time he has, and I welcome his philosophical stance. Does he agree that where there is Government, there is responsibility, and where there is responsibility, there can be blame? Where there are non-state actors, there is no such locus of responsibility, so it is easy for this House not to allocate blame. Does he agree that although it is essential that we have complete transparency in, and scrutiny of, how our arms are used, we must guard against falling into the moral luxury of blame, when we should be looking at how to stop the biggest source of human rights abuses, which is generally non-state actors?

[Peter Grant]

I was not about to allocate blame, because I am not convinced it ever gets us anywhere. However, I question her assertion that where there is Government, there is always responsibility, because I can think of examples much closer to home than Saudi Arabia where Governments do not act with responsibility in every case.

The point that I was making is that there are moral absolutes in this life. If the killing of children is not a breach of an absolute moral requirement, I simply do not know what is. It is all very well to say that bad things are happening in Yemen, but those who listened to the excellent opening contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West will have heard her say time and time again that other people are committing acts of evil in Yemen as well as the Saudis, and they must be held to account as well. We are asking the Government to ensure that all those who are suspected of war crimes and of crimes against humanity are held to account.

If the killing of children is not an absolutely prohibited act in this world, what is? The Minister claimed last month, as he tried to sweep aside the death of children and other civilians, that bad things happen in war, but the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that 93% of the casualties in Yemen are civilians. That is not collateral damage or a few unfortunate missiles that went astray: that is, at its very best, criminally reckless incompetence on the part of those delivering the bombs and, at worst and much more likely, deliberate targeting of civilians, using terrorisation of the population as a means of achieving political ends.

Regardless of the evils being committed by the opponents of the Saudi regime in Yemen—and they have committed evils—the use of child killing to achieve political aims is not something that any of us can ever even consider supporting, be it actively or passively, directly or simply standing by on the sidelines condoning things. It is horrifying that the response from the Government time and again is, “We don’t yet have conclusive evidence, so we will carrying on selling the weapons anyway”, or, “What evidence there is suggests that it’s not our weapons being used to kill the children; it’s someone else’s weapons.”

If I applied for a shotgun licence and there was credible evidence that I had used a knife to carry out violent attacks on children, I would not get that shotgun licence. Those responsible for issuing the licence would not say to me, “Go and investigate the allegations against yourself. As long as you can persuade us that any crimes committed have not been committed with that shotgun, we’ll allow you to keep the shotgun.” If the situation is as simple and as obvious as that in the case of awarding one licence for one gun, why do we choose to make it more complicated when we are awarding licences to supply weapons capable of annihilating entire streets at the press of a single button? Those arms sales are immoral and indefensible, and they must stop now.