Libya

My Lords, I begin by thanking all noble Lords who have spoken and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, who spoke for the Opposition, for their very positive support for the overall pattern of government policy and for the trend and direction we are seeking to go in. No one is going to claim—I shall not—that there is complete certainty and that we can predict exactly what is going to happen. We cannot. There are risks and twists and turns ahead that none of us can foresee, but the general support is strong, and that is very gratifying. What is even more gratifying for all of us, and it will be gratifying for our Armed Forces, is the praise for the way they are performing, as usual, with efficiency, precision and determination. We have our debates across the Floor about equipment and resourcing generally—they have gone on almost regardless of who is in government—and we are right to be concerned about them, but our Armed Forces are composed of very dedicated, brave and courageous people. There is no question about that. That shows up in moments of crisis. It is not physically possible for me to address every one of very many fine speeches that have been made this afternoon, so I shall just have to make my peace afterwards with noble Lords I do not mention. I will try to cover as best I can a number of specific questions that have very properly been put to me. I am sure I shall not achieve total satisfaction; in fact, I know I will not. We will just have to do our best and sort things out afterwards. I shall deal first with the great general questions that have dominated the debate this afternoon. The first and central question is: are we sticking to the resolutions? We have the legal cover of the two resolutions: Resolution 1970 and Resolution 1973. Are we adhering to them? The answer is an emphatic yes. We believe we are in every respect. There were questions about how they should be interpreted and whether they allowed certain developments. I am not going in any particular order, but I come to the very authoritative comments on the resolutions by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy. I point out to her and to others who are quite properly examining this problem that Resolution 1973 authorises ““all necessary measures”” to protect civilians, "““notwithstanding paragraph 9 of resolution 1970””." That is why it is seen as a powerful resolution that fully covers what the allied coalition forces, including HMG’s forces, are doing. That is why there has been a wider debate on how much more it would permit. We must distinguish between legal advice from the expert lawyers on what it would permit and what is actually intended. One of the questions that came up, which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister dealt with, is, ““Would it cover the arming of the rebels?””, as opposed to, ““Do you intend to arm the rebels?””. As far as the first question is concerned, there is a legal opinion, which may be disputed by other expert lawyers because—surprise, surprise—not all the lawyers agree with each other, that in certain circumstances it would permit the arming of rebels. Is there a policy intention so to do? No, that is not the intention at this stage, but nevertheless there is a resolution standing and that is how it could be interpreted. The bigger question that has run through the debate is not so much about whether we arm the rebels as who the rebels are. What exactly is their provenance? Are they a mixture of people, are there good and bad among them, and how do we distinguish between them? The answer is that it is not easy. We are maintaining a regular dialogue with the Interim Transitional National Council in Libya. Both my right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary met Mr Jabril, one of the most prominent leaders of the national council, when he visited London earlier this week. We have sent an initial mission to Benghazi which has been successful and plan to follow up with a second mission very soon. We will be exploring the humanitarian reconstruction and development needs as a priority, and we are actively considering what assistance we can provide within the provisions of UNSCR 1970 and 1973. That both answers the question about what we are doing and enables us to establish a channel through which we can assess more clearly the nature and resource of the people operating, whether they are people we would not wish to associate with, and so on. These things cannot be answered in precise terms from the Dispatch Box now or at any point in the near future, but this is what is happening. Another general question that we have all asked each other during the debate is: what happens next? There is of course the first Libya Contact Group meeting in Doha in a fortnight’s time, which I described in my earlier comments. However, once again, it would be foolish for anyone at this Dispatch Box to claim that they could predict exactly what the course of events on the ground will be. In my opening speech I mentioned that the Gaddafi regime’s forces—including some mercenaries, a point made by one of your Lordships—had very recently made some substantial advances again. But the tide can flow either way and things may look very different in two weeks’ time. I turn to the important point made repeatedly by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and many others: how do we maintain and mobilise this vast coalition of forces—forces which have their origins far outside the old traditional pattern of the western alliance—and how do we keep the momentum going? This is exactly what the contact group will address and increasingly focus on. Clearly, as was said at the London conference on Tuesday, the need is not just for involvement in the immediate problems of preventing civilians being slaughtered in large numbers, which is what the immediate mission is all about, but for mobilising to support Libya with a really cohesive and effective post-conflict strategy. Some people, looking back to the light and shade of the Iraq conflict, would say that that was what was missing in that campaign. A post-conflict strategy was not there and the whole pattern, which was declared wrongly in its first military days as one of total success then spiralled downwards into appalling years of slaughter and bloodshed. That we do not want to see again, ever. Those are the general themes that emerged in the debate and these are my general answers, always with the necessary qualification that none of us can see exactly how this situation is going to pan out over the next few days or weeks. Our aim is the protection of civilian life and our political strategy has been openly declared by Ministers, by the Arab League and by many countries around the world, which is that the world would be a much better place and Libya would be in a much better situation if Gaddafi and his gang were to go. That is our political strategy which is being backed up by pressures of the financial and trading kind, and all kinds of other pressures which I cannot go into now. That is the pattern of activity as we go forward. I now come to a range of specific issues that were raised by your Lordships and I will try to address them by name. The noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, made an obviously very learned and well-informed speech. She rightly said that we must be on our guard over the presence of dark forces such as al-Qaeda. As far as Yemen is concerned, she is absolutely right. There is a real al-Qaeda problem in northern Yemen. It is not the only problem in Yemen, which is in a very dangerous situation, as I said in my opening speech. We have advised British nationals, and I would advise all other nationals, to get out as quickly as they can, because if the explosive situation occurs, the first thing that will be closed and inaccessible is the airport. We have been advising for some time all our nationals to get out. But the al-Qaeda danger is there. That danger may be in other of the countries where there is protest—there are only traces—but it is interesting how, as