Nick Smith
Main Page: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)Department Debates - View all Nick Smith's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Ellwood
I will join the hon. Gentleman and say that the pace of the reports coming out is far too slow and that the process needs to speed up, but Saudi Arabia did not even have an investigations process. When we think about some investigations that have taken place, for example Chilcot, we should ask ourselves how long did they take. Perhaps I am comparing apples with pears, but when starting from scratch, it takes time to have the processes in place to ensure that there is the necessary evidence for a report to be compiled. I will invite Adel al-Jubeir, the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, back here so that we can put those questions to him again.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Further to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), what can the Minister do to ensure that cranes are available to get the ports working and to get aid in?
Mr Ellwood
My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border, the DFID Minister, has just spoken to Simon Collis, our ambassador in Saudi Arabia, and I raise the matter regularly. The challenge that we face is the question of who has ownership of the port and the fact that it was used to bring in weapons. That was the coalition’s concern. Several possibilities—joint ownership, ownership by the United Nations—are being explored to ensure that the humanitarian challenges, particularly with winter coming on, can be met.