Libya

Stephen Gethins Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is right that any kind of international support will be more effective if it is properly co-ordinated. The work of the European Union, the Libya international assistance mission—LIAM—and the UNSMIL planning cell, which is already in operation, should be and will be co-ordinated.

Let me be clear that any proposal to carry out airstrikes in support of a counter-Daesh operation absolutely would trigger the convention that the Government consult the House and allow a vote, through which the House could express its view on the proposed intervention.

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern, which he has expressed several times both in the House and in various newspapers, that the lines between what is a combat mission and what is a training mission could be blurred in situations such as Libya’s, but we are clear that we can make that distinction. I draw his attention to Afghanistan, which is a kinetic theatre if ever there was one, yet our training mission has been successfully conducted there for the past 15 months with great effect. In Iraq, we carry out training activities in an active war zone. There is a big difference between training and advising troops and engaging in combat activities. The Government are extremely mindful of that distinction and of the obligations that they have entered into in respect of consulting the House.

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

I also praise the work of Martin Kobler and of the British ambassador to Libya, whom I met in Tunis and who has been making the best of a very difficult job. Libya has been an unmitigated disaster for this Government. We even had a sitting US President criticise a sitting UK Prime Minister. A UN official described the UK’s humanitarian efforts as

“paltry bone-throwing from a European country whose bombers reaped so much destruction”.

We do not have a good record on Libya.

Following the questions of the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who raised a good point as usual, will the Foreign Secretary tell us how much of the mission he envisages taking place on Libyan soil? As for what he calls a training mission, will any deployment of UK troops on Libyan soil be brought to this House for consideration? Given that he can only have meetings in the naval base, how does he envisage a training mission in Libya taking place at the moment? Finally, does he commend the US President’s candour in saying that Libya was his worst mistake, and what does he think has been the Prime Minister’s worst foreign policy mistake?

[Mr Hammond]

It is very easy to sit on the Opposition Benches hurling stones, but I am afraid that the world is not a neat and tidy place, and we have to deal with the situations that present themselves. The hon. Gentleman talks about the humanitarian work, but I remind him that, when we intervened in Libya in 2011, it was to prevent an imminent genocide in Benghazi and that that successful intervention saved countless thousands of lives. Libya is a rich country, and we should not forget that—$70-odd billion-worth of Libyan assets outside the country are currently frozen by a UN Security Council resolution. This is about getting the Government in place and then releasing those assets so that the Government can function. Libya is not a country that needs humanitarian assistance in the conventional sense. It needs technical support with good governance, and help to get into a position where we can release its assets to it to enable it to function.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the British ambassador. I join him in paying tribute to the work of our ambassador, who is currently based in Tunis. He came with me yesterday to Tripoli and it is his fervent desire, as it is mine and Prime Minister Sarraj’s, to reopen the British embassy in Tripoli as soon as we are able to do so. Unfortunately, the location of our current buildings in Tripoli is in a rather less secure part of town, so I cannot promise that that will be imminent, but we will keep the matter under constant review and do it as soon as we can.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether any training mission to Libya would take place on Libyan soil, and I have to say to him, yet again, that there is no training mission, there is no putative training mission and there has been no request for a training mission. I speak as a former Defence Secretary when I say that, if there is a request for such a mission, the military will clearly want to ensure that it is undertaken with the minimum risk possible to UK personnel. Therefore, their first preference would be to do it here, their next preference would be to do it somewhere in the region and their third preference would be to do it in Libya, if it is safe to do so. I assure him that we will spare no effort in trying to ensure that any support we do give to the Libyans will be delivered in a way that represents the least possible risk to the British forces delivering it.