Yemen

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2017 Commons Chamber

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

I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting the debate, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on securing it. His speech was nothing less than a tour de force, and I congratulate him on that as well—and I mean it.

We are talking about what has been widely recognised to be the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, and it is threatening to become one of the worst such crises for decades. In those circumstances, an emergency debate is more than appropriate. It is regrettable in many ways that the House is not packed today. On too many occasions the war in Yemen has been described as a forgotten war, and indeed it is. The role that we play in it is important, and needs to be more widely acknowledged.

It is welcome that, since the Minister’s statement on the crisis 10 days ago. we have seen a partial easing of the blockade of Yemen’s ports and airports to allow some consignments of food and medical supplies to be brought into rebel-held areas, but, as the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield said, it is not nearly enough to address the scale of the humanitarian needs. Hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent children still face death over the coming weeks owing to malnutrition and disease. If they do not receive the food, clean water and medical supplies that they need in order to survive, and receive them in the long-term quantities that are required, we know what will happen.

If those children are to obtain the relief that they need, all parties must be willing to do whatever it takes, including the complete cessation of violence, the full lifting of the blockades, the opening of humanitarian corridors over land, and a guarantee of safe passage for aid convoys. I hope that the Minister will be able to update us today on what is being done to achieve those ends.

We all understand the backdrop to the current crisis. We understand the anger of the Saudi Government at the firing of a ballistic missile at their own country by the Houthi rebels on 4 November. That was an act that all Opposition Members unequivocally condemn, just as we condemn the Saudi airstrike on 1 November which killed 31 people, including six children, at a market in the Sahar district of Sa’ada. Both sides are guilty of attacking civilians, both sides should be equally condemned for doing so, and, in due course, both sides should be held to account for any violations of international humanitarian law.

Following the Houthi missile strike, the Saudis strengthened their blockade of all rebel-held areas of Yemen. As a result, what little supplies there were of food, medicine and other humanitarian goods were choked off for at least three weeks, and remain just an inadequate trickle today. The damage that will have been done to millions of children who were already facing severe malnutrition, a cholera epidemic and an outbreak of diphtheria, will, as the UN has said, be measured in the lives that are lost. As the World Health Organisation, the World Food Programme and UNICEF have stated, the tightening of the blockade has made

“an already catastrophic situation far worse. “

They concluded:

“To deprive this many from the basic means of survival is an unconscionable act and a violation of humanitarian principles and law.”

In that context, I must go back to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) 10 days ago: how do the Government view this month’s blockade as compatible with international humanitarian law, a body of law that clearly states that starvation of civilian populations cannot be used as a weapon of war and any blockades established for military purposes must allow civilian populations access to the food and other essential supplies that they need to live?

[Graham P. Jones]

The situation in Yemen is of course terrible and catastrophic, but does my right hon. Friend not agree that the main reason for that is the collapse of the economic system within Yemen?

[Emily Thornberry]

However we got here, it cannot be made better by there being a blockade and millions of starving children. It is my view—and I believe the view of this House—that the blockade should be lifted and that we must find a peace process and a way of moving the sides apart to allow these children to survive over the winter.

When a tactic of surrender or survive was used by President Assad in Syria, the Foreign Secretary was happy to condemn it, but he has uttered not a single word of criticism when the same tactic has been used by his friend Crown Prince Salman of Saudi Arabia, the architect of the Yemen conflict, or, as the Foreign Secretary likes to call him, “a remarkable young man.” So let me ask the Minister this specifically: while the blockade was fully in place over the past three weeks, apparently in clear breach of international humanitarian law, were any export licences granted for the sale of arms from the UK to the Saudi-led coalition?

When my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East raised this issue last week, the Minister seemed to suggest that the blockade was justified from a military point of view because of the alleged smuggling of missiles from Iran to the Houthi rebels. But I ask him again why he disagrees with the confidential briefing prepared by the panel of experts appointed by the UN Security Council and circulated on 10 November. That briefing has been referred to already, but let me quote from it:

“The panel finds that imposition of access restrictions is another attempt by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition to use…resolution 2216 as justification for obstructing the delivery of commodities that are essentially civilian in nature.”

It goes on to say that, while the Houthis undoubtedly possess some ballistic missile capacity:

“The panel has seen no evidence to support claims of”

ballistic missiles

“having been transferred to the Houthi-Saleh alliance from external sources”.

If the Minister disagrees with that assessment, which I understand he does, can he state the evidence on which he does so, and will he undertake to share that evidence with the UN panel of experts? However, if there is no such evidence, I ask him again: how can the blockade be justified from the perspective of international humanitarian law, and how can the Government justify selling Saudi Arabia the arms that were used to enforce that blockade?

