Yemen

(Urgent Question): To ask the Foreign Secretary to update the House on the latest developments in Yemen.

Well, it is not the Foreign Secretary but a substitute for said Minister. He will do his level best, we feel sure.

The UK is deeply concerned by the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in Yemen. We fully support the peace process, led by the UN special envoy, Martin Griffiths, and urge all parties to engage constructively with that process. A political settlement is the only way to bring long-term stability to Yemen and to address the worsening humanitarian crisis. A nationwide ceasefire will have effect on the ground only if it is underpinned by a political deal between the conflict parties.

The UK has been at the forefront of international efforts to bring a peaceful solution to the appalling conflict in Yemen. On 26 September, the UK co-hosted a political event at the UN General Assembly to co-ordinate the international community’s support for the UN-led peace process and to endorse UN special envoy Martin Griffiths’ plan to begin wider political discussion. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa visited the region from 25 to 29 August, in support of the United Nations’ efforts to make political progress and alleviate the humanitarian situation.

Yemen remains the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with nearly 80% of the entire population—more than 24 million people—requiring some form of humanitarian assistance. The UK has shown extensive leadership in responding to the crisis, committing £770 million of support to Yemen since the conflict began in 2015. Our funding for this financial year is providing food for more than 1 million Yemenis each month and more than 1 million people with improved water supply and sanitation.

We have been very concerned by the UN’s funding situation and the fact that it has been forced to stop delivering some of its life-saving support in Yemen. In response, the UK brought forward funding from our £200 million pledge and has already released 87% of the funding that we have pledged to UN agencies this year. We thank Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait for providing approximately $800 million in September and urge all donors rapidly to distribute their humanitarian pledges.

I thank the Minister for that response. As he says, the humanitarian consequences of the Yemen conflict are devastating. The United Nations has estimated that, by the end of this year, the combined death toll from the fighting and disease will be 230,000. I pay tribute to the Department for International Development for its response, which, as he rightly reminded us, has been one of the most generous in the world, but, as he said, humanitarian efforts remain critically underfunded. The United Nations programmes on vaccination, cholera prevention and malnutrition have been forced to close. We are now looking to the 2020 humanitarian response plan. May I ask that the UK works with other donors to ensure that these life-saving programmes are restored? The previous Foreign Secretary provided real leadership on Yemen, and there is a concern that Yemen is no longer the Government priority that it was before July. Did the Prime Minister raise Yemen in his meeting with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani last week? What is the United Kingdom doing to engage coalition members to move towards a full ceasefire? The Minister welcomed the very positive meeting that was held at the UN General Assembly, but will he update the House on the outcomes of that meeting?

I welcome the decision at the UN Human Rights Council last week to extend the mandate of the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen. Those experts have found evidence of grave violations of international humanitarian law by all sides in the conflict. Does the Minister agree that all alleged violations of international law, by whichever side commits them, must be independently investigated and the perpetrators held fully to account? There can be no peace if we do not have justice.

Finally, there are reports of ceasefire discussions from both Saudi Arabia and the Houthis. These are encouraging reports, but the reports that I hear are about a partial ceasefire. Surely a ceasefire must cover the whole of the country. As we have seen since the Stockholm agreement last year, a ceasefire in one part of the country can simply result in increased fighting and civilian suffering elsewhere. Will the Government do everything in their power to bring about a full nation- wide ceasefire in Yemen?

Let me start by thanking the hon. Gentleman for his tireless efforts as Chair of the International Development Committee in raising awareness of the humanitarian crisis that is going on following the conflict in Yemen. I am grateful for his sustained work supporting the UN-led peace process and the work of the UN special envoy. Yemen, as he rightly said, is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, and it is crucial that we continue to do everything we can to enable a peaceful solution to end the cycles of violence, and I share his statement about the chronic underfunding of the humanitarian relief at the moment. The British Government, our new Prime Minister and our new Foreign Secretary remain committed to keeping Britain at the forefront of efforts to find a political solution to this conflict. We are committed to using our resources to address the humanitarian crisis.

I had to leave the UN General Assembly early because of the recall of Parliament, so I am not fully briefed on what the Prime Minister discussed with the Iranians, but I am more than happy to take that away and find out whether Yemen was discussed with the Iranian Government.

