Yemen

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I thank the sponsors of this debate, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond), both of whom were born in Yemen and bring a depth of knowledge and passion to such debates, for which we are grateful.

In previous debates, we have tended to see Yemen through the prism of British involvement in the conflict in the form of arms sales and other military support to the Saudi-led coalition. I do not intend to dwell on those issues today, although I am sure that they will be raised again, not least because we await the High Court’s judgment in the next few weeks on the legality of the Government’s sale of arms to Saudi.

When we look at Yemen today what we see, first and foremost, is a humanitarian catastrophe—the world’s worst, according to the United Nations. We should not forget that, even before the start of this war, Yemen was the poorest country in the Arab world, a destitute nation surrounded by wealthy neighbours and with a desolate landscape that meant it relied on imports for 90% of its food.

Now Yemen is engulfed by famine in all but name, and no wonder. It is not just that 90% of the country’s food is imported but that most of those imports need to go through the port of Hudaydah, the Red sea port that has been razed by airstrikes—the airstrikes have completely destroyed the port’s cranes, making it impossible to unload cargo. Even if supplies could get as far as the port and then through the roadblocks, the paperwork and the searches—some, indeed, call it a blockade—mean it is unlikely that the supplies would be able to get any further because the Saudi airstrikes have also systematically destroyed the roads and bridges that make it possible to get supplies from one place to another.

The other 10%—the small amount of food that the Yemeni people produce themselves—has for the most part gone, too, as bombs have struck factories, food markets, poultry farms and even fishing boats. Jamie McGoldrick, the UN’s humanitarian co-ordinator, has said:

“The economic dimension of this war has become a tactic…It is an all-encompassing, applied economic suppression and strangulation that is causing everyone here to feel it”.

However, the UN special envoy for Yemen told the Security Council in January that a viable proposal for peace was on the table and within reach. What happened to that proposal? Where has it gone? Was it connected to the ceasefire resolution that we were told the UK would introduce six months ago? Can the Minister tell us what has happened to the resolution?

The last time we debated this matter, the Minister told us that the British Government were in the process of redrafting the resolution to make it up to date. How is that going? Do we have an up-to-date resolution? When the Security Council meets tomorrow, under British chairmanship, to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Yemen—I understand the Russians pressed for the discussion—we will be the pen holder, we will be chairing the meeting and we should be putting forward a peace resolution. Are we going to? I fear not.

I have been told that the UK is, in fact, increasingly stepping back on the diplomatic front for fear of upsetting the Saudis on the one hand, and the Americans on the other. I am told by my sources on the 38th floor that the new Administration in America are now considering stepping up their support for the coalition military campaign. If that is right, will the Minister confirm that the Saudis have been given the rest of the year to stabilise Yemen—that is the wording—and to reassert the Yemeni Government’s authority over the entire country? Surely that cannot be the case, because we all know that a military approach alone will not work.

May I also ask about the role of Stephen O’Brien? He is a former Member of this House whom many Members will know. He is now the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and is obviously important in this regard. He has said that we are facing the worst humanitarian crisis since 1945 and that the crisis is in Yemen. I would appreciate it if the Minister could confirm that Mr O’Brien is not leaving his post and that rumours he is leaving, not out of choice but because of Saudi objections, are wrong.

Is this forgotten war becoming the new Syria? It is a multi-layered civil war being fought by major powerful nations, either directly or through proxies, in which the victims are civilians who suffer unbearable and insufferable torment. People are also being starved. I urge the Minister to ensure that Britain, once again, takes up a proactive role on Yemen because we are a permanent member of the Security Council, because we are currently the president of the Security Council, because we are the pen holder and because we have a close relationship with Saudi Arabia, one of the major parties. What the people of Yemen need more than anything else at the moment is peace. We have some power in the conflict, and we can do something about it tomorrow.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

Let me briefly make the point that I wish there were more time to respond to this very good debate, as I have only eight minutes in which to do my best to do justice to it. It has served as a reminder that the House takes these matters very seriously. I join Members in paying tribute to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and the others who tabled the motion. I will do my best to rattle through the points and, as usual, I will write to right hon. and hon. Members with more details. Again, I make the point that I find it bizarre that we are stopping in order to have an Adjournment debate of an hour and a half, when such debates normally last only 30 minutes.

