Libya

Damian Green Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Speaking from memory, I think that our current assessment—the last assessment I have seen—is that there are probably up to about 3,000 Daesh fighters in Libya, of whom a significant number would be foreign fighters. There is a generally accepted view that what Daesh is doing in Libya at the moment is very much a holding operation, seeking to hold an area of ground, possibly as a bolthole if it finds that its freedom of manoeuvre and freedom to operate is coming under intolerable pressure in Syria. There are many pointers to the fact that now is the time to move against Daesh in Libya, while its presence is still relatively thin on the ground and while its operation is very much in a holding phase.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

One measure of success of the new Libyan Government will be the creation of a functioning economy and, as a step towards that, a functioning central bank. Can Britain play any role in helping them achieve that?

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, and yesterday I offered Prime Minister Sarraj technical support in relation to the central bank, the national oil company and the Libyan Investment Authority. It is a tribute to Libyan resilience and ingenuity that international partners recognise the figures who have continued to run those institutions throughout this period of chaos over the past few years as technically competent and well motivated—they have been doing a good job. Prime Minister Sarraj has now brought the competing appointees—the eastern and the western chairmen of each of those institutions—together to work together and to seek to forge consensus on how the institutions can go forward as truly national institutions on a collaborative basis.