Middle East and North Africa

Richard Ottaway Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. A great many hon. and right hon. Members are seeking catch my eye, but I just remind the House that Members who entered the Chamber after the Foreign Secretary began his statement should not expect to be called.

[Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement and congratulate him on his visit to Benghazi with the International Development Secretary, which was right and timely.

There is a gap between the humanitarian nature of resolution 1973 and the stated aim of removing Gaddafi. Russia’s shift of position means that a further UN resolution on Libya is conceivable. Does the Foreign Secretary believe that such a further resolution is necessary?

[Mr Hague]

The resolution on Libya is now nearly three months old, and circumstances have developed since then. My hon. Friend is right to point to the fact that it has been hard to adapt the resolution because of a lack of agreement on the Security Council to do so. We will continue to search for agreement on, for instance, adapting the sanctions regime, which of course requires unanimity in the sanctions committee, which is a bigger hurdle than a resolution in the Security Council itself. Russia’s position at the G8 holds out some hope that such agreements may be forthcoming, but I cannot yet say to my hon. Friend that the Russian Federation’s change of position at the G8 has been followed by a wider change of position at the Security Council and elsewhere.