THE UK yesterday moved closer to finalising a multi-billion pound contract to supply Typhoon fighter jets to Saudi Arabia – as a charity chief warned that the kingdom is targeting children with a “growing sense of impunity” by operating aid blockades as part the brutal war in Yemen.

Save the Children’s chief executive Kevin Watkins spoke out on the final day of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s three-day visit to Britain, during the launch of The War On Children, a report into crimes against children in warzones.

He criticised the welcome given to the crown prince, saying that in Yemen the Saudis were “orchestrating what will potentially become the worst famine in the last 50 years”.

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Meanwhile, the UK and Saudi governments signed a memorandum of intent to finalise discussions on a deal for BAE Sytems to supply the fighter planes as Bin Salman met Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson at RAF Northolt ahead of his return to the desert kingdom.

BAE Systems said it was a “positive step towards agreeing a contract” for the 48 state-of-the-art planes.

Any order for UK-built warplanes would spark protests from anti-war campaigners, who mounted demonstrations during the crown prince’s visit over Saudi’s military intervention in Yemen. Andrew Smith, of Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), said the UK had already licensed £4.6 billion of arms for Saudi Arabia since hostilities began in Yemen in 2015.

He said: “If agreed, this shameful deal will be celebrated in the palaces of Riyadh and by the arms companies who will profit from it, but it will mean even greater destruction for the people of Yemen.

“If Theresa May really cares about the rights of people being repressed in Saudi Arabia, or bombed in Yemen, then she must stop arming and supporting the brutal Saudi dictatorship.”

A BAE Systems spokesman said: “We are committed to supporting the kingdom as it modernises the Saudi armed forces and develops key industrial capabilities critical to the delivery of Vision 2030 [the Saudis’ plan to reduce its dependence on oil and diversify its economy] .”

Watkins told The War On Children launch: “It has become acceptable to operate humanitarian blockades which, if not explicitly designed to starve children and harm children, will have that inevitable consequence.

“The fact that we have the head of state of a government that has been operating such a blockade – Saudi Arabia – recently invited to Buckingham Palace and Downing Street while the military ... is orchestrating what will potentially become the worst famine in the last 50 years, I think speaks volumes to another aspect of the problem that I want to highlight – the growing sense of impunity surrounding these crimes against children.

“The fact that you can rape, murder, kidnap, bomb schools, bomb clinics with no consequence, speaks I think to the heart of the deeper challenge that we are addressing today.”

Yemen, which borders southern Saudi Arabia, has been embroiled in a bloody civil war since 2014 when rebels took over the capital city, Sanaa. Saudi Arabia is the main player in a coalition supporting the Yemeni government against the Houthis in a war which has caused a humanitarian catastrophe.

Bin Salman was treated to a private dinner with the Prime Minister at Chequers on Thursday night and also met with the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cambridge.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “The Prime Minister raised our deep concerns at the humanitarian situation in Yemen. The Prime Minister and crown prince agreed on the importance of full and unfettered humanitarian and commercial access, including through the ports, and that a political solution was ultimately the only way to end the conflict and humanitarian suffering in Yemen.”