Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support private sector food importers in Yemen and the role those importers play in that country's food security.

The UK is working hard to ensure that vital commercial imports of food and fuel are able to enter Yemen and monitors this closely. Food imports are on track to meet monthly averages, but fuel imports into northern ports are too low. We have successfully lobbied the Yemeni Government to release of eight fuel ships into Hodeidah so far this year. This fuel is critical to the processing and distribution of food by private sector importers. The UK also supports the UN's Verification and Inspection Mechanism to facilitate commercial imports into Hodeidah and Saleef ports, by giving the Coalition confidence that weapons are not coming in on commercial ships. We are also currently considering ways to provide sustainable trade finance for key imports.

We continue to urge both the Houthis and Government of Yemen to work constructively with the UN Special Envoy to find a longer-term sustainable solution for the management of Hodeidah port revenues to enable restrictions on imports to be eased.