Libya: Bribes

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether any payments which could constitute bribes within the meaning of the Bribery Act 2010 have been paid from public funds to Libyan employees or officials in recent weeks.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)]

My Lords, Her Majesty’s Government do not pay bribes. In relation to fees incurred for charter flights, the payment of handling fees at airports, including for the landing and departure of planes, is an established practice. Like all countries and carriers, HMG had to pay them. These charges increased at Tripoli airport as the situation in Libya deteriorated. Paying these fees was essential to be able to evacuate British and other nationals by plane.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, the whole House will be grateful for the assurance in the first sentence of the Minister’s response. However, the rest of it reads rather strangely in the light of what the Prime Minister said in another place last week:

“The point I would make is that in getting people out of Libya, we did have to pay some facilitation payments for the services in the airport”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/3/11; col. 298.]

“Facilitation payments” is a bizarre way of describing regular airport handling fees. Can I therefore press the Minister and ask him to be absolutely clear about this? Were any payments made which were in any way irregular? Were payments made to individuals, or were payments simply made to the appropriate authority in a routine fashion for the flights that took place?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The latter is the answer. The noble Lord mentions regular situations, but the situation was far from regular. The situation was one in which these fees were rocketing because there was a desperate queue of aeroplanes to get in and people to get out. There is absolutely no doubt that the fees went whizzing up as very brave pilots and crews managed to get their aeroplanes down, slotted and then off the ground again. I sometimes think that we do not appreciate fully the extraordinary bravery and courage of those getting these aircraft in and out in very dangerous situations. So I can tell the noble Lord that nothing irregular was done of any kind, but it was a far from regular situation in which brave and courageous people had to move very quickly.