The hon. Gentleman raises the Human Rights Council and the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen. He will be aware that the UK voted in favour of the UN Human Rights Council resolution to renew the mandate of the UN Group of Eminent Experts. Although we welcome the renewal of that mandate, it is disappointing that a single consensus resolution was not possible. We continue to support investigations into allegations and incidents that have happened in this conflict and we continue to push for a ceasefire. It is important, as the hon. Gentleman said, that that covers all parts of the country and that we get as much buy-in as possible. There is no military solution to this conflict; there has to be a political solution. For that to work, everybody must sit round the table and discuss the best way forward.

My hon. Friend is making a very expert defence of the Government’s policy in Yemen, but I wonder whether he could perhaps go even further in celebrating the work that Martin Griffiths has done as the special representative there. Will he also tell us a little bit about the work that his Department and other Departments in Government have done with Governor David Beasley of the World Food Programme? The work of the United Kingdom and others in opening up the port of Hodeidah to ensure that food aid is getting in, and the work that is being done with the Emirates and the Saudis in various other areas, is incredibly important in making sure that we have a coalition that works to relieve suffering in that country. Perhaps the Minister can say what more he and his colleagues will do to ensure that the UK’s voice is indeed the voice of reason and peace in the area.

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his support for the UN special envoy and his work. We all need to support Martin Griffiths, and to ensure that everybody gets behind the UN-led peace process. In my own portfolio of sub-Saharan Africa, I have been impressed—really impressed—by the World Food Programme’s ability to deliver aid to some of the most conflict-afflicted countries. I have seen at first hand its work in South Sudan and Somalia since my appointment and I am more than happy to look further into what it is doing in Yemen. I know that it is doing an incredible amount of work there. At this point, I should add my apologies for the fact that my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa is not in his place. He is undertaking some of his duties as an army reservist, and that is the only reason he is not taking this urgent question.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), the Chair of the International Development Committee, for securing it and for being one of Yemen’s great champions.

I am sorry that the Foreign Secretary himself has not seen fit to answer this question, but then again this is a Foreign Secretary who made a 1,300-word speech in Manchester this weekend and chose not to mention Yemen once, yet on his watch the cycle of indiscriminate violence in Yemen and the scale of the humanitarian crisis are growing worse every day. This weekend, we had unconfirmed reports of a major Houthi strike against Saudi forces inside Saudi Arabia. On this day a month ago, we had the attack by Saudi planes on a Houthi detention centre in Dhamar, killing at least 100 innocent captives. In Aden, we had the ridiculous situation of forces supported by the UAE fighting soldiers loyal to the Hadi Government, which the UAE is supposed to be trying to reinstall, and all the while the toll of innocent children killed by malnutrition and cholera continues to mount. As things stand, there is no end in sight to the conflict and no end in sight to the suffering of the Yemeni people.

This is not only a humanitarian disaster, but a failure of politics. The UK really must pull its finger out and do its duty in the Security Council. As the penholder at the Security Council, it is supposed to table a UN resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire by all parties everywhere in the country. We on the Labour Benches have been calling for that resolution for three and a half years. Can the Minister of State tell us how many more months and years we will have to wait?

Finally, tomorrow will mark exactly one year since Jamal Khashoggi was butchered in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, in large part for his criticism of the war in Yemen. A full 12 months on, this House has still not been presented with the results of the Government’s investigation into who ordered his murder, let alone “the serious consequences” that we were promised from that Dispatch Box would follow. Again, can the Minister tell us how many more months, and now how many more years, we will have to wait?

I thank the shadow Foreign Secretary for her comments. The UK continues to call on all parties to the conflict in Yemen to exercise restraint and to engage constructively with the peace process led by the UN special envoy. We are monitoring claims of attacks in Saudi Arabia and are in contact with our partners to understand exactly what has happened there. We are also deeply concerned about reports of civilian deaths, following recent air strikes—our thoughts are with those who have been affected—and we are working with our partners to try to establish exactly what has happened. We welcome the coalition’s referral of both recent incidents to be investigated by the Joint Incidents Assessment Team. The UK continues to call on all parties to the conflict in Yemen to exercise restraint, to comply fully with international humanitarian law and to engage constructively with the peace process led by the UN special envoy, which is the only way to end this cycle of violence.

