Middle East and North Africa

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Just because we cannot do everything does not mean that we should not do something. It has of course not been possible to save every life in Libya—this is an extremely messy and difficult situation—but the hon. Gentleman should be proud of the fact that, although he voted with a heavy heart, the vote in this House, and that in other Parliaments, to support military action has probably saved thousands of lives and saved tens or hundreds of thousands of people from a desperately difficult humanitarian situation. It is better to vote with a heavy heart than to be a faint heart about this situation.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

The Foreign Secretary carefully draws the distinction that the equipment supplied by Britain to the Libyan transitional national council is of a non-lethal nature, but in an era of improvised explosive devices how confident can we be that even telecoms equipment might not ultimately have a lethal use?

[Mr Hague]

We can be fairly confident that the transitional national council very much wants to use the telecommunications equipment that we have given it as telecommunications equipment, as it is doing. It would not be productive to divert that into other things. The other equipment that we have given is body armour, and it is quite difficult to use that in any way other than to save life.