My Lords, with permission, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary. The Statement is as follows:

“Mr Speaker, with your permission I will make a Statement on the circumstances surrounding the decision of the Scottish Justice Minister on 20 August to release on compassionate grounds the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

As the Prime Minister has said, Lockerbie was a terrorist act of the gravest brutality.  It was the largest peacetime loss of life on British territory. It was a major tragedy with the killing of 43 Britons in the sky and in Lockerbie, 190 Americans and people of 19 other nations.  It was the act of people and a state which breached all norms of humanity. That is why the reception for Megrahi on his return in August to Tripoli was unacceptable.

My Statement today sets out the events leading up to the Scottish Justice Minister’s decision to release Megrahi. I will set out the changes in Libya’s relations with the international community since 1988 and address the three central issues raised in respect of the UK Government at the time of his release: first, the decision by the Government to sign a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya which did not exclude Megrahi; secondly, the relationship between the British Government and Scottish Executive in the decision-making process; and, thirdly, the separate questions of the investigation into the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher and the compensation for victims of Libyan-supported IRA terrorism. Today is the 25th anniversary of the Brighton bombing when the IRA attempted to murder a British Prime Minister and her Cabinet and did kill five people including one Member of this House.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the Libyan Government were linked to a number of terrorist organisations, including the Provisional IRA. Libya’s support for international terrorism defined its relations with the western world. As honourable and right honourable Members will recall, WPC Yvonne Fletcher’s murder in April 1984 led us to cut off diplomatic relations. The bombing of a nightclub in West Berlin in 1986 was followed by US air strikes on Tripoli and Benghazi. When evidence emerged supporting allegations that Libyan intelligence officers had been involved in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988, the UN Security Council demanded that Libya hand over the accused and imposed sanctions when it failed to comply.

 During the 1990s, there was evidence from a range of sources that the Libyans were also actively pursuing a range of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes as well as the development of ballistic missiles. Libya was a pariah state whose activities posed a clear and unambiguous threat to international peace and stability and to our own security in this country. The story of the past decade has been very different. Libya has abandoned its support for international terrorism and stopped its pursuit of WMDs in a series of events that merit the term ‘unforeseeable’.

In 1998, the US and UK Governments put forward a detailed joint proposal for the trial of the two accused of the Lockerbie atrocity. Our joint commitment to close and transparent working in all matters has continued throughout this case.  We reported our proposal to the United Nations Secretary-General, gained the support of the United Nations Security Council and, in 1999, persuaded the Libyans to surrender the two accused to a specially constituted court in the Netherlands where a Scottish panel of judges, without a jury, would try the accused under Scots law. Libya also agreed to pay $10 million compensation to each of the families of the victims, whatever their nationality, if the defendants were convicted. Megrahi was found guilty under Scottish law by the court in 2001, and his conviction was upheld on appeal in 2002.

 Against this background and, as I will explain later, in particular after the Libyan admission of responsibility for WPC Fletcher’s murder, the UK restored diplomatic relations in July 1999.  The long-term aim was clear: the normalisation of relations with Libya.

On 19 December 2003, following months of secret discussions with the UK and the US, the Libyans announced that they would eliminate their weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapon programmes and restrict the range of their missiles. They also agreed to immediate international inspections and to be bound by all the relevant international agreements, which they now are.

Today, we share information and co-operate in our efforts to disrupt and dismantle terrorist groups in Europe and north Africa, in particular al-Qaeda in the Maghreb which was responsible for the kidnap and murder of Edwin Dyer in May. We also try to find common ground in the UN and elsewhere on matters of common concern.

There is also an entirely legitimate commercial dimension to our ties. With the largest proven oil reserves in Africa and extensive gas reserves, Libya is a potential major energy source for the future. We work hard to support British business in Libya, as we do worldwide.

We continue to have serious concerns about human rights in Libya, including freedom of expression, arbitrary detention, political prisoners and the mistreatment of migrants. There are a number of important outstanding issues, in particular concerning the investigation into the murder of WPC Fletcher and the campaign for compensation by victims of IRA terrorism.

