Libya and the Middle East

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes an extremely good point. We should be having this conversation with oil companies. Yes, of course, they have security and transport arrangements, and it is important to work with them when we are trying to get our people out, to ensure that they are playing their part in delivering that. I am sure that there are lessons to learn, and there is probably more that they could have done, rather than being quite so reliant on us.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

May I tell the Prime Minister what a great pleasure it is to see him in his place today, because I have spent the past week trying to speak to a Foreign Office Minister with no success? On the substantive issue of Libya, the fact that the International Criminal Court has been invoked has been a welcome development, but will the right hon. Gentleman make it quite clear from the Dispatch Box that this will apply not only to Colonel Gaddafi and his immediate family but to anyone in Libya who chooses to side with his regime in any future atrocities?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. The reach of the International Criminal Court and of international law applies not only to people in the Gaddafi regime and those in the armed forces who commit atrocities but to any mercenary who goes to Libya and takes part in those activities. As I have said, the reach of international law is very long, and its memory is also very long, and quite right too.