MPs call on Government to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia

Theresa May is believed to have raised the subject during her meetings with China.

In the past six years, Britain has sold weapons to 39 out of 51 countries ranked not free on Freedom Houses index.

The UK government said it had received assurances from Saudi Arabia but the committee said this was not sufficient.

The UN last week said at least 10,000 people have been killed in the 18-month Yemeni war.

Thousands of Yemeni civilians have already been killed and injured in devastating Saudi-led coalition airstrikes and theres strong evidence that further weapons sales to Saudi Arabia are not just ill-advised but actually illegal.

This comes as there are renewed calls for the United Kingdom to ban arms sales to Saudi as a result of the use of the weapons in creating a humanitarian crisis in Yemen.

The Yemen conflict, where British munitions are in use, has seen schools and hospitals flattened during intense bombing from Saudi forces. Government ministers have been complicit in the destruction.

In July, a Human Rights Watch report showed what was described as “compelling evidence” that British-made weapons had been used in attacks on civilians in Yemen.

The claims come after Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on Monday defended the selling of arms to Saudi Arabia for potential use in Yemen’s bloody civil war, insisting the export of weapons to the country would continue.

A joint analysis conducted by The Independent and the Campaign Against the Arms Trade found £7.9bn worth of arms was sold to countries on the human rights priority list, which is maintained by the Foreign Office and includes countries judged by the FCO to have “the worst, or greatest number of, human rights violations” of which Saudi Arabia is one of them.

Its draft report, seen by Newsnight’s Gabriel Gatehouse, said: “The weight of evidence of violations of global humanitarian law by the Saudi-led coalition is now so great, that it is very hard to continue to support Saudi Arabia”. “Having regard to all the information available to us, we assess this test has not been met”.

The select committee on arms export controls is due to meet this week, and a cross-party group of MPs is set to push the committee to include the proposal in a report on the issue, The Guardian reported.