In May 2007, Prime Minister Tony Blair made his second visit to Libya. His summit with Colonel Gaddafi at Sirte covered the full range of our interests with Libya. Mr Blair signed a defence accord and witnessed the public signature of a major BP exploration contract. Also agreed was a Memorandum of Understanding on negotiations for a judicial co-operation package, including a prisoner transfer agreement and agreements on mutual legal assistance, extradition, and civil and commercial law.

The UK had a model agreement, based on Council of Europe arrangements, which was the starting point for negotiation on our prisoner transfer agreements with any country, and which provided the starting point for negotiations with the Libyans. Four points are relevant. First, a PTA provides for a prisoner transfer, not prisoner release. Secondly, it provides a framework for transfer, not a right to transfer. Thirdly, it cannot be used when appeals, including by the prosecuting authority, are outstanding, as in this case. Fourthly, Ministers in the sentencing jurisdiction, in this case Scotland, have an absolute right to veto any transfer.

This standard draft has no provision for any carve-out for any named prisoner. However, the Scottish Executive made strong representations for us to seek to alter the standard PTA so as specifically to exclude Mr Megrahi. The UK negotiating team, led by the Ministry of Justice, sought in good faith to achieve this goal.

The Libyans insisted that the only PTA that they would sign was a PTA without any exclusions. So the Government had a clear choice: we could agree to a standard PTA with no exclusions, retaining for Scottish Ministers an absolute veto over any request for prisoner transfer in the case of Megrahi—a veto which they used in August this year—or we could have ended the negotiations to prevent an application for prisoner transfer. This would have set back our wider national and commercial interests that flowed from normalised relations, as the Justice Secretary has made clear. Since the PTA involved no prejudice to the rights of the Scottish Executive, nor pressure on the Scottish Executive, the Government decided that it was right to go ahead. The PTA took effect in April 2009.

In September 2008, a new factor came into play. Megrahi was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The Libyans became increasingly concerned at the prospect of Mr Megrahi dying in a Scottish prison. They communicated this to the Government and to the Scottish Executive. It was repeatedly made clear in reply, including in the Prime Minister’s meeting with Colonel Gaddafi on 10 July this year, that the decision on Megrahi’s fate was exclusively for Scottish Ministers and the Scottish judicial system.

Notwithstanding that any decision on release was for Scottish Ministers and the Scottish judicial system, the UK Government had a responsibility to consider the consequences of any Scottish decision. We assessed that although the decision was not one for the UK Government, British interests, including those of UK nationals, British business and possibly security co-operation would be damaged, perhaps badly, if Megrahi were to die in a Scottish prison rather than in Libya. Given the risk of Libyan adverse reaction, we made it clear to them that, as a matter of law and practice, it was not a decision for the UK Government and that as a matter of policy we were not seeking Megrahi’s death in Scottish custody.

In Scotland, compassionate release generally comes into play in the last three months of a prisoner’s life. Scottish Justice Secretary MacAskill has set out the process by which he arrived at his decision in August this year to refuse the PTA transfer but to grant Megrahi compassionate release.  He also set out the grounds on which he did so.  As the Scottish Justice Secretary repeatedly stated in his announcement, this was a decision for him to take, and him alone to take.

 The Government were clear that any attempt by us to pressure the Scottish Executive would have been wrong.  At the press conference announcing his decision the Scottish Justice Secretary confirmed that there was ‘no pressure from Westminster’.

 It is also important to address the unfounded allegation that we ended our search for progress in dealing with the legacy of Libya’s past support for terrorism.  Admission of responsibility for WPC Fletcher’s murder and the payment of compensation were necessary for the restoration of diplomatic relations in 1999. Four years later, we secured Libyan agreement to a joint investigation into the murder. It was clear, including to the family, that anyone prosecuted for the murder would have to be tried in Libya. Since 2007, the Libyans have refused to allow the Metropolitan Police to return to complete its work. We share the determination of the Fletcher family to find answers, and continue to work on this case. 

