Oral Answers to Questions

Douglas Alexander Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

There is certainly scope to take other non-violent means and the hon. Lady has provided some examples of it. I believe it is important to discuss them with our international partners before announcing them in any detail or giving notice of their coming into effect, but she is quite right to draw attention to the potential for further measures.

[Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary has rightly said that Libya is in breach of United Nations Security Council resolution 1970. He went on to state this morning that

“not every nation sees eye-to-eye on issues such as a no-fly zone”.

Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm whether specific proposals for a no-fly zone were tabled for discussion at the NATO Defence Ministers meeting last Thursday, at the European Council last Friday or, indeed, at the G8 Foreign Ministers meeting today?

[Mr Hague]

When it comes to specific proposals, NATO is responsible for contingency planning and it is conducting it for specific plans for a no-fly zone. The other meetings were more at the level of political discussion of what is desirable. There are differences of view among many countries about this issue. What was agreed by G8 Foreign Ministers this morning was that we welcomed the recent declaration by the Arab League calling for a number of measures to protect and support the Libyan population. Clearly, what was called for by the Arab League included reference to a no-fly zone.

[Mr Alexander]

Yesterday the Prime Minister told the House, in response to a question from the Leader of the Opposition about arming the rebels:

“We should not exclude various possibilities, and there is an argument to be made, but there are important legal, practical and other issues that would have to be resolved, including the UN arms embargo.”—[Official Report, 14 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 30.]

Can the Foreign Secretary update the House on the Government’s position on each of those issues, given the deteriorating situation of the anti-Gaddafi forces on the ground?

[Mr Hague]

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was quite right. The arms embargo agreed in United Nations resolution 1970 covers the whole country—that is, as it is understood by the members of the Security Council and by the vast majority of legal experts. The rebels and the Gaddafi regime are therefore in the same position as regards the arms embargo. One way of changing that would be to produce a new resolution, which would again require the agreement of the United Nations Security Council.

In the G8 this morning, we agreed to welcome urgent consideration in the United Nations of

“a wide range of measures to ensure the protection of the Libyan population”

and to

“increase the pressure, including through economic measures, for Mr Qadhafi to leave.”

That now requires additional work at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hague]

I join my hon. Friend in deploring any incitement of terrorism by anyone on any side of the disputes in the middle east. We are not aware as Ministers of the particular instance to which he refers, but if he would like to get in touch with us with the details we will, of course, look into it.

[Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

May I associate myself and my colleagues with the Foreign Secretary’s expression of sympathy towards the people of Japan at this terrible time? The right hon. Gentleman told the House on 14 February that the British Government had

“received a request from the Egyptian Government to freeze the assets of several former Egyptian officials.”—[Official Report, 14 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 715.]

Will he tell the House whether he has acted on that request from the Egyptian authorities and gone ahead and frozen the assets of all those former officials?

[Mr Hague]

We have acted on that request with our European Union partners. One difficulty with pursuing this to the necessary point of freezing the actual assets is the lack of information that has been supplied by the Egyptian authorities. We have urged progress within the European Union so that this is done on an EU basis, and that means that the decisive action remains to be taken. The UK has been at the forefront of the arguments in the EU to take action.