Libya

Andrew Love Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for what he said. The key is building up—and my right hon. Friend the International Development Secretary has been key to this—a Libyan-led and Libyan-owned plan for transition. It is Libya’s plan—we have assisted and helped to co-ordinate, but it is the Libyans’ plan; others can then slot into it. It has been interesting to hear what they want—not always the things that one might expect. The biggest single demand made in Paris was for temporary classrooms, because so many schools had been used by Gaddafi’s forces, and for some temporary housing. We will fit into these requests, but it is a Libyan-led plan.

[Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I understand that it is indeed early days for the new Libya, but will the Prime Minister say a little more about the discussions about unfreezing assets? While there is justifiably a need and an urgency to distribute these assets, there are also some concerns about whether they will go to the correct places and whether the concerns expressed around the Chamber will come to fruition, as they might be affected by these assets. Will the Prime Minister say a little more about the discussions so far?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. What we are doing at the moment is taking through parts of unfreezing assets on an ad hoc basis through the UN Security Council. We were able to unfreeze the Libyan dinars printed by De La Rue in this country, and we can now distribute them back to the Libyan people. As for making sure that they are properly received, as I said in my statement there should be a proper accounting and transparency initiative in Libya. As for a more general asset release, we need a new UN resolution, and we are pushing for it, but we do not want to lose what we have at the moment, which is a UN resolution that enables the NATO mission to go on protecting civilians. It is a balance: we want to get both those things so that the assets can be unfrozen more broadly.