In 1995, Libya provided critical information on its past links with the IRA. At that time, the then UK Government wrote to the United Nations declaring that they were,

‘satisfied that they have largely met our expectations’,

in accounting for the extent of its support for the Provisional IRA. Libya has since then considered the issue closed as a bilateral matter. Nevertheless, in respect of the campaign involving honourable and right honourable Members to secure compensation from Libya in respect of its past support for the Provisional IRA, we have created a dedicated unit in the FCO to facilitate the families’ renewed campaign.  The unit is currently working with honourable and right honourable Members to secure a visit to Libya soon.

 Twenty-one years on, the ongoing pain of the Lockerbie atrocity remains a testament to Libya’s past association with international terrorism.  Her re-entry into the community of nations does not and cannot absolve her of this responsibility.  It does, however, represent a major step forward.  The Government make no apology for their part in securing this progress and we reject the charges repeatedly made but not justified.  The PTA was not an agreement for Megrahi’s release.  The Scottish Justice Minister said he was not pressurised to release him. We did not forget the victims of IRA terrorism or WPC Fletcher. On that basis, I commend this Statement to the House”.

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

My Lords, I am sure that we are all very grateful to the Minister for repeating this important Statement about matters which have given rise to a very great concern. I completely share, as I am sure we all do, her sentiments of disgust and horror about the appalling Lockerbie slaughter, which was one of the worst mass murders in recent times, almost in history; about the cold-blooded murder of Yvonne Fletcher in St James’s Square, which is still, as the Minister made clear, not yet resolved; and about the supply of Libyan arms to the Provisional IRA with the horrible consequences of which I had direct and grim experience in the Northern Ireland Administration in the early and very bloody days of the 1970s. I understand that on this side of the Atlantic the matter is being left to families to pursue with support from the Government, rather than through direct government lobbying, as in the United States.

The Statement raises but seems to edge around a number of crucial questions. I will confine myself to asking just some of them as I am sure that noble Lords will have many others. First, it says that no pressure was put on Scottish Ministers. It was repeated and we must accept that. However, what advice, if not pressure, did Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials give to Scottish Ministers? What contact did they have and were the international implications of any course of action, which would obviously be for London to handle, raised with Scottish Ministers? Was there an awareness that this was the situation or that things of this kind were going to develop? Indeed, there appears to have been no awareness that when Megrahi went back to Tripoli he would be greeted by a cheering crowd; it seemed to come as a surprise.

Secondly, did the FCO tell Scotland about our Secretary of State’s view that the Government did not want Megrahi to die in prison? Was that our Minister’s view, or was it the view of Mr Ed Balls that “none of us” wanted to see Megrahi released? Which was right and which view was conveyed to Scotland?

We come then to the prisoner transfer agreement. The Statement confirms that this included Megrahi, and did so after a change of heart and some pressure from the Libyans, who said that they would not sign anything else. It obviously included consideration of trade and business reasons, what the Statement calls wider commercial interests, and there is nothing wrong in that. While they may not have affected the final decision to release Megrahi, does the Minister agree that there was an obvious connection? There must have been one between our handling of the prisoner transfer agreement and the final decision taken in Scotland, despite Ministers’ indignant assurances that there was none. Was that change of policy on the prisoner transfer agreement made fully known to Edinburgh? I note also that one Foreign Office Minister wrote about Libya’s role in,

“guaranteeing a secure energy future for the UK”.

That seems to put it a bit high. Can the noble Baroness elaborate on that? Is there a major bilateral LNG deal coming up to fill the dangerous hole that has been allowed to develop in the UK’s energy supply strategy? If so, could we know a little about it?

Fourthly, what assurances were given to the USA about Megrahi that either he would not be transferred or that he would not be released? There seems to be considerable ambiguity. Speaking earlier in another place, the Foreign Secretary seemed to be under the impression that relations with the USA were carrying on as normal and had not been too affected by the obvious feelings expressed in Washington about this whole affair. In reality, this is one more incident that reflects a very different but not necessarily unhealthy pattern emerging between us and the Americans under their new President, who is clearly taking his country in new policy directions which are bound to affect our relationship in ways both good and not so good. We really need our Ministers to keep up with what is happening on the geopolitical scene and not to assume that everything is going on as before.

