Situation in the Red Sea

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the recent response to Houthi aggression in the Red sea. Thirty years ago, the United Nations convention on the law of the sea came into force. That agreement was ratified by 168 nations and it states explicitly in article 17 that

“ships of all States, whether coastal or land-locked, enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea”.

Since 19 October the Houthis, aided and abetted by Iran, have launched a ruthless and reckless campaign of attacks against commercial shipping. These attacks are not solely limited to commerce; our military vessels are also in the Houthi crosshairs. The Royal Navy, the US Navy and most recently the French Navy have also been targets. Vessels owned by Chinese and Bulgarian companies and crews from India, Sri Lanka and Syria have been targeted indiscriminately, making a mockery of Houthi claims that this is all about Israel.

From the outset we have been clear that this cannot carry on. Freedom of navigation underpins not only our security but our prosperity. Around 80% of traded goods are carried over the seas, as are about 90% of the goods arriving in the United Kingdom. These necessities on which we depend arrive through a small number of critical waterways, so upholding these precious freedoms is essential for the preservation of life. This Government are determined to help restore the tranquillity of the Red sea. That is why the UK was one of the first members to join the US-led taskforce, Operation Prosperity Guardian, with HMS Richmond now taking over from HMS Diamond to patrol in the Red sea to help protect commercial shipping. It is why we are working in tandem with the US and other allies to reduce the Houthis’ capacity to harm our security and economic interest, to limit their impact on the flow of humanitarian aid, to prevent further regional escalation, and to show Iran in no uncertain terms that we will push back against its destabilising behaviour.

On occasion, in response to specific threats and in line with international law and the principle of self-defence, we have tackled the Houthi threat head-on. Since 11 January, we have conducted a number of precision strikes against Houthi targets. In these previous rounds of strikes, RAF aircraft successfully struck some 32 targets at six different locations, including drone ground control stations as well as other facilities directly involved in the Houthis’ drone and missile attacks on shipping. I am pleased to say that it remains the case that, to date, we have seen no evidence at all to indicate that the RAF strikes caused civilian casualties, and the UN has noted that it has observed no civilian impact arising from the RAF strikes.

Although we have eroded the Houthis’ capacity, their intent to prosecute indiscriminate attacks against innocent vessels remains undiminished. Just last week, MV Rubymar—a Belize-flagged, British-registered cargo vessel—was targeted in the gulf of Aden near the Bab al-Mandab strait. Hit by missiles, the crew were forced to abandon ship. An oil slick, caused entirely by damage sustained in the Houthi attack, now stretches many miles from the vessel. On Thursday, the British-registered MV Islander was similarly targeted. It was struck by two missiles, resulting in a fire on board. Fortunately, there was no loss of life.

This all comes not long after two US-registered bulk carriers, MV Navis Fortuna and MV Sea Champion, suffered minor damage from Houthi strikes. The attack on Sea Champion highlights the Houthis’ recklessness and near-sightedness, considering that Sea Champion has delivered humanitarian aid to Yemen 11 times in the past five years and was due to unload thousands of tonnes of much needed aid to the Yemeni people through the ports of Aden and Hodeidah. The Houthis’ attack was, quite simply, callous. As near-sighted as these attacks are, they continue to have serious and potentially long-term consequences across the region, as they cut off vital aid to civilians in Yemen and Syria, restrict crucial food imports to Djibouti and threaten significant impacts in Egypt.

Last time I spoke on this issue, I told the House that we will not hesitate to act again in self-defence. We have given the Houthis ample opportunity to de-escalate, but once again, the Houthi zealots have ignored our repeated warnings. As a result, we have once again taken action to defend ourselves against these intolerable attacks. On Saturday night, a Royal Air Force package of four Typhoons, supported by two Voyager tankers, joined US forces in a deliberate strike against Houthi military facilities in Yemen that have been conducting missile and drone attacks on commercial shipping and coalition naval forces in the Bab al-Mandab strait, the southern Red sea and the gulf of Aden. As the House knows, it was the fourth such operation to degrade the Houthi capabilities that are being used to threaten global trade in the Red sea.

Intelligence analysis indicates that the strikes were successful, and that the sites we attacked were being used by the long-range drones that the Houthis use for both reconnaissance and attack missions, including at a former surface-to-air missile battery site several miles north-east of Sana’a. Our aircraft used Paveway IV precision-guided munitions against the drones and their launchers. Assessment continues at this still early stage, but the analysis so far indicates that all eight RAF targets were successfully struck. Three buildings were hit at the Bani military site, and five one-way attack drones are assessed to have been destroyed at the Sana’a military site.

On planning these strikes, as is normal practice for the RAF, operations were carried out meticulously, and consideration was given to minimising any risk of causing civilian casualties. Assessments so far indicate that across the four sets of airstrikes, some 40 military targets have been hit, at seven different Houthi facilities. I pay tribute to the immense skill and tireless dedication of the men and women who made that possible.

