Speeches

Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-06-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to the UN Secretary-General’s report on Children and Armed Conflict, published in April 2016, if his Department will support the immediate establishment of an international, impartial investigation into reported international humanitarian law violations by all parties in the conflict.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

The UK Government has been clear that we want to see thorough and conclusive investigations where allegations have been made against parties to the conflict in Yemen regarding international humanitarian law. The Saudi Arabian government has its own internal procedures for investigations and they announced more detail on how they investigate such incidents earlier this year and that any lessons learned would be acted upon. We note the announcement on 6 June of the UN Secretary, Ban Ki Moon, that the United Nations and the Saudi-led Coalition will jointly review the cases and numbers in the Children and Armed Conflict Report.