As I have said, there are a great many unanswered questions, and these are just a few. What is left behind by this saga is, ironically, a considerable souring of our relations with Libya, which the whole business was meant to help. These relations will now have to be repaired, as they should be, and a full inquiry into what went wrong, and why, would be a good starting point.

My Lords, in August 2007 the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, wrote to Mr MacAskill, who took the decision in this case, saying:

“As you know, the Government has on a number of occasions made it clear to the Libyan authorities that any PTA between the UK and Libya would not cover al Megrahi. This was done because the Government recognised the sensitivities surrounding this case. It also reflected the position set out in the letter from the UK and US Governments to the United Nations Secretary General (dated 24 August 1998), which made it clear that in the event of a conviction, al Megrahi would serve his sentence in the United Kingdom”.

So a joint letter appears to have been drawn up for the UN Secretary-General. Why was it that in his statement Mr MacAskill found that that was not at all clear? He told the Scottish Parliament that both the United States Attorney-General, Mr Holder, and the United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, were under the impression that an assurance had been given that Megrahi would serve his sentence in this country. That is obviously consistent with the letter I have read out.

Mr MacAskill said to the Scottish Parliament:

“I sought the views of the United Kingdom Government, and I offered the right to make representations or to provide information. It declined to do so. It simply informed me that it saw no legal barrier to transfer, and that it had given no assurances to the US Government at the time. It declined to offer a full explanation. As I said last Thursday, I found that highly regrettable”.

Can the Minister clear up this complete ambiguity which has done so much damage to our relationship with the United States, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said a moment ago?

Another matter I should like to ask the Minister about is in relation to a public interest immunity certificate. On 21 July 2008, the United Nations observer at the Lockerbie trial, Dr Hans Köchler, wrote to the Foreign Secretary, Mr David Miliband, saying:

“As international observer, appointed by the United Nations, at the Scottish Court in the Netherlands I am also concerned about the Public Interest Immunity (PII) certificate which has been issued by you in connection with the new Appeal of the convicted Libyan national. Withholding of evidence from the Defence was one of the reasons why the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has referred Mr. Al-Megrahi’s case back to the High Court of Justiciary”.

Why did the Foreign Secretary issue a public interest immunity certificate and in what area did that certificate deal?

Does this not underline the point I made at Question Time today that the results of the four-year inquiry of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission—all 800 pages of it—should be revealed so that we can see why it came to the conclusion that leave should be granted to Mr Megrahi to appeal against the conviction for a second time, a highly unusual step? All the circumstances involved in his conviction are not now in the public domain, and without some form of public inquiry we shall never know whether his conviction was safe, or as a result of evidence withheld, or anything of that nature. The suspicion will remain that he has been released and his appeal withdrawn—which was not necessary for compassionate release—in order to cover up the documents that the Government are withholding. I should like an answer to those questions.

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their comprehensive and detailed questions, which indicate the expertise that your Lordships have on these matters.

First, we were very clear with the Libyans that we were not actively seeking Megrahi’s death in custody but that we emphatically could not intervene in any decision that the Scottish Executive or the Scottish judiciary chose to take. We made that absolutely clear. The letters that we and the Scottish Executive published on 1 September—including letters from Ivan Lewis, to which I think a noble Lord referred—reaffirmed categorically that this decision was taken by the Scottish Ministers and the Scottish authorities.

It is important for us to follow up the issue of the United States, which I think two noble Lords raised. To suggest that the British Government were not aware of our place in this globalised world would be unfair, and I would never accuse any noble Lord of making such sweeping statements. We were clear throughout with the Americans that any decision on Megrahi was for Scottish Ministers alone, but that Megrahi’s death in custody had the potential to set back the progress that we and the United States had made with Libya.

A number of noble Lords referred to the benefits and the reforms that the Libyans have introduced regarding, for example, weapons of mass destruction and their involvement in terrorism. It reflects a serious normalisation of relations with the Libyans. In bringing them back into the international community as far as we can—albeit slowly; there are still major human rights issues, as the Secretary of State mentioned clearly in his Statement today—we have to be careful about observing and supporting the efforts that are made.

