Patrick Grady
Main Page: Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North)Department Debates - View all Patrick Grady's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(8 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hammond
I was Defence Secretary at the time, so I well remember the plans for training at Bassingbourn. As the hon. Gentleman says, it did not end well, and the Libyans are acutely conscious of that. This would be a very different operation in very different circumstances. There are no plans yet, and there has been no request, so I am afraid that I cannot give the House any further information about what such a training programme might look like or where it would be conducted, but I can give him an assurance that the lessons of what happened at Bassingbourn have been taken on board by the Ministry of Defence and will be properly factored into any future plan.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
If spending 13 times as much on bombing Libya as on reconstructing it is not one of the Prime Minister’s worst foreign policy decisions, I wonder whether the Foreign Secretary could tell us what is. Of the £10 million announced today for the conflict security fund, how much will be counted as official development assistance, how much will be counted towards the NATO 2% target, and how much will be counted towards both?
Mr Hammond
I do not think that Libya qualifies for ODA because of its GDP per capita, but if I am wrong about that I will write to the hon. Gentleman and place a copy of the letter in the Library.