UK Foreign Policy on Libya

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

It is pleasure to work under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. Given your interest in the matter, I know that you would probably want to participate in the debate, but we are pleased to have you in your seat.

As is customary—but also because it is important to give recognition—I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Stuart Blair Donaldson) on securing the debate. It is important that the House take a firm interest in the matter, not least for the reasons he has outlined. Events are changing on a regular basis, so I am pleased to have the opportunity to bring the House up to date with the events and with Britain’s involvement.

The hon. Gentleman will understand that I completely disagree with his interpretation of recent—the past few years’—history. He glosses over many of the key elements that, sadly, allowed Libya to slip backwards after we had parliamentary and prime ministerial elections after Gaddafi was removed, but I will come to that in due course.

We must recognise that Libya has gone through a testing period since 2011, but we must also place into context the backdrop against which events have taken place. Libya is a relatively new country. It has a huge amount of history, going back thousands and thousands of years. It is where the Berbers, the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans and not least the Ottoman empire and the Italians were. We were there for a period as well. As a modern state, however, 1951 is when it gained its independence. Gaddafi took over after the coup and spent 40 years deterring societal development. Over the years, all the institutions had been able to learn, to adjust, to adapt and to further themselves, but that did not take place under Gaddafi. That is one of the reasons why, when the Arab spring came along, the people of Libya were asking for something very different. Once Gaddafi was removed, however, it was tough to suddenly create the institutions that were needed for the country to move forward. That was the challenge we faced in 2011.

UN Security Council resolution 1973, which was adopted in March 2011 and allowed Operation Ellamy to take place, represented a legitimate cause to move in and support the people of Libya, because Gaddafi had made it clear that after Benghazi—the bloodbath he attempted to orchestrate there—he would have moved on to other cities where other Libyans were rising up and saying, “I’ve had enough of this dictator. I want something else”. It was right, therefore, that our Prime Minister and other leaders around the world stepped up to the plate and did the proper thing. We can look back on that and say that it absolutely was the right thing to do. As I mentioned, that led to the country holding parliamentary and prime ministerial elections, and creating its own leadership.

If we were to look back at that period and ask, “Is there more the international community could have done?”, we would answer, “Yes there are lessons to be learnt, absolutely”, but the country itself, the leaders themselves, pushed back—shrugged off—international support. They wanted to do it themselves and that, I am afraid, led to inertia from the centralised perspective. Decisions were not being made. When there is a vacuum of power, and we have seen this across other parts of the Maghreb—the middle east and north Africa—extremism takes a foothold. We have seen it with Daesh in places such as Derna and Sirte.

Last month’s visit by the Foreign Secretary, however, is an indication that we are moving into a new and cautiously optimistic chapter. The Foreign Secretary was able to meet Prime Minister Siraj in Tripoli itself. His first impressions were that the security the Prime Minister had around him meant that he was being accepted by the majority in both the House of Representatives and the State Council, and that this was allowing his own presidential council and the Government of national accord to take hold and start to re-establish the institutions that I spoke about earlier. It is important to place that into context, but the hon. Gentleman is correct that in the absence of strong central leadership extremism has taken a foothold. That has affected us here in Britain, because those who participated in organising and training the killers in Sousse in Tunisia were themselves trained in Libya. The matter is of concern to us because of that and because of the migration issues, which I shall come on to in a second.

Our Prime Minister very recently spoke with President Obama and other leaders about the concerns of the Libya challenge. There must be an international effort to ensure that we can support Prime Minister Siraj, and indeed Martin Kobler and the UN efforts there. The hon. Gentleman was right to praise the UN envoy. I speak to the envoy regularly, and I am pleased that our ambassador is able to provide support—the hon. Gentleman mentioned the funding we provide to his office. Nor should we overlook the Prime Minister’s envoy, Jonathan Powell, who has worked closely with Martin Kobler and his predecessor. Some £10 million has been allocated for technical support, and if there is a request for further funding we will of course consider it but I understand that such a request has not been forthcoming. The £10 million includes £1.8 million for counter-terrorism work, for exactly the reason I have mentioned, to prevent the vacuum from being taken over by extremism.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I think that that is the same £10 million I asked the Foreign Secretary about—I asked whether it would be counted towards ODA. He said in the Chamber that he did not think it would, and then he had to write to me to clarify that it would. My question was actually whether it would be counted towards both ODA and the 2% NATO target. I do not know if the Minister has that knowledge to hand, but if he does not perhaps he will be able to clarify by correspondence.

