Yemen

Stephen Gethins Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

May I thank my right hon. Friend for his long-standing interest in what has been happening in Yemen? He is one of the few Members of this House who has actually met the Houthi leadership and he has enormous experience. I thank him for continuing to raise this issue even when it was not high up everyone else’s agenda. He is absolutely right about the importance of this UN resolution being balanced. It does indeed refer to the issue of Iranian missiles being fired into Saudi Arabia from Yemen. However, the way that we will be able to unite all sides behind this resolution is to focus on what was agreed at Stockholm and also on the humanitarian needs of the people of Yemen. We should not—if I can put it this way—go into too much detail about the causes of the conflict, which inevitably become more controversial. What we are trying to do at this stage is to build up the trust on both sides so that the fighting stops.

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement. I, too, wish to put on record our thanks to him and to his officials for their ongoing work. I know that this a crucial few weeks coming up. I particularly wish to put on record our thanks to Martin Griffiths and Mark Lowcock for their work, which underscores the importance of multilateral agencies such as the United Nations.

I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for his tone, which he has used in previous statements, about the recognition of the acute humanitarian disaster that has unfolded. We must seize the opportunity for peace. Will he tell the House what steps he is taking to ensure that aid reaches those who are most in need and who are worst affected, because that will be important in these coming weeks.

Furthermore, peacebuilding requires long-term investment—I know that he and his officials recognise that—and we know that from conflicts elsewhere. We continue to be concerned that arms sales to combatants in this conflict far outstrip aid. I am also concerned that we often hear from the Foreign Secretary—I hope that he takes this criticism in the tone in which it is meant—that arms sales means influence, but if we look at some of the key influencers elsewhere, they have stopped arms sales. I am talking about Canada, Germany and, more recently, Spain. Will he tell us, as we go into these crucial few weeks, why the UK is different? Will he reassess that approach to arms sales, as the UK is increasingly isolated in this regard? May I finally welcome the wording? The question of accountability is incredibly important, and that wording is good progress. I also welcome his remarks about Khashoggi, but I would like to hear his reflections on the US Senate findings and his reassurances, again, that he will make a full statement to the House when those findings are clear.

[Mr Hunt]

Let me take those issues. First, on the humanitarian side, my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East met the International Committee of the Red Cross yesterday to make sure that we are fully briefed. The hon. Gentleman will know that we are the second largest bilateral donor—I think we gave £170 million in the past year alone to help the conflict in Yemen—so we treat the issue very seriously. In terms of what specifically we are doing, the main issue is opening up the road between Hodeidah and the capital Sana’a. That is why a major focus of these talks has been to get that corridor opened. That is very, very challenging, but we did succeed in that. We did not succeed in getting the airport in Sana’a opened, which was a disappointment, because we could not get agreement on which flights would be allowed to go from that airport, but that is something that we hope to do.

There is something that I did not mention in response to the shadow Foreign Secretary, but that is relevant to the hon. Gentleman’s question. The next step is to try to get the parties back round the table for another round of peace talks at the end of January. That will be to discuss the framework for a political settlement. The idea is that this is the first step that builds up confidence between both sides and allows the fighting to stop, and then we can move towards the political settlement.

On the arms embargos, we have a process that was set up by the previous Labour Government in 2000, which I think we have to follow. It is one of the strictest processes in the world and it means that we independently look at whether there is a risk of a violation of international humanitarian law. To reassure the hon. Gentleman, the draft wording of the UN Security Council resolution does emphasise the legally binding obligation on all member states to comply with the arms embargo imposed by resolution 2216, and, as I mentioned before, the obligation on all parties to act at all times in accordance with international humanitarian law.