Yemen

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Margaret Ferrier

Thursday 26th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

The revelation that the Ministry of Defence is tracking 252 allegations of international humanitarian law violations by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen is truly shocking, but with the civilian death toll now passing 10,000, according to the UN, and the country on the brink of famine, when will the Government halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia until the alleged IHL breaches can be properly investigated?

[Mr Ellwood]

Again, I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for her interest in the process and for holding the Government to account, but I reiterate that we have a robust arms export licence system and we are doing all we can to ensure that we can get humanitarian aid into the country and that we work with Saudi Arabia so that it improves its systems and become more accountable and transparent.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Margaret Ferrier

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

Last month, a UK Government spokesperson told Sky News that the Government are

“aware of reports of an alleged airstrike on a school”

in Yemen

“using UK-supplied weapons and are seeking further information regarding the incident.”

Can the Minister update us today on progress on that?

[Mr Ellwood]

I know the hon. Lady follows these events very closely. I do not know the details of that particular Sky report—I have not seen it. I am very happy to meet her outside the Chamber to discuss it. I can give her a reply in due course, or I can give her a public reply in the now much-vaunted and much-publicised debate we are having on Yemen on Thursday.

Aleppo

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Margaret Ferrier

Monday 28th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

I agree with what the hon. Lady says. It is important that we keep the House updated. I, the Foreign Secretary or the Secretary of State for International Development will endeavour to do that on a regular basis.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

I thank the Minister for his statement. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 225 civilians have been killed, including 27 children, since the latest assault started on 15 November. The Government must do all they can to assist those in Syria now. However, they must also do more to help those who have managed to flee the conflict. Will the Minister please commit to pushing his Cabinet colleagues to accept more refugees from that war-torn country?

[Mr Ellwood]

I touched on that earlier. There is a choice: whether we look after refugees in this country—as we have done for the thousands that are coming this way—or we provide support in the region. The price of looking after one refugee in the UK equates to looking after around 20 refugees in the region. Different standards, absolutely, but I hope the hon. Lady recognises that with £2.3 billion-worth of support, we are playing our part in the region.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Margaret Ferrier

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

I absolutely concur with my hon. Friend. However, there are some Israelis who believe that the Palestinians will never accept the Israelis’ right to live in peace in a Jewish state and that they are teaching hate and glorifying terrorists. They think that the west bank will simply be turned into Gaza. On the other side, there are Palestinians who believe that the Israeli Government will never give them the state that they are working towards. We need to bury those myths. That is not what the people of Israel or the people of Palestinian actually want.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

10. What representations his Department has made to the Government of Bahrain on charges brought against Ebrahim Sharif for conducting an interview with Associated Press in November 2016.

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

I met my counterpart, the Foreign Minister Khalid al-Khalifa, this weekend, and our ambassador in Manama raised the case of Ebrahim Sharif on 16 November. We will continue to monitor the case very carefully indeed.

[Margaret Ferrier]

The US State Department has defended freedom of expression and explicitly called for the charges against Ebrahim Sharif to be dropped, whereas the Foreign Office has merely expressed concern. Does the Minister believe that such prevarication will convince the Government of Bahrain to drop those charges?

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Lady touches on a matter on which I feel I am developing a relationship with the Scottish National party. The United Kingdom and the United States have different relationships with Bahrain in terms of the style, the approach and the strategy that we use to influence countries in the Gulf and to advance the democratic process. We have a closer relationship with Bahrain, in which we can have frank conversations. We might not have put out a press statement on this matter—we might not have made the headlines in that sense—but I can assure her that we are having frank conversations with the aim of improving policing, the rule of law and democratic rights. This is happening; the hon. Lady just does not see it all the time.

Humanitarian Law (Yemen)

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Margaret Ferrier

Monday 5th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point—the responsible role that Iran can and should take given where it is now in relation to the nuclear deal. If it wants to play a helpful role on the international stage in the region, then it needs to check its proxy influence in places such as Bahrain, Yemen and Damascus, and indeed in Baghdad as well.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

Only last month, Oxfam claimed that the UK Government had switched from being an enthusiastic backer of the arms trade treaty to one of the most significant violators. The Government have lost immense credibility over this saga, and that was not helped by last-minute retractions. Do they not accept that if they echoed calls for an international independent inquiry, the added transparency and accountability would be a benefit to all stakeholders involved?

[Mr Ellwood]

I do not agree with the first part of the hon. Lady’s question, as she might guess, but the second part I do agree with. The process that we must follow is to allow and encourage Saudi Arabia to make sure that it does the necessary investigations, as it is now starting to do. If we find that those investigations are wanting, it is absolutely right that we should then call for an independent international investigation to be carried out.

The Gulf

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Margaret Ferrier

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Westminster Hall

[Margaret Ferrier]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Ellwood]

I will make some progress first and then, time permitting, I will be delighted to give way. There are a lot of issues to cover, but I will give way if there is time.