On energy, we have to acknowledge that Libya, as was also stated in the Statement, has the potential to be a major supplier of oil and a provider of the energy security that we and other countries need. However, as the Prime Minister has said on many occasions, as did the Secretary of State today, there were no deals and no sell-outs. It is clear that none of that happened. The statement was made clearly by the Prime Minister that, on oil and other issues, no deals were made with the Libyans. All these matters were under the jurisdiction of the Scottish authorities.

My Lords, as I mentioned at Questions, I disclose my professional interest in having acted as co-counsel in the claim by Mr Megrahi to the European Court of Human Rights, which got nowhere. Since then I have had no professional interest in the case. However, in the work that I did on it, which lasted several weeks, I went through the whole of the transcripts and read the appellate judgment, and I have to say that I came to the conclusion, entirely objectively and working with Scottish counsel, that there had been a denial of justice and that Mr Megrahi had not been proved to be guilty. When I then read the summary of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission report, which my noble friend referred to just now, and realised that it had come to the same conclusion, I was very disturbed.

I shall deal with a couple of points in addition to those that have been made by my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford. First, will the Government please give an assurance that they will consent to the publication of the whole report? The commission does not have the power to do so itself. If the Scottish Executive or Scottish Parliament ask them to, will the Government consent to the publication of all the report so that we can see what its grounds are for believing that there may have been a miscarriage of justice?

Secondly, I am very concerned about the circumstances in which Megrahi was persuaded to drop his appeal and to go and die in Libya. I saw him in Barlinnie myself. I would like to know, and I would like the Government to find out whether, when he was visited in prison, it was made clear to him that if he dropped his appeal he would be allowed to go and die in Libya, so that there would then be no appeal and the relatives—Dr Swire and the others—would never know the truth. That is very important to them, and they have written to me about it. I would therefore like an assurance that there was no quid pro quo and no pressure put upon him. The Government may not know the answer, but they should find out. Was any pressure put on Megrahi that he would be sent to die in Libya only if he dropped the appeal?

On the last point, I am not aware of what the answer might be. We will ask for some advice on whether anyone has been asking those questions and, if so, I will respond to the question that the noble Lord raises.

On the issue of an independent inquiry, I have to keep repeating that is not really for us to say whether that will happen. I am, however, aware that the Scottish Parliament will soon begin an inquiry into the decisions that were taken, and I presume that that would be the best vehicle for any reflection that the Scottish authorities may choose to make on exactly what happened. I am sorry; I have forgotten the other question.

I was asking whether the Government would consent to the publication of the whole report if the Scottish Parliament or Executive asked them to.

Again, that is an issue for the Scottish authorities, but we can ask whether there is a likelihood that the report will be given to those parties who are interested, such as someone, like the noble Lord, who was involved in the commission. It goes back to whether it is necessary to have an independent inquiry. The details of the re-engagement with Libya are there, and we will need to see. The Justice Secretary will appear before the Justice Committee on 20 October, so I think that these issues will become clearer as time goes on.

My Lords, the decision of the Scottish Executive to release Megrahi on 20 August seems to have become confused with a number of wider issues. No doubt many of those issues are of great importance and are still unanswered, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, have pointed out. Does the Minister agree, though, that in the end the sole question regarding Megrahi’s release was whether it was justified on compassionate grounds—in other words, whether the evidence was that he was not likely to live for more than another three months? If that was the evidence, and if those were the grounds for his release, surely those grounds override all the other grounds that have been mentioned. Does it not follow inevitably, if those grounds are the correct ones, that it would have been clearly wrong for the United Kingdom Government to seek to influence the decision in any way?

I thank the noble and learned Lord for that helpful and expert opinion. As he said, it is a matter for the Scottish judicial system, and within that system it is clearly stated that for compassionate release to be agreed, the judgment has to be that that person will live for only a further three months. As I understand it, there was a parole board, a consultation with the prison governor and a thorough medical examination which determined that that was actually the case, and on that basis the Justice Minister in Scotland decided that that would be the course that they would take on this occasion.

