Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Tom Brake
Main Page: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)Department Debates - View all Tom Brake's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
The Minister will recall that I wrote to him on 18 November on this matter. In his reply, he said:
“We regularly raise our concerns with the Coalition through Ministerial, diplomatic and military channels”.
He went on:
“The Saudi Arabian authorities have given us assurances that they are complying with IHL”.
On the subject of cluster munitions, the Government apparently
“encouraged Saudi Arabia as a non-party to the Convention”—
the convention against cluster munitions—to accede to it. Does the Minister understand why some Members are concerned that the Government are not adopting a particularly challenging attitude towards the Saudis, when combined with the Minister’s statement about being “disappointed” at the execution of 47 people in Saudi Arabia? Will the Minister do something concrete and ask the Ministry of Defence, which is responsible for investigating IHL breaches, to look at this and, if necessary, go over the ground of previous claims about IHL breaches?
Mr Ellwood
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that Saudi Arabia is not a signatory to the convention. We are encouraging that to happen. As I said in my opening remarks, on the exempt licences we have provided and the allegations we put forward, we matched them up with the information we have. We requested more information and where we are unsatisfied we have further discussions. Those are ongoing. We are calling for Saudi Arabia to make sure that, just as it launched an investigation into the attack on Médecins sans Frontières in Taiz, further investigations are opened as soon as possible.