Saudi foreign minister to brief MPs after controversy over Yemen conflict and questions in Commons about adherence to international humanitarian law

The Saudi foreign minister is to brief British MPs personally to urge them not to ban UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia in light of UN claims that British weapons were used to conduct indiscriminate attacks in Yemen on hospitals, markets and cities.



The Westminster briefing by Adel Al-Jubeir on Wednesday comes hours before the select committee on the control of arms exports meets to decide whether to call for a ban on arms sales, a move that would represent a seismic shift in Middle East policy.

The foreign office minister, Tobias Ellwood, on Monday apologised to the Commons for inaccurate answers given by ministers. They said the government had assessed that the Saudis had not breached international humanitarian law in Yemen. He said the error, acknowledged just before the summer parliamentary recess in July, was not part of a plot to mislead of MPs.

The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, also published a written statement to MPs insisting arms sales to Saudi Arabia could continue because there was no evidence of a serious risk that the international humanitarian law would be violated if the UK continued to supply arms.

Ellwood, brought to the Commons by the Speaker, John Bercow, to clarify the government position in light of Johnson’s statement, said it was not for the UK government to conclude whether individual bombing incidents by the Saudis represented breaches of international humanitarian law (IHL), but instead to “take an overall view of the approach and attitude by Saudi Arabia to international humanitarian law”.

He said: “We are not acting to determine whether a sovereign state has or has not acted in the breach of IHL but instead … we are acting to make an overall judgment.” It would not be possible for the UK to take a view on every bombing incident in a conflict to which the UK was not a party, Ellwood said.

In his written parliamentary statement, Johnson said: “All export licence applications are assessed on a case-by-case basis against the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria, taking account of all relevant factors at the time of the application.

“The key test for our continued arms exports to Saudi Arabia in relation to IHL is whether there is a clear risk that those weapons might be used in a commission of a serious violation of IHL.

“Having regard to all the information available to us, we assess that this test has not been met.”

He added that he believed Saudi Arabia was best placed to investigate any allegations made against it of breaches of humanitarian law.

In August a Saudi-led Joint Investigation Assessment team published a resume of an internal Saudi investigation into eight controversial bombing raids in Yemen, including attacks on hospitals, markets and cities. That inquiry exonerated the raids, largely on the grounds of acting on the basis of intelligence that enemy forces were in the area.

Labour MPs described the contradictions in the government position as Kafkaesque, while the charity Oxfam said the government had a simple choice between complying with international law or remaining party to a war that has led to the death of thousands of Yemeni civilians.

Stephen Doughty, a Labour MP on the arms controls committee, said: “Ministers continue to be all over the place on whether violations of international humanitarian law have occurred in Yemen in light of Saudi Arabia admitting serious mistakes last month and that hospitals and World Food Programme convoys had been hit.

“It is simply not good enough for ministers to rely on Saudi assurances on such serious matters where civilians have been targeted.”

Hilary Benn, the former shadow foreign secretary, called on the government “to suspend sales until it had made a proper assessment and can explain to MPs why it believes IHL has not been breached in Yemen when the UN clearly says it has”.

He added the government had given no satisfactory explanation as to why it had consistently failed to provide accurate answers or explain why once errors were identified, ministers took 27 days to inform MPs of them.

Ellwood conceded the Saudis had moved slowly to conduct the investigations and it would be a major step forward if the country signed the international treaty banning the use of cluster munitions. He said a future Saudi inquiry would look into whether it had been using cluster munitions in its bombing campaign, as has been alleged by some charities.



Defending the Saudi response to criticisms of its campaign, Ellwood said: “It was new territory for Saudi Arabia and a conservative nation was not used to such exposure.”



In a sign that the dissent was spreading to Conservative benches, five Tory MPs also criticised the Saudi approach, but Ellwood said errors in targeting were always possible in the midst of thousands of air sorties.

The Campaign Against the Arms Trade said the UK had licensed more than £3.3bn worth of arms sales to Saudi Arabia since the bombing of Yemen began in March 2015.

The Saudi campaign is designed to drive back Houthi resistance to the elected government of Yemen and has the support of UN resolutions.