I welcome the breadth of knowledge that has been displayed in this debate, and I ask for that to continue. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West spelled out some of the challenges with which the middle east, with its diversity, is having to contend in a modern setting. We have obviously had the Arab spring and its aftermath, and the drop in oil prices is having an enormous effect on all countries in the region. The growth of extremism is hugely challenging in that neck of the woods, and then there is the advance of the internet in a culturally conservative part of the world that is suddenly having to deal with a very liberal way of sharing information and making comment. That has to be mapped out with a growing youth population, which is looking over its shoulder and saying, “We want a very different set of views, values and outlook on life from our parents or the generation before them.”

The Gulf is going through immense challenges, which provides opportunities, but it also means that the Gulf’s friendships outside the region are all the more important. Without mentioning any names, there are other parts of the world that have disengaged somewhat from the middle east, and it is therefore all the more important for us to remember our strong bonds, which are not just about today or about the visits. As has been said, the bonds go back to historical agreements over 200 years that established maritime, trade and diplomatic relationships and allowed us to develop the enormously strong bonds and bilateral ties that are evident today.

The Gulf’s stability is our stability, and we must recognise that the Gulf states have been the custodians of much of the world’s oil and gas supplies in recent decades, helping the world to keep the lights on. The region’s security is tied to our security, but the region’s prosperity is also our prosperity. That was reflected in the last security and defence review, and it has been illustrated today by a number of hon. Members who referred to our commitments from a military perspective right across the Gulf.

However, we also must recognise that it is not just on security and hydrocarbons that we have established strong relationships; our relationships are now diversifying. I can share with the House that we now have six-monthly bilateral working groups with every single Gulf nation—I will go with a team to one of the countries or they will come here. The last one was with Oman, and we go through the entire relationship, from security, defence and hydrocarbons—those norms that we understand—to, now, education: how the British Council can do more work on getting English taught in schools or developing the curriculum. We also discuss how we can help work with police reforms, ombudsmen, processes to allow women’s rights to be established, and so forth.

Many of these things are happening behind the scenes, because that is the way those countries prefer to do business, and we have success; we are able to move forward, which is very positive. I stress to the House that just because people do not see the headlines or hear us shouting out about things, that does not mean they do not happen. That is very important to remember. Any hon. Friends or hon. Members who have taken the time to visit the region will be aware of that themselves.

[Margaret Ferrier]

On that point, there has been much talk today about visiting the region, so will the Foreign Office guarantee my safety if I decide to go and visit Saudi Arabia?

[Mr Ellwood]

I am not sure how helpful that comment is. Anybody travelling to the region needs to read the travel advice. I encourage the hon. Lady to go to Saudi Arabia, because—as others have found—she will come back having learned something. She will discover, especially if it is a visit endorsed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, that she will have access to many of the programmes that are taking place in what is very much a culturally conservative society.

There is a desire in this House for immediate, 21st-century change—to slide across our values, our standards, our processes and our democratic systems all in one. That is not going to happen quickly, in the same way that it did not happen quickly in this country, from giving women the vote to getting rid of slavery. The other day, I went back to my old stomping ground of the London Stock Exchange, where I worked—I made a visit there for a listing that was taking place with Morocco. Women were not allowed on the trading floor in the UK until the 1970s. Our first female ambassador was not appointed until 1976. These things take time.

Of course, in the 21st century we expect countries to take advantage of best practice and of the support and programmes that are available, so that they do not have to take the 800 years that we have taken since Magna Carta to develop the standards that we enjoy today.

Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Margaret Ferrier

Thursday 28th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

I can give a twofold answer. First, the Yemeni armed forces are receiving training, and the Yemini army is improving and able to hold ground, as well, not least around the port of Aden, which, as my hon. Friend says, is critical for safe passage in the area. Secondly, there is also the UN maritime capability. UN convoys need to be able to enter, but at the moment they are being denied by the Houthis.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

The Under-Secretary of State responsible for the middle east is reportedly lobbying Saudi Arabia to promote its so-called human rights successes. Will the Minister please clarify whether that is the case and respond to criticism that it is little more than a PR exercise from a Government determined to maintain a multibillion pound arms trade with the Saudi regime?

[Mr Ellwood]

I am sorry about the last comments. The hon. Lady and I have discussed these issues in the House, in Westminster Hall and, indeed, privately. I hope she will recognise that the words that have been written—I think by The Independent, which used a Google translator system to take some Arabic words and turn them into English—were not what I said at all. Let me make it very clear: we have now issued a press release confirming exactly what I said—an overview of what I raised at some of the meetings. I can assure her that at every single meeting I had, at every level, I raised human rights issues across a spectrum of matters that this House debates on a regular basis.

