EU Council and North Africa

Malcolm Rifkind Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington) (Con)]

As the then Secretary of State for Scotland, I had to visit Lockerbie on the night of that disaster, when I saw the terrible consequences that flowed from it. I have always been appalled by the release of the convicted murderer. The Prime Minister has drawn attention to the Cabinet Secretary’s conclusion, in which the Cabinet Secretary states that the previous Government wished to do all within their power to facilitate the release of Mr Megrahi. Do not the documents released today show that, in pursuit of that objective, a Foreign Office Minister met his Libyan ministerial counterpart, offered to send details of how release on compassionate grounds might be obtained and wrote to his ministerial colleague on 18 October 2008? Does that not confirm that the previous Government were up to their neck in this shoddy business, that they were desperate to see the release of Mr Megrahi and that they must therefore share responsibility with the Scottish Government for one of the most foolish and shameful decisions of recent years?

[The Prime Minister]

As ever, my right hon. and learned Friend brings a mixture of experience and precision to this issue. We were told by the previous Government what they did not want, which was the death of al-Megrahi in a Scottish prison, but we were not told by the previous Government what they did want, which was the facilitation of his release. That comes over, time and again. The most powerful point that my right hon. and learned Friend makes is this: in the end, that man was convicted of the largest mass murder in British history, which should have been the thought coursing through ministerial veins and brains when Ministers wrote those memos and made those speeches.