Hammond ‘misled MPs over Saudi strikes with UK bombs’

PHILIP Hammond should be hauled before MPs to explain why Parliament was misled about the use of British-made cluster bombs by Saudi Arabian forces in Yemen, Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said last night.

In an unprecedented move, a Foreign Office minister issued ‘corrections’ late on Thursday to six statements on the Yemen crisis dating back almost six months.

Tobias Ellwood admitted ministers should not have said they had assessed that there was no breach of international law by Saudi Arabia.

Mr Farron demanded that Mr Hammond, now Chancellor but foreign secretary at the time, should be brought before the Commons to explain the ‘deliberate’ misinformation.

MPs and campaigners have been pressing the Government on a Saudi-led coalition’s use of British weapons and expertise in its bloody incursion in neighbouring Yemen.

The country has been embroiled in civil war since 2014 when Shia rebels, known as the Houthis, toppled the Saudi-backed government.

A UN report last month found the coalition had killed more than 500 children in its year-long campaign of airstrikes. More than 6,000 people, about half of them civilians, are believed to have died in the conflict since March last year.

In statements dating back to February, ministers said that ‘we have assessed that there has not been a breach of international humanitarian law by the

‘He must explain the actions of the ministers he led’

coalition’. But Mr Ellwood admitted on Thursday that they should have said ‘we have been unable to assess that there has been a breach of international humanitarian law by the Saudi-led coalition’.

The written answer, sneaked out among more than 30 such statements released on the last day before the Commons summer break, also said it was not for the UK Government to assess the Saudi bombing operation.

Mr Farron said: ‘Foreign Office ministers have been deliberately misleading Parliament for months on this issue.

‘It is inexcusable for the Government to wait until the last day before recess to issue corrections on statements, some of which were made over six months ago.

‘The ministerial code says ministers must make corrections at the earliest possible opportunity, which does not mean half a year later in a hope no one notices.’

He added that Mr Hammond should ‘come to the House and explain himself and the actions of the ministers he led’.

In January, as foreign secretary, Mr Hammond said: ‘I regularly review the situation with my own advisers and have discussed it on numerous occasions with my Saudi counterpart.

‘Our judgment is that there is no evidence that international humanitarian law has been breached.’