Once again, I would like to make it clear that military action is only one aspect of our approach to the crisis in the Red sea. The whole international community has an interest in stopping these attacks, and we continue to work with it to turn that intent into action. The Prime Minister has engaged regional leaders, including the Sultan of Oman, as well as G7 partners. The Foreign Secretary and I have travelled repeatedly to the region in recent weeks to discuss regional security. We are determined to end the illegal flow of arms to the Houthis, using whatever levers are available, including enduring diplomatic engagement, and determined to continue to intercept illegal weapons and the shipping that helps to feed that supply. We are cutting off the Houthis’ financial resources, to further degrade their capacity to conduct attacks; for example, jointly with the US, we are sanctioning four Houthi leaders, and we will continue to work with the US to cut the flow of Houthi funds.

Despite the best efforts of the Houthis, we also continue to provide humanitarian help to people in the middle east. This year, we will send some £88 million of humanitarian support to Yemen, which will feed 100,000 Yeminis every month. The UK has recently worked closely with our Jordanian partners to airdrop life-saving supplies directly to the Tal al-Hawa Hospital in northern Gaza.

The Houthis could stop this barbaric behaviour any time they want. Instead, they callously choose to continue their reckless acts of aggression, causing harm not just to innocents, but to their own people in Yemen. Until they stop, we will continue to act, but consensus continues to grow that the Houthis’ violations simply cannot continue. That is why, recently, the European Union officially launched its Operation Aspides; Members will know that aspides meant “shield” in ancient Greek. We very much welcome the commitment of our EU partners to joining in the work that has been going on, because no nation should ever be able to threaten the arteries of global commerce.

Thirty years ago, nations of the world all came together to protect innocent passage on our high seas. Thirty years on, the House should be in no doubt whatsoever that we will continue to stand up for those rights, and do all that we can to defend life and limb of sailors everywhere, and to preserve their precious trading routes, on which we all depend. I commend this statement to the House.

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I thank the Defence Secretary for advance sight of his statement. We accept that the weekend’s airstrikes were legal, limited, and targeted to minimise the risk of civilian casualties. We pay tribute to the total professionalism of all forces personnel involved in the operations, which were conducted to protect shipping in the Red sea and uphold freedom of navigation for all nations. As the Defence Secretary said, the Houthis have been attacking ships of all nations: Chinese, Bulgarian and French ships have been targeted; Danish, Greek and UK ships have been hit; and even aid vessels destined for Yemen have been in the firing line. The UK and US Navies have been forced to shoot down drones in self-defence.

Today, the British Chambers of Commerce reports that more than half of British exporters are being hit by higher costs and delays because of the Houthi attacks. The Houthis are threatening international trade and maritime security, and putting civilian and military lives in serious danger. That is why the UN Security Council last month passed a resolution condemning the Houthis’ actions “in the strongest terms”, and demanding that their attacks cease.

We accept that the military action over the weekend was justified, but was it effective? What were the objectives for these latest strikes? Were they fully met? Were the targets at both Sana’a and Bani destroyed? Ministers have said that the aims of earlier strikes were, first, to deter Houthi attacks and, secondly, to degrade their capabilities, but deterrence does not feature in the weekend’s eight-nation joint statement in support of the strikes, and the Defence Secretary said this afternoon that “Houthi intent remains undiminished”. Has deterring attacks been dropped as one of the Government’s objectives for this military action?

As the Defence Secretary says, this was “the fourth such operation” since 11 January. When will the Government judge this to be a sustained campaign? At what stage do the Government think that Parliament needs a say? It is the Prime Minister’s responsibility to authorise UK military action and account for it to the public in this House. When will we hear from him?

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s comments. He asked a series of questions, and I will respond directly.

On effectiveness, we believe that this set of attacks was effective, and early reconnaissance shows as much, as I outlined in my statement. As ever, it will take a few days to get a full picture, but we have no reason to think that the action was not entirely successful.

We very much intend our attacks on Houthi infrastructure to be a deterrent. The Houthis think that they can continue their actions; our strikes will ensure that they understand the consequences of those actions and the price to pay for them, but perhaps other people, controlling other waterways, will also understand that the world will not simply stand back and allow those actions to take place.

The right hon. Gentleman asks about the Prime Minister coming to the House. I gently point out to him that, technically, he is wrong; the Defence Secretary has the legal authority to sign off actions, as part of royal prerogative. Legally, I have responsibility for the attacks, although, as he rightly points out, the Prime Minister came to the House to give the first two statements on them. As the message in each of those statements is similar and I have legal responsibility, it seems proper and right for me to come to the House and respond to questions. We have had very full statements after each round of attacks.

The shadow Defence Secretary is quite right to say that this sits within a much wider diplomatic context. I went into some detail in my comments, but I am happy to talk more about the wider work that is going on in the region to try to bring to a successful conclusion the wider conflict, which is, in my view—and I think I heard him say in his view—nothing to do with why the Houthis are attacking shipping in the Red sea.