I will focus on the points made by the right hon. Gentleman, who made a comprehensive speech in summarising the challenges that Yemen faces. The scale of the tragedy is well known to us all, with 70% of the population now needing humanitarian assistance. In answer to the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), let me say that Britain continues to play a leading role, unswayed by the prejudice or interest of any other country. As she says, we are the pen holder, and we are determined to do that job without prejudice and without influence from other nations, doing what we see is best. We show leadership at the United Nations and in the new Quint, which involves nations from around the middle east that are looking at this and which met in February, along with UN special envoy Ismail Ahmed. I met him two weeks ago, when we discussed what parameters we need to get in place in order for a ceasefire to work and then for a UN Security Council resolution to be supported.

Many right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned the importance of the port of Hudaydah, and that must not be underestimated. Yemen has two critical access points, one being the port of Aden, in the south, and the other, halfway up the Red sea, being Hudaydah, with a population of 3 million. If the civil war moves into that area, it will devastate that city, probably displacing about half the people who live there—1.5 million people—and causing mayhem. Not only will it further the prospect of famine and lead to a refugee crisis, but it will flatten the port itself. We may be frustrated with the amount of aid getting through the port at the moment, but the situation will be even worse if the battle commences in that populated urban area. We therefore call on the coalition and the Houthis to recognise that the world is watching and that they need to come back to the table. This will be sorted not by a military solution, but by a political one, and it is very important that that is recognised.

A lot has been said about the cranes, but let me make it clear that the old cranes were bombed a number of years ago and the new cranes are sitting in Dubai. They have been moved there to keep them out of harm’s way; no one knows exactly what is going to happen to the port of Hudaydah as it is unclear where the battle is going.

I reiterate how unhelpful and wrong it would be for us not to work towards a peaceful solution. The right hon. Member for Leicester East rightly said that this problem is not intractable—there is a path to peace. An awful lot of plates are spinning in the middle east, but I genuinely believe that Yemen is one problem that can be solved—to do that, however, we also need the will of the Yemeni people.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), for whom I have a huge amount of respect, made a helpful visit to Yemen, although such travel is not endorsed. In his own inimitable way, he went there and he has shared his findings. He paid tribute to the UN agencies—I join him in doing so—and spoke about there being perhaps a difference in strategy between different Departments. I make it clear that we have one clear strategy, but I can see the dilemma in that on the one hand the Department for International Development is determined to get aid into the country, whereas on the other we are dealing with this protracted war, which this coalition is pushing, and it is not doing a particularly good job of it. I have been critical about its actions before; it is not used to sustained warfare and it has made mistakes, which we have debated here. We have made it clear to the coalition that, as I have just said, the war will not be ended in this way.

We certainly support Saudi-led efforts to restore stability and check the advance of the Houthis, because that started all this in the first place. Let us not forget that the Houthis pushed through Sana’a and would have taken over the port of Aden had a coalition not answered the call by President Hadi to stand up for his legitimacy.

[Emily Thornberry]

rose—

[Mr Ellwood]

I am afraid I do not have time to give way; I do apologise.

Members talked about weapons systems getting into Yemen. I am afraid they are getting in by land and by sea, not so much through the port of Hudaydah. Smaller boats are getting in and providing arms up and down the Red sea, and arms are also getting in through land corridors. The UN verification and inspection mechanism is not working as well as it could because it is not able to capture all the boats that are moving in.

I have to contend with a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield. We can discuss this after the debate, but I do not agree that because al-Qaeda is fighting the Houthis we should somehow be in some form of alignment with it. Al-Qaeda’s track record shows that we cannot entertain any alliance whatsoever. It has brought insecurity and harm to the middle east and, indeed, to Europe.