Yemen

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

Yemen is subject to restrictions brought in by the coalition parties following the attack by a Houthi missile on Riyadh, and because of the smuggling of arms and weapons that has threatened the coalition in the UAE and Saudi Arabia for some time. I am not sure that the nomenclature adds a great deal, but that is the reality of the situation.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I think it is pretty clear that this is a blockade, and the sheer scale of the humanitarian crisis must now require urgent action by this Government and our partners to press the Saudis to lift the blockade. The Minister said in his statement that our NGO partners in Yemen are already reporting that water in major cities has

“stopped operating because of a lack of fuel.”

Can he tell us how extensive the fuel supplies are? When will it no longer be possible to distribute food? The level of death will increase dramatically as a result.

[Alistair Burt]

We of course hope that we do not reach such a case. Mark Lowcock from OCHA has made it clear that both these issues will become critical within a number of days. On what we have done since the attack on 4 November and the response from the coalition, on 5 November, an FCO statement condemned the missile attack; on 13 November, the Secretary of State for International Development called Mark Lowcock to speak to him about the circumstances; on 15 November, we issued a further statement stressing the need for immediate humanitarian and commercial access; and on 18 November—just this weekend—the Foreign Secretary conferred with the Secretary-General. Conversations are taking place in Riyadh all the time to reassure the authorities there on the security they need to deal with weapons capable of launching an attack on their civilian areas. At the same time, however, humanitarian and commercial access is absolutely vital.