Saudi Arabia

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Margaret Ferrier

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend is right. I pay tribute to his understanding and knowledge of the area. We are working with Saudi Arabia across a wide range of issues, one of which is religious tolerance.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

We have seen a very weak response from the UK Government tonight. We find ourselves allies with one of the world’s biggest human rights abusers. It comes as no surprise to me when we heard at the weekend the Foreign Office use the word “disappointment,” stating that it did not expect the executions to go ahead. I am glad that I have heard tonight that the Minister has been in touch with the Saudi Kingdom and asked for the boys to be spared. The Minister is well aware that I have been campaigning for Ali for months and also for Dawoud and Abdullah, so I call on the Minister to make sure that the Saudi King commutes the death penalties and does not carry them out. Does the Minister seriously think that evidence of successful dialogue with Saudi is that only 47 executions were carried out, instead of 53?

[Mr Ellwood]

I do not entirely understand the final point that the hon. Lady makes. I pay tribute to her and the work that she is doing in making sure that she raises these issues on the Floor of the House. I take all her contributions extremely seriously. She is aware that I am in constant dialogue over these cases, not just Raif Badawi, but Ali Mohammed al-Nimr and others. We have been working closely together on that and I assure the hon. Lady that we will continue to do so.

Human Rights (Saudi Arabia)

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Margaret Ferrier

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to work under your experienced chairmanship, Mr Chope. I begin, as others have done, by congratulating the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart McDonald) on securing the debate. I will not try to say which names are which, but I was grateful for the clarification at the beginning.

I will say as a general remark that this debate has been informative and constructive. From a personal perspective, it is good to see new Members of Parliament from the Scottish National party come here with such a depth of knowledge and interest, and such a commitment to these issues. It is healthy and important to have them at such debates, along with those of the older generation who are regulars at them; I am only sorry that there are not more Members from my party to match them. However, I am pleased that we are here to place on record our relationship with Saudi Arabia and the important human rights aspect of that relationship.

It is worth placing in context where we stand. The UK and Saudi Arabia have a long history of friendship, understanding and co-operation. That relationship is rooted in defence, security, trade and investment, as hon. Members have mentioned. There are many bilateral challenges and opportunities, as has also been said, including Iraq and Syria, ISIL and Daesh and the changes taking place with the new Iranian nuclear deal. As the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) also mentioned, Yemen is also an issue.

It is important to remind ourselves that the people of Britain have strong bilateral links with Saudi Arabia. Millions of Muslims travel to Saudi Arabia every year to perform the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages and to visit the holy sites of Mecca and Medina. I understand that 18,000 Britons completed the Hajj in 2014. The bilateral relationship is strong, which allows us to have frank conversations, often behind the scenes.

My speech has now been ruined by my scribbles in trying to answer all the questions that have been asked in this interesting debate. As I have done in the past, I will do my best to respond now, but if I do not, I will ensure that we scroll through Hansard and write to hon. Members individually to give them more details about the important questions that they have asked.

Saudi Arabia and Britain are essential partners and good friends. As a long-time friend of Saudi Arabia, we are able to have honest and meaningful conversations with the Saudi Arabian Government about all issues, including human rights. To be frank, sometimes those conversations are difficult. We remain deeply concerned about Saudi Arabia’s use of the death penalty, restricted access to justice, the women’s rights situation and continued restrictions on freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and religious freedom.

[Margaret Ferrier]

One issue that has not been mentioned is human trafficking, rates of which are extremely high in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is currently designated by the USA as a country of particular concern. The Saudi Arabian Government do not comply with the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking and are not making significant efforts to do so; they have moved from tier 2 to tier 3 due to their lack of progress on anti-trafficking efforts, particularly their failure to protect victims and prosecute those guilty of involuntary servitude. Will the Minister look at that as well?

[Mr Ellwood]

I will certainly come to those matters if time permits.

The Government’s view is a matter of public record, and we continue to make our views known in public and in private through multilateral and bilateral channels. We use the UN universal periodic review process and the FCO’s annual human rights and democracy report, which has been mentioned several times, including by the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), as well as our own diplomatic engagement with the Saudi Arabian authorities, to raise such concerns at all levels.

We can and do give tough messages, but we must recognise the crucial point that Saudi culture is deeply rooted in widely held conservative social values. We usually judge that our human rights concerns are best raised in private, and we will continue to work with the Saudi Arabian authorities and those in Saudi society advocating human rights reform, but we will continue to stand up for the full range of human rights. That is at the core of the strategy that we are discussing. Many—including, I think, the hon. Member for Glasgow South; I apologise if I misunderstood his tone—have advocated that we should somehow back away and not trade with that country because we should stand up for certain human rights issues. Forgive me if that is incorrect; if so, I will allow him to correct it. If we were to do so, would we give up an opportunity to have influence at the front line in favour of shouting from afar?