Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-05-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies of the finding of the report from Human Rights Watch entitled, We Feel We Are Cursed: Life under ISIS in Sirte, Libya, published on 18 May 2016.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

I am deeply concerned by this report of the horrors and misery endured by ordinary Libyan civilians living under Daesh. I condemn their barbaric and appalling crimes in Sirte and elsewhere in Libya. It is vital that those responsible are held accountable. Political instability and conflict in Libya, after 40 years of Gaddafi misrule, created the conditions for Daesh to become established. Only an inclusive government will deliver the peace and stability that the Libyan people desire and deny the space for Daesh and other extremist groups to operate.

Our consistent policy has been to support a lasting and inclusive political agreement and the establishment of a Government of National Accord (GNA) as the best way to tackle the threat in the long term. Following the Libyan Political Agreement, signed in December 2015, we now have a GNA, and the Foreign Secretary, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond) visited Tripoli on 18 April to discuss how we could help the GNA bolster security and tackle Daesh. We have allocated £10 million in this financial year to help restore stability in Libya; rebuild the economy; fight Daesh; and tackle the criminal gangs that fuel illegal migration.