We know that, even if the blockade of Yemen’s ports is permanently lifted, the civilian population of Yemen will continue to suffer as long as this conflict carries on, and the only way that suffering will finally end is through a lasting ceasefire and political agreement. As the whole House knows, it is the UK’s ordained role to act as the penholder for a UN ceasefire resolution on Yemen. That is a matter I have raised many times in this House, and I raise it again today. It has now been one year and one month since Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, Matthew Rycroft, circulated Britain’s draft resolution to other members of the UN Security Council, and this is what he said back then:

“We have decided…to put forward a draft Security Council resolution…calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities and a resumption of the political process.”

That was a year and a month ago, and still no resolution has been presented. That is one year and one month when no progress has been made towards peace, and when the conflict has continued to escalate and the humanitarian crisis has become the worst in the world.

[Keith Vaz]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much for what she is saying, and she is absolutely right. Twelve months have elapsed since the promise that there would be a resolution before the UN. The Quint met last night in London, and the Foreign Secretary tweeted a photograph of himself with the participants, but there is no timetable. Does my right hon. Friend agree that these meetings are meaningless without a timetable for peace with all the parties at the table at the same time?

[Emily Thornberry]

My right hon. Friend is right: warm words butter no parsnips, as my grandmother used to say. Matthew Rycroft says now that

“the political track…is at a dead-end. There is no meaningful political process going on”.

If we are wrong about that, we would be very grateful for some reassurance from the Minister, but we have been waiting and waiting, and children are dying, and we have to do something about it.

We are bound to ask, for example, what has happened to that draft resolution: why has it been killed off—indeed, has it been killed off? Is the situation as the Saudi ambassador to the UN said when first asked about the UK’s draft resolution this time last year:

“There is a continuous and joint agreement with Britain concerning the draft resolution, and whether there is a need for it or not”?

We must ask this Minister: is that “continuous and joint agreement” with Saudi Arabia still in place? If so, why has it never been disclosed to the House?

The fear is that Saudi Arabia does not want a ceasefire and that it sees no value in negotiating a peace—not when Crown Prince Salman believes that the rebellion can still be crushed, whatever the humanitarian cost. If he does believe that, are we really to accept that the UK Government are going along with that judgment?

The Minister will, of course, point to the so-called peace forum chaired by the Foreign Secretary this week—the Quint—and say that that is evidence that the UK is doing its job to move the political process forward, but when the only participants in the peace forum are Saudi Arabia, two of its allies, and two of the countries supplying most of its arms, that is not a “peace forum.” I respectfully suggest that far from being a peace forum, it is a council of war. What we really need—what we urgently need and have needed for more than a year and a month—is the moral and political force which comes from a UN Security Council resolution obliging all parties to cease hostilities, obliging all parties to allow humanitarian relief, and obliging all parties to work towards a political solution.

I ask the Minister: how much longer do we have to wait? When will the Government finally bring forward the resolution? If the answer is that, because of opposition from the Saudis and the Americans, they will never present that resolution, do they not at least owe it to fellow members of the UN Security Council, and to Members of this House—and, indeed, to the children of Yemen—to admit that the role of penholder on Yemen is no longer a position they can in good conscience occupy and that they should pass on that role of drafting a resolution to another country which is less joined at the hip to Crown Prince Salman and President Donald Trump?

Let me close by quoting my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition in his last letter to the Prime Minister on the subject of Yemen:

“Whilst the immediate priority should be humanitarian assistance…it is time the Government takes immediate steps to play its part in ending the suffering of the Yemeni people, ends its support of the Saudi coalition’s conduct in the war and take appropriate action”

through the UN

“to bring the conflict to a peaceful, negotiated resolution.”

Those are the three tests of whether the Government are willing to take action today, and I hope that by the end of this emergency debate we will have some indication of whether they are going to take that action, or whether it is just going to be more of the same.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alistair Burt]

I do not quite know what bit of what I have said my right hon. Friend is referring to. I have read out the details in relation to the work of our liaison officers on international humanitarian law, and I cannot say anything different. If I have said anything that he thinks is wrong, he can correct me either now or at the end of the debate when he has an opportunity to say something else. I have put on record what our situation is. If he thinks that that is misleading, I am here to be corrected, but I am reading out what I believe is the Government’s position very clearly.

[Emily Thornberry]

I wonder whether the Minister could clarify something that has always genuinely confused me about the role of the military in Saudi Arabia. Is there just one targeting centre, or is it correct that there is another in the south? Are military personnel involved in the south of the country? Indeed, are people from British companies, BAE Systems in particular, involved in the south of the country? If they are supposed to be there to ensure that international humanitarian law is not breached, what are they doing? Are they ensuring that targeting is better or that things are not targeted? If they are ensuring that targeting is better, how is it that so many civilian targets seem to get hit?

