United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973

Dai Havard Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We need to be clear who is intervening. I think it is the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard).

[Mr Dai Havard (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

The legal advice summary, which I have only just seen—we have not seen the whole thing—clearly excludes

“a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory”

but also says that the resolution

“further authorises Member States to use all measures…to carry out inspections aimed at the enforcement of the arms embargo”.

Does that mean that on the one hand we cannot have troops on the ground, but on the other hand we might allow people to make inspections or go there for search and rescue purposes? Is there clarity about having no troops on the ground in Libya?

[The Prime Minister]

The point about the legal advice, which refers back to the UN Security Council resolution, is that it makes provision to put in place an arms embargo and to inspect ships going to Libya. A number of countries have volunteered their forces specifically for that purpose, which we should welcome.

That brings me to my next point. Some accept that Britain should play a part but worry that we might shoulder an unfair burden. I want to assure the House that that is not the case. Let me explain how the coalition will work. It is operating under US command, with the intention that that will transfer to NATO, which will mean that all the NATO allies—I read out a list earlier of who wants to contribute—will be able to contribute. Clearly, the mission would benefit from that and from using NATO’s tried and tested command and control machinery.

With the fourth largest defence budget in the world, Britain clearly has the means to play its part, but given that British troops are engaged in Afghanistan, that part must be in line with our resources, and so it will be. No resources have been diverted from the Afghanistan campaign to carry out the enforcement of resolution 1973, and I have the assurance of the Chief of the Defence Staff that both operations can take place concurrently. Crucially, the impact of what we are doing in Libya will not affect our mission in Afghanistan.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dai Havard (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

I would like to say something about the resolution and the immediate deployments, and then perhaps something about the exit strategy, the context in which all this is happening and its domestic effects over time.

Like everyone else, I have struggled with the question of moral relativism. Sometimes, the right statement comes out of the wrong mouth, which is difficult to deal with. However, there has been an ambivalence—certainly on the left—about revolutionary dictators in different parts of the world. My internationalism, which comes from my ethical socialism, has trumped all that, so on this occasion, because the proposal has UN support—something we claimed we needed for other things in the past—I will support the motion. However, I need to be clear: I will be supporting the Libyan people, the United Nations and Parliament, as opposed to the Government. There is a question about the Government keeping Parliament involved in the process, to which we will come back a number of times.

I have had the privilege of meeting armed service personnel, some of whom are probably delivering some of the activity at the moment: people forget about the T-boats, but suddenly they are terribly important. There are questions about aircraft—it was a little ironic to see American Harriers hopping back to their carrier, whereas our jets had to go a long way. There are all sorts of ironies in these things.

The question of intelligence for targeting is hugely important. We know that we cannot alienate the people; we need to show them that we are there to support them, and to do so. The illustration yesterday of an intelligent targeting process was very welcome and will, I think, pay enormous dividends, but it must be maintained.

On the no-fly zone, the Americans say, “Well, we’ve done that now. It’s in place. Job done.” I hope it is not “Mission accomplished”, as the Americans claimed in the last exercise we saw. The truth is that it is not a done deal. There might be some form of no-fly zone and sea blockade in place, but I asked about the clarity of the mandates, from which comes the clarity—or not—of the missions that are undertaken, and there clearly is not just one mission.

I do not want to go into the dispute about whether a decapitation strategy is necessary for Gaddafi. We need to understand that Gaddafi is an Arab and an African—he does not think as I think. He will do all sorts of things; we know that and we need to respond. The hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace) made some interesting points that need to be pursued. We need clarity about the mandate.

It was suggested earlier that we could bend the arms embargo to arm certain groups of people. Let us be very clear: we cannot bend anything. If we start doing that, there will be moral relativism and we will lose the legitimacy we have just achieved through the endorsement of the United Nations and through the broader coalition of people coming to support us.

The point I am trying to make is that this is not just about Parliament talking to Arab leaders. It is not just about diplomacy among the leaderships—between the party leaders in this country or between Arab leaders—but about diplomacy and a conversation with, as everyone now calls it, the Arab street. Let us engage in that discussion and see some effort put in. We need people on the ground, not as an occupation force but to help conduct such activity. That is doubtless already happening, to some degree—men in black with beards are doing wonderful things, and they will need some more support. The burden of effort needs to shift to the diplomatic efforts, in their broader sense, to provide some sort of solution. There is no kinetic solution—there is an intelligence-led solution that needs to be—

[Mr Burrowes]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Havard]

No, I am sorry but time will not allow me to do so.

Let me say something about the exit strategy. We need to do all the things I have mentioned and a lot of other things that I do not have time to itemise now, but it is important to ask who we do them with and where we do them. Will we train people? Where will we train them? Who will help with the training? The Arab states’ involvement in the process is key. We need to internationalise it and to do so much more than we have in the past.

There is also a question of sustainability. We are still in Afghanistan. We need to get real about what we can and cannot do and we then need a conversation about the domestic effects of all this. There are domestic effects on the strategic defence and security review and other matters. Will we have the capability to operate in the littoral in the future? Discuss. The Defence Committee will discuss these matters but Parliament needs to do so too. We need to be very clear about the question of sustainability over time, because this is not just about the military—it is about the Department for International Development and about foreign policy. We need a clearer foreign policy, as was stated earlier. Unless we have an idea of what we are trying to do, we will not equip ourselves to do it.

I support the Libyan people, our armed forces and their families and this deployment, but—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I call James Arbuthnot.