Finally, I would just gently say—although many of the SNP are not here—that to claim that the House passed in full agreement a particular resolution last week is a little bit rich given the circumstances.

I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.

Open source information suggests that the strikes are diminishing the capability of the Houthis to attack international shipping. As that is both welcome and important, will the Secretary of State concur that that is also his assessment? It is welcome that Aspides and Prosperity Guardian are co-ordinating, but does that also include on the interdiction of weapons being smuggled from Iran into Yemen?

My right hon. Friend is right that we are degrading—attrited, as they say in military terms—that capability. However, it is still the case that the Houthis are capable of launching attacks. To what extent? Well, the House will come to its own conclusions, but it will note that the gap between the first three rounds of attacks was relatively short, and that the gap between that and this fourth round has been longer. Again, we will wait to see what the response is.

On interdictions: yes, we will certainly continue to try to ensure that Iran is not resupplying. The single best message to go out from this House is that Iran should stop that activity. It is worth noting that it has been only Britain and the US that have been doing interdictions in the past few years—and, of course, we will continue to do so.

I call the SNP spokesperson.

First, let me thank the Secretary of State for due sight of his statement. I think that, as an opposition party, we would give it our tentative support. What the shadow Defence Secretary said about possible mission creep does give us concern, but I am sure that it is the role of the Opposition to keep asking those questions.

The Secretary of State knows that my last question regarding this issue was on the position of the People’s Republic of China. Until recently, exports between Europe and China were in excess of £400 billion a year, and there is no doubt that they will suffer as a result of the extended time that it takes to travel between China and Europe, but what beggars belief is China’s utter silence in relation to what is going on—notably, given that it has a military naval capacity in Djibouti.

The Secretary of State and I will disagree on the issue of Gaza. If we had secured a real vote last week, we would probably have seen that recorded formally in the House. Gerald M. Feierstein, the former US diplomat, has said that

“the Houthis’ effort to insert themselves into the Gaza conflict”

is aimed at

“strengthening their support base in the country and cementing their movement more firmly in the… ‘axis of resistance’”.

I wonder whether, like me, the Secretary of State is concerned that we are not only strengthening that axis of resistance but, with illicit Chinese and Russian support, now broadening it in the Red sea.

I thank the hon. Member for his—as he has described it—tentative support. I have noted that the House has been largely unified on this issue during the past four statements, following previous attacks. He asks about the mission creep situation. I hope he feels reassured by the concept that we have waited longer, in part because the Houthis’ capabilities have been damaged, so that there is a longer gap and we do not see this thing speeding up. We have no intention or desire to see it increase, but we will act if there continue to be attacks on commercial and naval shipping.

The hon. Member asks about China and Russia and I have to say that I agree; it is important that countries that are impacted by this—the entire world, but perhaps China in particular—do speak up. We would welcome China being more vocal about the situation. As I mentioned in my comments, a Chinese vessel has been attacked, so this is of direct concern to the country. I call on China and, of course, Russia—for what it is worth—to be more vocal on these issues.

Lastly, I just do not accept this Gaza-Houthi connection. I remind the House that the Houthis were against Hamas until 2015, and now they arrive on the scene and pretend to support them. They are opportunist thugs taking advantage of the situation and of people’s lives and misery—not just in Gaza but in Yemen—and they should stop and desist immediately.

The Secretary of State will recall that, in handling this topic on 5 February, he strongly endorsed the suggestion that a lot of this trouble in the middle east was linked to tactics to divert from the war in Ukraine. Given that the route from what is happening in Ukraine to what is happening in the middle east is via Russia and Iran, is he satisfied that there is no inconsistency between the tough line being taken by the Ministry of Defence against the Houthis and the soft line being taken by the Foreign Office against their Iranian sponsors?

I somewhat reject that characterisation. To be absolutely clear, we are very much of the view that Iran is responsible; it funds, trains and provides equipment to the Houthis and many other Iranian-sponsored proxies in the region. It is also the case that it has probably lost control of some of them. It is important that we deliver those messages in many different ways to the Iranians. I have seen the read-outs of the ways they have been delivered, including directly, by the Foreign Secretary—and they were anything but weak.

I put to the Secretary of State a similar question to the one that I put to the Prime Minister on 23 January: of course we want a diplomatic solution—any ramping up of a military solution has its consequences—but for how many more months are the Secretary of State and the Government going to allow this to continue? Do the Government and the allies have a plan B?

Of course, the whole world is working on the overall context of the middle east. I know the hon. Gentleman will have seen the reports over the weekend about the discussions taking place in relation to the hostages. We want a comprehensive settlement; the Government’s policy is, of course, a two-state solution. The middle east could be normalised in many ways, including through Saudi normalisation with Israel, as part of that broader package; the Government are working proactively on this. As I said, I am conscious that we should not link these thuggish pirates—

I am not saying the hon. Gentleman does that, but I am keen that we do not see the two issues as inextricably linked. I accept that the hon. Gentleman is not trying to do that. We are working very hard on the wider solution.