Graham Jones
Graham Jones is the UK Labour Party MP for Hyndburn. He was elected in May 2010.[1]
Contents
Controversies
Cheerleader for Saudi Prince's visit and BAE's Typhoon arms deal
Jones is the chair of the Committees on Arms Export Controls which oversees what Prime Minister Theresa May calls Britain's 'tight arms export regime'. This body, made up of four select committees, is tasked with investigating 'allegations of arms not being used within the law', such as that of UK military hardware supplied to Saudi Arabia being used in Yemen.
According to Private Eye:
- The regime in question is overseen by the Commons committee on arms export controls, chaired by Labour MP for Hyndburn Graham Jones, who is one of parliament’s strongest supporters of the Saudi Arabian government. Writing on the PoliticsHome website ahead of MBS’s visit, Jones drooled that the Crown Prince was “overseeing an ambitious programme of social and economic reform… [and] has also prioritised tackling extremism in his own country and across the wider region”.
- When it came to selling arms to MBS, government and parliament had approved the deals and a judicial review brought by anti-arms-trade campaigners had been defeated. Protesters, Jones lamented, were “ignoring the rulings made in the high court, the decision of the government and the will of parliament”. [2]
Private Eye also pointed out the conflict of interest in Jones's position as chair of a committee tasked with deciding whether arms sales were legitimate:
- Jones is also a champion of BAE Systems. In 2016 he wrote: “The government must remember the hundreds of high-skilled jobs which depend on our exports to Saudi Arabia. This is no clearer [than] in Hyndburn, where many east Lancashire companies rely on the export of Typhoons.” Scrutiny of the use of British weapons in Yemen thus depends on a man whose hardly secure 5,815 majority gives him quite a stake in the commercial fortunes of the chief bomb-dropper.
Parliamentary questions
Brimstone missiles used by Saudi Arabia in Yemen?
Brimstone is an air-launched ground attack missile developed by MBDA for Britain's Royal Air Force. In October 2017 Jones asked the MOD the following written parliamentary question
- To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what estimate he has made of the number of Brimstone missiles used by Saudi Arabia in the conflict on Yemen.
To which the former Defence minister Michael Fallon replied: 'None'. [3]
Select Committees
- Committees on Arms Export Controls(formerly Quadripartite Committee) -chair since October 2017
- Defence Committee
Staff
- Julie Milligan [4]
- Benjamin Swanson - Overseas visit: 11-15 November 2015 to Israel and West Bank on fact-finding delegation, funded by Fatah UK [4]
Electoral results
Jones was elected in May 2010 with a majority vote of 3,090[5] and in May 2015 with a majority of 4,400.[6]
Affiliations
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Contact
Constituency
- Address: 50 Abbey Street, Accrington, Lancashire, BB5 1EE
- Telephone: 01254 382283
- Fax: 01254 398089
Parliamentary
- Address: House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
- Telephone: 020 7219 7089
- Fax: 020 7219 2492
- Email: graham.jones.mp@parliament.uk
Web & Social media
- Website: http://hhgrahamjones.blogspot.co.uk
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/grahamjones_mp
Notes
- ↑ BBC News Hyndburn, accessed 15 May 2015.
- ↑ Saudi deal creates a desert pong - Arms exports, Issue 1466 Private Eye,
- ↑ Hansard Written questions and answers (Ministry of Defence Saudi Arabia: Guided Weapons109285), parliament.uk, accessed 26 March 2018
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Register of interests of members' secretaries and research assistants, 23 March 2016, parliament.uk, accessed 21 April 2016
- ↑ Graham Jones MP www.parliament.uk, accessed 9 March 2015
- ↑ BBC News Hyndburn, accessed 15 May 2015.
