Simon Hughes
Main Page: Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)Department Debates - View all Simon Hughes's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Nick Harvey
That is a good question. I will check what sharing of information we have with our EU allies when we turn down an application, and I will write to the hon. Gentleman in due course.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
14. What meetings he has had with his ministerial colleagues on the stabilisation of Libya.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
17. What discussions he has had with his ministerial colleagues on recovering from the national transitional council in Libya any of the costs to his Department of the deployment of armed forces to that country.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)
The National Security Council, chaired by the Prime Minister and attended by myself and other ministerial colleagues, meets regularly to discuss the ongoing operations in Libya, including stabilisation. In terms of recovering the costs of operations in Libya from the national transitional council, NATO’s intervention in Libya under a clear UN mandate has saved countless lives and is helping to bring new hope to a country that has suffered tyrannical rule for 42 years, but the UK did not play a leading role in this action for financial return.
Simon Hughes
Given the extended nature of the Libyan conflict, the tribal nature of the country and the experience in Iraq, will the Defence Secretary assure me that maximum attention will be given to conflict prevention and conflict resolution issues from now onwards, so that we do not have a recurrence of victory followed by great difficulties thereafter?
Dr Fox
That is a key question. I visited Libya at the weekend. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Iraq, but Libya has three big advantages coming out of this conflict compared with Iraq. First, we were careful not to cause civilian deaths, which has given the impression that we value human life higher; secondly, we did not target civilian infrastructure, so it is likely that the country will be able to move much more quickly to economic recovery; and thirdly we encouraged the NTC not to engage in a process similar to de-Ba’athification. I therefore find Libya in a much better place than Iraq was.