Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Fabian Hamilton and Andrew Murrison(4 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
Can the Minister of State tell me what clause in UN resolution 2216 provides for Saudi Arabia to bomb captive inmates in a Houthi-run prison in Yemen or for the United Arab Emirates to kill forces loyal to the President that their own coalition is supposed to be there to reinstall? If the answer is that there is none, is it not time for him to bring forward a new UN resolution to replace 2216, demanding an immediate ceasefire by all parties across the whole of the country of Yemen?
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (Dr Andrew Murrison)
This country will always stand up for the rule of law in Yemen, in Saudi Arabia and throughout the middle east. I hope very much that the hon. Gentleman understands that this country is the champion of international humanitarian law, especially in relation to Yemen, where he knows full well we are the pen holder. In my recent visit to the middle east, including to discuss Yemen, that came across loud and clear; I made it clear to my interlocutors that we will continue to hold them to account for activities in Yemen.
Gulf of Oman Oil Tanker Attacks
Debate between Fabian Hamilton and Andrew Murrison(4 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Dr Murrison
It is vital that we keep to the joint comprehensive plan of action, as I discussed with His Excellency the Iranian ambassador a short while ago. The International Atomic Energy Agency is currently of the view that Iran is compliant. That is important. Its last determination was made on 31 May, so we would routinely expect one in three months’ time—in August—but the agency does keep the matter under continuous review. Clearly, we want to hold Iran to the commitments that it made with the P5+1 and the European Union, and hope very much that that forms the basis of a productive way forward.
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question; I also thank the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) for raising it.
The attacks on oil tankers in the strait of Hormuz are utterly unacceptable, as I am sure every Member will agree. For those of us old enough to remember, they are frighteningly reminiscent of the tanker war of the 1980s, with all the global economic consequences that resulted from that conflict. Just like then, we are at an extremely dangerous juncture, where Iran risks sliding back into a permanent state of isolation from and confrontation with the west. That is, of course, what the theocrats in Iran have always craved and what the Iran nuclear deal was in place to prevent before it was so recklessly and deliberately scuppered by the neo-cons in the Trump Administration, who even now are rattling their sabres in their own craving for war. With that being the case, the question is: where do we go from here?
The Foreign Secretary has rightly warned of the dangers of ever greater escalation in the region and of Britain becoming “enmeshed” in a new conflict, but I would say to the Government that if we face a situation where the theocrat hardliners in Tehran and the neo-con hawks in the White House want to start a regime change conflict in Iran—a country nine times the size of Syria—we have a choice about whether or not to become enmeshed, and it should be this Parliament that makes that choice.
More importantly and more urgently, what we must now do as a country, through the United Nations—as both Secretary-General Guterres and the German Government have called for—is to work to de-escalate the situation as the Minister has suggested, so that it is not just Ali Khamenei on one side and John Bolton on the other deciding to plunge the middle east into this catastrophe, but sensible diplomats from all countries working to independently investigate and verify the facts around the tanker attacks, to prevent any repeat of them and, most of all, to stop the descent into a war that we all fear, and getting the nuclear deal back on track instead. What action will the Minister take this week towards each of those ends?