[Mr Ellwood]

It can be the case that an allocation of funding qualifies for two budgets. There is nothing wrong with that, it is just the way it works. It can come from official development aid—as it is called—but also from the defence budget too. We should not assume that, because it is one allocation, oh my goodness, somehow we are double accounting. That is just the way the systems work.

The reason why we must always confirm whether funding is ODA-able—as it is called—is because the rules were written in the 1950s, as the hon. Gentleman might be aware. They are, therefore, slightly out of date and need updating. The work of stabilisation is not really included in the definitions; it was “humanitarian work” when the rules were created by the OECD. We have been pushing for the rules to be updated, to recognise that the British taxpayer would like to see the money spent on exactly that. But if the rules do not allow for that, that is probably why the Foreign Secretary—indeed, anyone involved—needs to double-check whether the allocation can be confirmed. I hope that that answers the hon. Gentleman’s question.

In addition, we also hosted a meeting of 47 countries last month in Tunisia. That goes back to the point I made earlier: it is important that the international community rallies together and recognises that, in Libya’s hour of need, we need to be ready to provide service and support to the new Prime Minister in a wide range of capacities. We co-hosted the meeting with the United Nations. It allowed all international communities to say what they can contribute, including the funding they can put forward and the packages they can offer to the Prime Minister. I make it clear that we have to be invited by the country to embark on any processes to improve, in the same way as happened back in 2012, when central Government’s wheels perhaps started to come off.

The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine criticised the fact that things went wrong after Gaddafi was removed. I agree that the international community should have pressed for more, but ultimately the Libyan people need to recognise the challenges they face, the support on offer from the international community and the consequences of failing to show the leadership what they want. Extremism gets a footing when there is an absence of leadership. The meeting in April provided exactly that leadership: it brought together the international community and allowed us to provide some scope as to how we would provide support and security.

A lot of discussions will take place about the 1,000 or so troops. The Libyan international assistance mission is an Italian initiative in which Britain, Spain, Italy, France and other nations are likely to participate. There is planning for 1,000 troops or so, but we are yet to receive the invitation—the request—for any support. That support is likely to come, when it does, in the form of training and mentoring. Where that will take place is yet to be decided. It could very well be in Libya or somewhere else in the region, but it is unlikely to take place in Britain. It is training and mentoring; it is not an operational initiative, so there is no requirement for a vote in Parliament. Please do not expect one on the issue. That is the plan as we move forward, but I stress that we are yet to receive any request from the Prime Minister.

As was implied by the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, the challenge we face is with migratory patterns. We are seeing criminal gangs orchestrate ruthlessly efficient programmes, selling tickets and encouraging individuals with the promise that they will get to Europe. Libya is seen as the weak link from which they can get across the Mediterranean. We all know that they do not get across the Mediterranean. The gangs place them in rickety boats that barely make it out of Libyan waters. Operation Sophia, which is the European Union’s initiative, currently operates in international waters. We want to move things forward so that it can operate in Libyan territorial waters, too. That will mean that the boats do not venture so far out that they cannot be returned to Libya. Those people can return back there, thereby breaking the chain from which the criminal gangs are benefiting.

There is no doubt that the challenge of Libya will continue, or that Britain, working with our international partners, will ensure that we stand by the new Prime Minister, the new presidential council and the people of Libya. It has been a very difficult five years; everyone recognises that. It has been extremely challenging, but we must continue to work for peace and security in the country, not only because that is crucial for stability in the wider north African and Mediterranean regions, but because the United Kingdom has important interests, as I have outlined. After the revolution, the Libyan people expressed joy, enthusiasm and hope after 40 years of Gaddafi’s misrule, oppression and fear. They wanted freedom and democracy, and they held elections. The people of Libya want education and to continue to hear the inspiring stories of Libyans being able to succeed into the future. We want to stand by them, and we will continue to do so in the UK interest, ensuring that Libya emerges as a strong, peaceful and prosperous democracy. I pledge today our continuing support for the Prime Minister and the people of Libya.

Question put and agreed to.