Peter Grant
Main Page: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)Department Debates - View all Peter Grant's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Ellwood
I read an article, in The New York Times I think, suggesting that there may be such changes. It is important that people not just in America but across the world understand that the United Nations is pivotal as the international forum in which countries can come together to resolve their issues. If it did not exist, we would invent it. However, we must recognise that the troubled period it has had in the past six months or so, because of the use of the veto, means that it is perhaps now time for it to be reinvented.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
As my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh) has said, 7 million people in Yemen are going to starve to death. Ninety per cent. of the food that will keep them alive has to be imported. The sea ports through which that food has to be imported are being deliberately and systematically bombed into oblivion by the Saudi-led coalition. How can it possibly be morally defensive to sell any weapons whatsoever to a regime that is undertaking such inhumane actions?
Mr Ellwood
I understand the spirit in which the question is asked, but it is not the case that the ports are being bombed into oblivion. As I said earlier, the Al Hudaydah port is divided into two areas, one operated by the Houthis, the other by the United Nations, and they can get ships in, but there is a queue of ships because the working cranes are not large enough to get the kit off. That is the bottleneck that we need to resolve.