Human Rights and Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The Government regularly repeat the line,

“the UK operates one of the most rigorous and transparent export control regimes in the world”.

That may be true, but it is clearly not good enough. Since March 2015, no export licence applications to Saudi have been refused due to non-compliance with criterion 2 of the consolidated criteria, which refers to the respect of international humanitarian law in the country of final destination and the respect of IHL by it. Meanwhile, as hon. Members know, £2.8 billion of arms sales have gone to Saudi since the start of the Yemen conflict.

There is mounting evidence from a range of sources that the Saudis have committed international humanitarian law breaches, so either our Government are breaking their own law or their arms export controls are not working. I hope, therefore, that they will look positively at something that is happening in the House of Lords, where one of my colleagues is introducing a private Member’s Bill to create a register of arms brokers, which would enhance transparency and lead to a more rigorous implementation of UK transfer controls.

The evidence about international humanitarian law violations by the Saudis is mounting. During the air strikes on the al-Mazraq camp for internally displaced people, all structures hit, according to the UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Yemen, were civilian infrastructure. That must constitute at the very least an indiscriminate attack, and at worst a direct attack on civilians. As hon. Members know, there were also air strikes against the Oxfam storage facility and a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital. Again, they must constitute indiscriminate attacks on civilians.

Reference was also made to Sa’ada and Ma’aran. In answer to a letter from me, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), said that in Sa’ada all the strikes in the city

“could be linked to a plausible military target.”

Clearly, the UN Security Council experts who looked at it think differently. How could a hospital or school be a plausible military target? How high a bar is plausible? Although it is noteworthy that the Saudis leafleted those two cities—the whole of which, as we have heard, were designated military targets—how realistic was it for the citizens to get out? In his reply, the Under-Secretary of State referred to Sa’ada, but not to what happened in Ma’aran. What exactly has the analysis there revealed?

It is clearly difficult in the limited time I have to make all the points I want to make. Three Departments—the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills—have played a role in this sorry episode. I think that, once IHL violations are confirmed, a ministerial head is going to have to roll.