Dear Liam,

As you know, on 20 June the Court of Appeal ruled that your actions when granting export licences for the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen were “irrational and therefore unlawful.” I hope you will agree that the war in Yemen has gone on too long, and the humanitarian consequences have become too great – it’s time for the Government to show some moral standing on the world stage and now take actions which make the situation better rather than worse.

I have noted what you said during last week’s Ministerial Statement, including that the Court’s judgement emphasises how Government advisers were keenly alive to the question of possible violation of  International Humanitarian Law (IHL) – that is encouraging. However, despite overwhelming evidence of repeated violations of international humanitarian law in Yemen, billions of pounds of weapons for use in the conflict have continued to be licensed and it’s clear that being alive to the prospect that arms could be used in violation of IHL has not prevented them being licensed. 

I was not alone in warning that this was the case, back in January 2016, in relation to the legal opinion published by Matrix Chambers which concluded that the Government had misdirected themselves in law in continuing to grant authorisations for the transfer of weapons to Saudi Arabia that were capable of being used in the conflict in Yemen, and which I highlighted to the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in this oral question. The Government’s complacency at the time was staggering and I would urge you to now take the opportunity for a full scale inquiry into the broken arms trade system over which your Department presides, with a view to identifying how it can operate consistently with IHL in future.

In the meantime, whilst your commitment to ”not grant any new licences for exports to Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners that might be used in the conflict in Yemen” is welcome, I hope you will acknowledge the need to go further and agree on behalf of the Government to cancel all weapons sales to all parties fighting in the war in Yemen immediately. This is the only way to completely guarantee in the immediate term that no UK licensed weapons will be used in violation of IHL.

The conflict in Yemen needs a lasting political solution and, as well as helping remove UK licensed arms from the crisis, your Government could play a positive role with a renewed push for  all parties to the conflict to implement the Stockholm Agreement. I hope you will also please continue to drive global action to address the humanitarian crisis, which places millions of Yemeni lives at risk.

Large number of my constituents back these calls and look forward to hearing what action you have taken as a result of the Court of Appeal judgement.

Yours sincerely,