the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, was saying, Egypt and Tunis and, as far as we can tell, in the completely different situation in Libya, the jihadist extremist element has been invisible: it has not been there. That is not to say that al-Qaeda strategists—if there are such people—and those who are looking for the opportunity for more murder and mayhem will not be studying the situation and seeing what they can make out of it, but at the moment they have not been playing a leading part. They are not part of the cause of and motivation for what is happening. The noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, also said that I was a bit sanguine on oil prices. Her judgment may be better than mine, but it is a bold person who predicts oil price movements in the future. It is rather like currency movements: one does not know at all what will happen. Generally, at the moment, it seems that oil markets have not exploded in the way they did in some of the oil shocks of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. They have not even risen to the heights of 2008. There are factors, even as the world recovers from recession, that seem to be calming the overall energy markets. Of course, that could change. How will Qatar go through the mechanism of trading and selling Libyan oil from the Libyan fields under opposition control and use the money for humanitarian support for the opposition forces? That has yet to be worked out and I cannot give the noble Baroness a precise mechanism by which that will be done, but a lot of work is going on at the moment. My noble friend Lord Trimble and several other noble Lords all raised the question of the EU’s role in all of this. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, the German abstention had been in his words ““a major blow””. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, referred to that in a well-informed speech. Obviously, this meant that the initial impact of the role of the EU was not as co-ordinated and focused as it should have been. But the EU has collectively and strongly condemned Colonel Gaddafi's policies and person. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said that he hoped the EU would rise to the occasion. So do I. It seems to me possible and hopeful that that will happen. The EU Council conclusions welcomed Resolution 1973 and the Council expressed its determination to contribute to its implementation as well. That is where it has got to and maybe it will now develop further thoughts. We had some debate this afternoon on whether the EU should develop a military dimension. I cannot comment on whether that will happen. For the moment, what we see is that NATO has taken the lead, as the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, rightly said. NATO is in charge; it is the one body that has acted extremely swiftly and effectively. I suspect that will be the way forward with it as the organising force. If there are additional humanitarian roles that the EU can play, those will be very welcome indeed. My noble friend Lord Bates asked where the African Union featured in the pattern of things. We know that there will be a diverse range of views among African states. That is not surprising; one or two African states were always traditionally supporters of Colonel Gaddafi. He spread a lot of money around in Africa, no doubt in trying to buy other friends as well. However, the African Union has condemned what Colonel Gaddafi’s regime is doing and continues to support our actions in Libya, particularly our objective of protecting civilians and securing an end to the violence perpetrated by the Gaddafi forces. That is the African Union's position and while I cannot guarantee this, I understand that it will be represented at future meetings. We shall be working very hard to see that it is involved. My noble friend Lord Bates made another interesting point which had not really occurred to me. He said that it was perhaps not right to refer to one possible outcome in Libya—it is not one I hope for—as a civil war, because that would somehow immediately give credibility to the Gaddafi side of it. As he rightly said, this is not a civil war but a very cruel and dangerous dictator inflicting hideous damage on his own citizens. Somehow, a civil war sounds a little more respectable than that, which it is not. My noble friend also asked about Italy. The Italians have made a significant contribution to the military effort, including surveillance, air defence and ground attack planes as well as maritime assets. As of yesterday, we understand that Italy had 12 aircraft, four ships and one submarine under NATO command for use in Libya. Some air operations have of course been from Italian airbases as well, so the contribution has been substantial. I could go into the longer-term history of Italy's connection and involvement with Libya but that would take much too long. That raises investment and oil production issues but Italy has been active in recognising the need for the sort of action that we are seeking to take. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds asked about the Middle East peace process, as did a number of your Lordships. We are pushing as hard as we can for the parties to return to negotiations as soon as possible and we are co-ordinating closely with France and Germany as the so-called E3. We have set out our views on what the parameters for negotiations should be: the 1967 borders, with arrangements to protect Israel’s security; preventing the resurgence of terrorism; having a just, fair and agreed solution to the refugee question; and, fulfilling the aspirations of both parties for Jerusalem. We have debated those matters again and again in this House and they are very familiar to us. If we can get some movement on that now, even among the general turmoil of the region, that in our view will be a major step forward. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, asked in addition about the Ivory Coast, which is not exactly in our brief today but indicates how broad a canvas we are dealing with. The situation in the Côte d'Ivoire is moving fast. We are committed to the crisis being resolved and President Ouattara taking up the office to which he has been democratically elected. The obstruction of the democratic process and associated violence raises broad concerns that affect the global community and democracy in Africa. As the noble Baroness can hear, I am reading out a suggested brief from officials in my department which does not give much information beyond what we knew already, However, from what I have seen for myself in the newspapers the situation in Abidjan is very dangerous and there will obviously great violence before President Gbagbo, who was declared to have been unelected long ago, finally surrenders. If more of his troops desert, that would finally bring him down. Côte d’Ivoire is perhaps an example of the general point that we cannot engage in everything, but that does not rule out our need to focus carefully on certain selected areas. That we are focusing on Libya seems to be entirely right. Some, such as the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, have asked whether we should not have the same sort of policy approach towards Bahrain. We argue that that is a completely different position. We have to be selective, use our judgment and accept that in Bahrain there is a different set of issues. We are clear that the Government of Bahrain and their security forces should respect the civil rights of peaceful protesters. We have called for an end to all acts of harassment by the Bahraini security forces. We are in direct contact with the Bahraini authorities and their leaders and have insisted that they show real leadership in promoting tolerance, equal access to justice and the rule of law. They are seeking a reform process and, as the noble Viscount, Lord Slim, urged, we should be very firm in pressing it on them, as indeed we are. However, to compare the situation there with Libya is to make a large jump in logic that is not justified.