Prisoner Transfer Agreement (Libya)

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing this important debate and on the way he set out his argument, particularly the questions he has asked the Minister. The question being discussed today is whether al-Megrahi should have been released in the way he was. Some of my constituents have written to me on the issue. They and many others across the country are worried that the former Prime Minister or his colleagues did a secret deal on the release of al-Megrahi to help BP win oil contracts with Libya, and that devolution was used as a fig leaf for commercial purposes. It is a serious accusation to make. Like many people in Scotland and across the country, everyone is anxious to know the real facts.

As I noted last year in my early-day motion 575, in September 2007 the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), the then Justice Secretary, assured the Scottish Government that al-Megrahi would be excluded from the final prisoner transfer agreement. In December 2007, the Scottish Government were told by the UK Government that they had been unable to secure an exemption for al-Megrahi and had decided to go ahead with the agreement

“in view of the overwhelming interests of the UK”.

In January 2008, Libya ratified a major oil deal with BP that had previously been stalled. That is why I asked the current Prime Minister on 6 September 2010 what meetings his predecessor or his predecessor’s officials had held with BP or the Libyan Government between July 2007 and March 2008, and whether the subject of any such meetings was

“oil drilling off the coast of Libya.”

The Prime Minister replied:

“I have asked the Cabinet Secretary to review all the papers relating to this issue, and we will report shortly on his conclusions.”—[Official Report, 6 September 2010; Vol. 515, c. 2W.]

A few months later, I asked when the Cabinet Secretary might finish his review. I am grateful to the Prime Minister for his reply, which was:

“The Cabinet Secretary expects to conclude his work shortly. Dependent upon the outcome, this may include publishing additional relevant papers.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 681W.]

In the end, al-Megrahi was released not under the prisoner transfer agreement but on compassionate grounds. Despite the reports of terminal cancer, he is still alive today. Whatever the commercial effects on BP, al-Megrahi was tried and convicted in a British court of murdering 270 people. A mass murderer convicted by our courts was let out of prison and sent back to a dictatorship where he was welcomed as a hero and now lives in freedom. That is not something that we can forget. We need to know whether the release was legitimate, or whether it was a distortion of the will of a British court.

Let me be clear: the coalition Government are doing absolutely the right thing on transparency and opening up information to the public. I welcome this debate because Britain deserves to know the facts. I urge the Scottish Cabinet Secretary to move swiftly, so that the Government can report as soon as possible on his conclusions. Devolution or not, never again must a known mass murderer be released under such controversy.