[Alistair Burt]

The answer to the last part of the right hon. Lady’s question comes from the investigations into incidents where there is legitimate concern that there may have been civilian casualties. That process was started by the coalition; it was not in place at the beginning. We have provided advice not only so that information can be given to us, but to assist in the process of ensuring that the coalition targets legitimate military targets. I understand that thousands of places have been deemed not to be targets. As in any conflict—this is one of the reasons why my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield was safe—there are indications of where attacks should not happen, and I believe that we have been part of the process of ensuring that the coalition understands the international rules of engagement.

I cannot directly answer the question about BAE Systems personnel being elsewhere as I just do not know the answer, but I have noted what the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury said, and I will come back to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alistair Burt]

The observations of those whose role it is to see what is happening in order to report on potential breaches of international humanitarian law are clearly a vital part of that process. There is other, more sensitive information that I will not go into, but there is a clearly a process that has been designed to try to give reassurance to all of us. This is a difficult situation, and we have continued to support an ally that is under attack from external sources and engaged in an effort to restore a legitimate Government. In supporting that effort, we have done what is right to ensure that international humanitarian law is observed. We have used all the information made available to us, so that we are sure of the circumstances. Should that be challenged—it is possible to challenge it through both the House and the courts—the circumstances would change.

[Emily Thornberry]

Will the Minister give way?

[Alistair Burt]

I will, but I do want to move on to the humanitarian situation.

[Emily Thornberry]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for indulging me one more time. I understand that some of the information may be sensitive, but are the British Government in a position to share the information that makes them so confident that there have been no breaches of international humanitarian law? The UN panel of experts seems to have come to a different conclusion.

[Alistair Burt]

The initial responsibility to investigate any incidents lies with the state involved, and Saudi Arabia has been doing that with its investigations. I genuinely do not know the process of transferring that information to the UN should the UN request to see it, but I will have an answer for the right hon. Lady.

I know that there has been an instruction to be mindful of the time, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I will be as tight on time as I can, but I want to talk about both the blockade and the humanitarian response before moving on to the negotiations. As for the restrictions brought in after the missile attack of 4 November, I will deal first with where the missile came from. The right hon. Lady asked me whether we disagree with the UN’s assessment, and yes we do. That draft assessment was written some time ago, and there is the possibility that a different assessment by the UN has not been made public. The United Kingdom is quite confident that there is sufficient evidence to indicate that the missile came from an external source. If it did not, the right hon. Lady and others can answer the question of where such a missile came from in Yemen, but it is quite clear to us that it came from an external source. We therefore disagree with the UN’s initial draft report, and the evidence will come through in due course when a further report is published. That is all I can say.



The coalition’s response to a direct attack on Riyadh airport was sharp and severe. It wanted to be able to protect itself and, in doing so, placed restrictions on the ports in order to control what was coming in. Now, we do not disagree with what was said either by the right hon. Lady or my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield, and the UK’s clear position is that it is imperative that those restrictions are relieved. I am not going to dance on the head of a pin here; if Members want to call it a blockade, it is a blockade. There is no point in dancing around that. However, humanitarian and commercial supplies must be allowed in in order to feed the people.

As my right hon. Friend said, and as the House knows well, the vast bulk of food, water and fuel that comes into Yemen to keep the people alive is not humanitarian aid; it is ordinary commercial stuff. We have been clear right from the beginning of the restrictions that the UK’s view is that they should be lifted, and we have maintained that, so to be told that we have not done enough is just wrong. As evidence of some degree of success, there was some easing of the restrictions last week, but not enough. I have an update that I am happy to share with the House. It states:

“Humanitarian and commercial vessels are beginning to enter Hodeidah and Saleef ports. Since Sunday, three vessels have arrived and are being unloaded. This includes 2 commercial vessels into Hodeidah carrying respectively 5,500 metric tonnes and 29,520 metric tonnes of wheat flour. One humanitarian vessel has arrived into Saleef with supplies to support 1.8 million people for a month (and 25,000 metric tonnes of food). In addition, approximately 23 vessels have been cleared by UN Verification Inspection Mechanism (UNVIM) although not yet permitted to unload.”

It is essential that they are permitted to unload, and we are making representations to that effect. However, the fact that there has been some movement in response to representations made by, among others, the highest levels of the British Government indicates that the urgency of relieving the humanitarian situation is being heard. At the same time, we recognise the security needs of those who are threatened by missiles targeted at their commercial airports and civilian areas.