North Africa and the Middle East

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Qatari forces are taking part in the enforcement of the no-fly zone.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

In these troubled times, Governments are swift to announce asset freezes for these astonishingly wealthy ruling elites. When a regime ultimately falls, as may turn out to be the case in Libya, what then happens to those assets?

[Mr Hague]

These assets belong to the people of Libya, and so in all normal circumstances—if we can describe any of these circumstances as normal—they would be available to a future Government of Libya. They are frozen, not confiscated. In this case, of course, they are very substantial. In the UK, we have frozen £12 billion of assets; in the United States, I think there were $30 billion of assets. That just shows that the Libyan people could have a much more prosperous future if they had a more economically open and politically free approach. Those assets are held for them.