Thomas Docherty
Main Page: Thomas Docherty (Labour - Dunfermline and West Fife)Department Debates - View all Thomas Docherty's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(13Â years ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Nick Harvey
I thank my hon. Friend for his supportive remarks. It is inherently true that the use of attack helicopters in contested territory is dangerous, but we are deploying all our assets through NATO and if we were to decide to use attack helicopters it would be through NATO co-ordinated efforts, so the assets of other partner countries would be available to us to help defend them. We have experience of using Apache helicopters in contested territory and we have successful ways of minimising the threat to them, but it is an inherently dangerous business—there is no way of getting around that.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
Will the Minister update the House on how many countries have now sent military advisers to Libya to help the rebels? Can he confirm who is responsible for co-ordinating their work?
Nick Harvey
We have sent some of our own advisers and they are working with the French. We co-ordinate that between us and they are the pre-eminent military advisers. There are some from other countries in that region but they are undertaking specific tasks in co-ordination with the British and French forces, so the predominant effort is Anglo-French and we are co-ordinating it between us.