Government Response

The Government responded to this petition on Thursday 6th August 2020

The UK Government shares your concern at the appalling situation in Yemen. We are doing everything we can to find a sustainable political solution to the conflict and end the humanitarian crisis.

The UK is deeply concerned about the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in Yemen. We fully support the efforts of the UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths, who is leading on the peace process, and we work closely with the UN and international partners to support this vital work. We engage with all sides to the conflict and urge them to work constructively with the Special Envoy and agree to his proposals. In particular, in our engagements with the Houthis we are clear that close co-operation with the UN is the best means of achieving a peaceful and sustainable resolution to the Yemen conflict. The UK has been at the forefront of international efforts to reach a political settlement to the conflict, which is the only way to bring long-term stability to Yemen and to address the worsening humanitarian crisis. We have also used our role as penholder at the UN Security Council to help push the peace process forward. We welcome the Saudi-brokered talks to revive the Riyadh Agreement between the Southern Transitional Council (STC) and the Yemeni Government, which we hope will end the fighting in the South that threatened to derail the peace process. The UK often speaks to senior members of the Government and the STC to support implementation of the agreement.

We wholeheartedly agree that Yemen needs our help. To help Yemeni people in dire need, the Government has committed almost £1 billion in UK Aid since the conflict began in 2015. This financial year we pledged £160 million in funding. We expect that this will provide support to at least 300,000 vulnerable people each month to help them buy food and household essentials, treat 40,000 children for malnutrition and provide 1 million people with improved water supply and basic sanitation. Our pledge will also help the UN to tackle the spread of COVID-19 and we expect our support to provide over 700,000 medical consultations for a range of health conditions, train 1,500 healthcare workers to work safely in a COVID-19 environment and provide a much-needed boost to nearly 600 health centres, so that they can continue to provide existing health services.

Yemen is a high priority for the UK Government, and we will continue to expend every effort to bring an end to the suffering of the Yemeni people.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Parliamentary Debate

This petition has reached the threshold for a Parliamentary debate, but the debate has not been held. The Petitions Committee gave the following explanation.

The Petitions Committee agreed not to schedule a debate on this petition, because MPs debated the situation in Yemen on Thursday 24 September in the main House of Commons Chamber. The petition was tagged to this debate so that MPs taking part in the debate were aware of it.