I thank the Minister and his Department for their work in helping to alleviate this appalling humanitarian crisis. They have set a superb example to other countries.

What does the Minister make of the recent clashes between the Yemeni Government and the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council, which recently seized control of Aden? Surely everything possible must be done to prevent a civil war emerging within a much bigger civil war.

Does the Minister also agree that the Gulf initiative is probably now no longer valid? May I push him a bit on the need for another UN Security Council resolution, which I think is imperative? Will he comment on the recent outreach by his opposite number, US Assistant Secretary David Schenker, who is trying to speak to the Houthi rebels to bring them into a wide-ranging peace process?

We are working closely with the US as a member of the Quad, and we work well with a number of our international partners. To go back to my original point, I urge restraint on all sides. I read, as I am sure my hon. Friend did, the in-depth article in The Guardian this morning about factional fighting in Yemen, which is obviously of concern. We are trying to establish the facts of these situations. The most important thing, however, is to realise that there is no military solution to the conflict. We urge restraint on all sides. Everyone has to follow the UN peace process.

I, too, thank the Chair of the International Development Committee, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), for securing this urgent and important question.

As the Minister and others have pointed out, this is one of the great humanitarian crises of our age, and one that is not only having a particularly detrimental effect on children but is man-made. I pay tribute, as I am sure we all do, to the extraordinary work of humanitarian organisations in Yemen, in some of the most difficult circumstances. The Minister was right to point to the humanitarian aid from the UK, but it has been eclipsed by the money coming in from arms sales since the start of the war. Surely that should be the other way around. I ask the Minister to address that. In particular since the Secretary of State for International Trade was forced to apologise, what additional measures have been put in place by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, because there were allusions to the failures of the Minister’s Department? Also, will the Minister update us on whether there is anything else of which this House should know or be made aware? Will he suspend any existing licences? We have asked about independent investigations—it was right to bring that up—and will the Minister investigate the alleged bombings of Oxfam water projects? That is incredibly important.

Finally, the UK is the penholder. As the penholder, the UK must be seen as an honest broker. Selling arms to one side while being seen as an honest broker just does not cut it. Will the Minister respond to that?

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the UK contribution to humanitarian assistance. The UK is one of the biggest donors to reconstruction in Yemen and in helping to deal with the immediate humanitarian concerns. Since the Yemen conflict began in 2015, our partners have reported two incidents to us in which UK-funded assets incurred damage as a result of the conflict. We urge all air strikes in which there are civilian casualties, in particular those that hit NGOs, to be fully investigated. We work with our partners to ensure that there are investigations into such matters.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade said in her statement to the House last week, the Government unreservedly apologise for the export licences that were issued in error. She has taken immediate action, including informing the Court of Appeal and Parliament, putting in place immediate interim procedures to ensure that the errors do not happen again, and instigating a full internal review of all licences granted to Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners since 20 June.

My role as the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief involves engaging with international partners multilaterally and bilaterally to promote freedom of religion and belief. The UN has said that Baha’is living in rebel-held territory in Yemen have faced a persistent pattern of persecution, including harassment and arbitrary detention. Will the Minister ensure that freedom of religion is a key priority in all our discussions internationally?

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment. This is something that he has long championed, and I look forward to working with him on this in the coming weeks and months. Freedom of religion and belief in all countries around the world is very important to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In particular, I am keen to see how we can work together on the situation in Yemen.

Unless there is an immediate ceasefire, by the end of this year 233,000 people will have died in Yemen, including 150,000 children under the age of five. What are we doing to try to get a ceasefire through a UN resolution? What are we actually doing? Tell us.

There were conversations about that at the UN General Assembly, which was attended by a number of Ministers. Unfortunately, we all had to cut our programmes short to return to the United Kingdom, but we will continue through the United Nations Security Council and other forums to ensure that the needs of Yemen are always discussed. We will see what we can do. We are leading efforts in support of the UN peace process in this area.

I congratulate the Government on the amount of humanitarian aid that they have given to Yemen. Many NGOs and other organisations are trying to get food to the people in Yemen who desperately need it. Women who are pregnant desperately need that food, because if their children are born stunted—which they will be if they have malnutrition—they will never catch up, impoverishing the whole future of Yemen. Will the Minister please persuade other countries to do their bit just as Britain is doing?