Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the extent to which arms were shipped from the Libyan port of Benghazi to Syria in 2012-13; who was involved in these shipments; and for which groups in Syrian were those arms intended.

We are aware of reports of arms shipments from Libya to Syria during the period in question. It was out of concern about the situation in Libya, including flows of arms, that the UK supported UN Security Council Resolution 1970 in 2011, which imposed an arms embargo. We have supported subsequent UN Security Council Resolutions authorising UN Member States to inspect vessels off the coast of Libya where there are reasonable grounds to suspect they are violating the embargo. We continue to work with our partners in the UN to support the implementation of the embargo, and to address reports of violations.