Philip Hollobone
Main Page: Philip Hollobone (Conservative - Kettering)Department Debates - View all Philip Hollobone's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(12 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
14. What meetings he has had with his ministerial colleagues on the stabilisation of Libya.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
17. What discussions he has had with his ministerial colleagues on recovering from the national transitional council in Libya any of the costs to his Department of the deployment of armed forces to that country.
Dr Fox
That is a key question. I visited Libya at the weekend. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Iraq, but Libya has three big advantages coming out of this conflict compared with Iraq. First, we were careful not to cause civilian deaths, which has given the impression that we value human life higher; secondly, we did not target civilian infrastructure, so it is likely that the country will be able to move much more quickly to economic recovery; and thirdly we encouraged the NTC not to engage in a process similar to de-Ba’athification. I therefore find Libya in a much better place than Iraq was.
Mr Hollobone
Given that the cost of our involvement in Libya is about £260 million and rising, at the same time as we have the biggest budget deficit in the G20, should we not be asking Libya and/or the Arab League to repay the cost, just as the Kuwaitis did after the first Gulf war?
Dr Fox
As I said, we went into Libya not on the basis of recovering the costs, but because we believed there to be an imminent humanitarian disaster. Mindful of such disasters in previous generations, we can be proud that we averted this one. How costs are apportioned and whether other countries can help with those wider costs can be discussed, but only after the conflict has been concluded, which it has not yet been.