Yemen — House of Commons, 2019-03-26
Topic: International Affairs
Mark Christopher Field (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope you will indulge me for just one moment, Mr Speaker, while I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who has left office and, in a normal state of affairs, would have been answering this question. He is a very old friend of mine. We have shared offices not just in the Foreign Office but in Portcullis House. I know that he will make a great contribution to international affairs and elsewhere, not least in the middle east, in the rest of his time in Parliament Today is the fourth anniversary of the intervention by the Saudi-led coalition into the conflict in Yemen, at the invitation of the Government of Yemen, which began when the Houthi rebels captured most of the capital, Sana’a, and expelled the internationally recognised Government. Since then, Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, the largest in the world, has continued to worsen, as many hon. and right hon. Members know. We call on both sides urgently to implement the agreements made at the Stockholm peace talks and bring an end to this dire conflict The United Kingdom is at the forefront of work towards a political solution to this conflict—there can only be a political solution, in the long term—and we will continue to show leadership as part of international efforts to end the appalling suffering that millions are facing. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary visited the region at the beginning of the month in a display of the UK’s support for efforts to secure peace. During this time, he visited the port city of Aden, becoming the first western Foreign Minister to visit Yemen since the conflict began. He also attended the peace talks in Stockholm last December. This year—the tax year 2019-20—we have committed an additional £200 million of UK aid, bringing our total commitment to over £770 million since the conflict began. This support will save, and indeed is saving, lives by meeting the immediate food needs of more than 1 million Yemenis each and every month of the year, treating 30,000 children for malnutrition, and providing more than 1 million people with improved water supply and basic sanitation The UK continues to support the work of the UN, and the UK-led UN Security Council resolutions 2451 and 2452 were unanimously approved by the Security Council in December 2018 and January 2019 respectively. Those resolutions enshrined the agreements made in Stockholm and authorised the deployment of monitors within the UN Mission to Support the Hodeidah Agreement, thus bolstering the peace process further. We believe that the Stockholm conference was a landmark point, as the first time that the parties had come to the negotiating table in over two years, but we all know that there is a serious risk that this window of opportunity to make progress towards lasting peace may slip away. The UK therefore urges both sides to act in good faith, to co-operate with the UN special envoy and General Lollesgaard, and to implement the Stockholm agreements rapidly. We have been clear that a political settlement is the one and only way to bring about long-term stability in Yemen and to address the worsening humanitarian crisis. We shall continue to make every effort to support the UN-led process to get to the solution that so many Yemeni civilians so desperately require.