United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973

Debate between Jack Straw and Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard), who is Vice-Chairman of the Defence Committee. I hope to return to one of his observations later in my speech.

On Friday, I described the Prime Minister’s drive towards achieving the resolution as showing “courage and leadership”, but today let me first pay tribute to the courage and leadership shown by our armed forces. As John Nichol found when he was enforcing the no-fly zone in Iraq, those who fly into hostile territory take extreme personal risks. As ever, we make decisions that they then carry out, and we owe them as much as they are prepared to sacrifice on our behalf, which is everything. In that context, it was an extreme honour to be in the Chamber to hear the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins). It was one of the most powerful and moving speeches that I have heard in the House, and I hope that others listen to it as well.

However, political actions, too, show moral courage or the lack of it. The safe thing to do would have been to leave the leadership to the United States or to countries nearer to Libya, probably in Africa. There was a large chance—and I have to say that it was my own expectation—that the resolution would fail. Demanding publicly something quite so controversial shows not only real clarity about what is right and wrong, but a willingness to risk rebuff and potential humiliation in order to do right. I am proud that we have a Prime Minister and a Foreign Secretary who are willing to take such risks.

All the arguments against the resolution were considered by the United Nations in exhaustive detail and, in the end, rejected. Britain’s United Nations ambassador, Sir Mark Lyall Grant, is clearly a persuasive and respected man and is very, very good at what he does. We could have said that it was a matter for the Libyans; we could have left it to them, whatever the cost to civilians. But when the League of Arab States takes a different view, that suggests strongly that we ourselves should consider whether we should be so laissez-faire: our doing so would have had consequences elsewhere. Just as Arab countries were showing themselves ready to throw off tyranny, we would have been sending the message that the correct response for a tyrant is, in Gaddafi’s words, to show no pity and no mercy, and that message would have been heeded throughout the world. I therefore entirely support the motion.

However, this is only the beginning. There are some serious questions that need answering, and they will trouble those who support the motion just as much as they will trouble those who do not. First, what is the end state that we want to achieve? Obviously we would like to see the back of Gaddafi, but that is not part of the United Nations resolution; so with what will we be satisfied? Secondly, in general terms, what is our strategy for reaching whatever end state we wish to be satisfied with, and how will we decide when we have done so?

[Mr Straw]

The right hon. Gentleman is, of course, correct to say that “getting rid of Gaddafi” is not part of resolution 1973, but the resolution that preceded it—resolution 1970, which provides for the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to investigate crimes against humanity in Libya—could easily bring about the arrest and incarceration of Colonel Gaddafi under international law. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we need to factor that into our strategy?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I entirely agree. On Friday I asked whether the aims of resolution 1973 were impossible to reach unless Gaddafi were gone. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, however, said that the resolution was about giving protection to the civilians, with which I entirely agree. He went on to say that it was about giving the Libyan people the chance to determine their own future. I do not see anything in the resolution that says that, but I think we need to be clear about it.

Thirdly, will further resolutions from the United Nations be needed or sought as a result of some of the questions that will arise during this debate?

The fourth question is about exactly how far the advice of the Attorney-General takes us. We must be absolutely clear about what is sanctioned by the resolution and what is not. The summary of the Attorney-General’s advice is clear, because enforcing the no-fly zone is clearly allowed by the UN resolution. However, we need to know not only that what we are doing is legal but how far, legally, we are entitled to go. We must not leave a chink that will let people say, “The resolution allowed some things, true, but not this.”

Fifthly, will the Treasury be generous? Will my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer allow the Ministry of Defence to concentrate, at least for the next few months, on these operations rather than on its desperate scrabble to find the extra £1 billion, for this year alone, to which it was committed in the strategic defence and security review but which it still has not identified?

Sixthly, does my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary agree that ruling out the use of occupation forces does not rule out the use of ground forces? I am talking not just about search and rescue helicopters, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) mentioned during the Prime Minister’s speech, but about identifying targets that are free of civilians.

Seventhly, there is the difficult question of whether the ceasefire applies to the rebels. If the rebels try, in response to breaches of the ceasefire by Gaddafi, to retake areas that he has taken, should we use military force to stop them? That would seem a bit strange, but does the UN resolution permit the facilitation of arms supplies to the alternative Government, and if so should the United Kingdom be helping to provide that?

These are things that we do not know, as a result of the UN resolution, and we might need a further resolution to clarify things. Many more issues will arise, but I support this action. The House will not give a blank cheque to this action, so I welcome the Prime Minister’s willingness to return to the House to keep us updated on something that is moving very fast.