Citizens committee puts Saudi arms sales under scrutiny

The failure of Britain’s “broken select committee system” to mount a new inquiry into UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia has prompted a group of MPs, arms sales analysts and former army officers to form its own citizens committee to argue against the multibillion-pound weapons contracts.

Nearly half of UK arms sales go to Saudi Arabia, which is involved in an intractable five-year civil war in Yemen where international law has been violated by both sides.

Related: UK arms sales are factor in humanitarian crisis in Yemen, court hears

The new citizens committee on arms sales (CCAS), meeting in Westminster on Tuesday, is due to take evidence from Yemeni human rights campaigners speaking from the capital Sana’a as well as a former UK brigadier to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, who has previously claimed the UK is breaking its own rules by selling arms for use in Yemen.

The meeting came as MPs from the all-party parliamentary group on Yemen wrote to the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, imploring him “to use every available tool to put pressure on our allies in the UAE and Saudi Arabia to bring about an end to the conflict. The UK has a strong relationship with Saudi Arabia and this must be used”.

One of the academics giving evidence to the CCAS is Anna Stavrianakis, a senior lecturer in international relations at the University of Sussex. She said: “Our parliamentary system of scrutiny is deeply flawed if options for ending the exports of these specific arms is not the subject of a current inquiry.”

She pointed out that former brigadier John Deverell, who is due to address the meeting, had said it was complete nonsense to suggest if the UK ended arms sales, Saudi could simply purchase the arms elsewhere, one of the claims most frequently made in defence of continued sales.

Related: Campaigners head to court to stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia

She added the official parliamentary committee on arms export controls (CAEC), drawn from four other select committees – defence, foreign, trade and international development – had refused to hold a specific inquiry into Saudi arms sales, favouring instead generic technical inquiries into UK arms export controls legislation. Government evidence to the generic inquiry is five paragraphs long.

Lloyd Russell-Moyle, a Labour MP and member of the CAEC, said: “It’s an open secret within CAEC that it is broken and has been prevented from holding the government to account.

“CAEC is meant to ensure that the government follows arms export control law, which is clearly being violated by Saudi Arabia on several grounds such as targeting civilians in Yemen and diverting arms to its proxies in the region. It’s not just Saudi though; the government is licensing powerful dual-use mass-surveillance kit to autocrats around the world.”

He called for a new arms control committee to be established with an elected chairman.

The CCAS is not entirely an academic exercise, because the Foreign Office is known to recognise that a sharp shift in UK policy to Saudi Arabia is inevitable if Jeremy Corbyn forms a government after the next election. One civil servant said: “UK Middle East policy will be turned upside down. It would be remiss if we, as civil servants, were not planning for it now.”

Labour’s front bench peace and disarmament spokesman, Fabian Hamilton, has recently urged the UK to boycott the G20 summit of world leaders if it is held next year as planned in Riyadh.

Related: Despite the slaughter in Yemen, Britain is still chasing arms sales | Andrew Smith

There is also frustration that the CAEC’s chairman, the Labour MP Graham Jones, represents a constituency, Hyndburn, in which arms production forms a backbone of many of his constituents’ livelihoods. Unlike most select committee chairs, Jones was appointed by fellow members rather than elected to his post in a ballot of all MPs. He argues his committee is looking for gaps in the ways the arms export control regime operates and for greater transparency.

The backdrop to Tuesday’s assembly includes a long-awaited court of appeal verdict into whether UK government is abiding by its own commitment not to supply weapons where there is a clear risk that they might be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law. The judges’ ruling is expected by the summer.