My Lords, I declare an interest in this matter. I am chairman of the Libyan British Business Council. Virtually all the major firms trading with Libya, certainly all the larger ones, are members of the council. I believe that I would have known had there been any major business deal that was part of the agreement to release Mr Megrahi. I know of no such deal, and I believe that the Government are entitled to make that claim.

I say to the noble Lord that it is important for the British Government and for British business, which he has declared an interest in, to re-engage with Libya, as a result of which we have secured many advances on weapons of mass destruction and so on. We have to admit, too, as the Prime Minister said on 2 September, that it is in all our interests that Libya rejoins the international community, and it is in all our interests that British interests in other spheres are supported.

My Lords, one can surely act only on the basis, after the appeals, that this was a proper conviction. Are there any general lessons to be learnt from this matter? The dilemma is clear, as was pointed out by my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Aberavon. There are separate jurisdictions in law and the Scottish jurisdiction is sovereign in this matter. However, there are key UK interests. The wider dimension includes counterterrorism co-operation with Libya; illegal migration from Libya over the Mediterranean into Europe; the commercial interest—including many jobs—in the UK; and foreign policy relations, not least those with our major ally, the United States. Is my noble friend satisfied that the channels of communication are sufficient? Were there any actual relations between Libya and the Scottish Executive? Is there a need for more formal protocols on consultation in matters of this sort? What, if any, are the general lessons to be learnt from this matter?

I thank the noble Lord. I point out that UK involvement in the measures under the prisoner transfer agreement is very clear. The decisions that the Scottish authorities were able to take reflected their particular judicial system. Since Mr Megrahi was imprisoned under Scottish law, in Scotland, it was clear that that it was the prerogative of the devolved Administration to pursue the matter themselves. I agree that in all matters, whether between Libya and the UK or between Libya and any other part of the world, it is extremely important that Libya is in contact with and influenced by other countries. The Secretary of State raised Amnesty International’s concerns on human rights. If we do not engage with a country such as Libya, we are unlikely to see developments of the kind that we have seen already on non-proliferation and other matters of grave concern, not just to us in the UK but of course globally. I welcome any opportunities for useful exchanges that can be had between devolved authorities, the British Government and the Libyans so that we can make progress on improving relations and improving the capacity for influence on Libyan thinking and action and so that everything possible can be done.

My Lords, I preface my question with a word of congratulation to the Minister on her appointment as our new Minister for Africa, a subject in which she and I have a long-standing interest.

It is some years since I went to Libya with Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter was killed in the Lockerbie tragedy, to try to help to persuade the Libyans to agree to a trial in a third country. Since that happened, I have had no involvement in the case at all. However, four things concern me, which have all been referred to already, but which I shall repeat.

First, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has expressed grave reservations about the authenticity of the original verdict, and we have not yet seen its full report. That is a matter over which great uncertainty still hangs. Secondly, the United Nations legal observer at the trial has been scathing about the quality of the evidence on which Mr Megrahi was convicted. That must be a matter of concern. Thirdly, the Government have placed public interest immunity certificates on some of the papers, which prevents the defence seeing what evidence they had that has not been made public. Fourthly, Mr Megrahi withdrew his appeal, so we have not been able to get at the truth. Surely, there is an unanswerable case for a full, independent judicial inquiry, and the victims of the Lockerbie disaster deserve nothing less.

I thank the noble Lord. I very much value his experience in connection with these matters. As the Secretary of State mentioned in his Statement, the terrible tragedy of Lockerbie is something that many of us in this House remember very well. The reality is that the Libyans continue to maintain that they consider the matter to be closed. Although the British Government do everything that they can, still, as I am sure do the Scottish authorities, it is proving very difficult to persuade the Libyans that the matter can be opened.

This must be an issue for the Scottish justice system to deal with. The issues that the noble Lord raises are extremely worrying and throw the spotlight on some aspects of the trial that we should be concerned about, but I very much hope that the Scottish Parliament and others will take up these matters and ensure that the issues that noble Lords have raised will be understood to have been taken very seriously by your Lordships. Perhaps we will see some responses soon on the matters raised with me.

My Lords—

My Lords, I think that it is our turn.

I have an interest, but go on.

My Lords, I agree very much with my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford and his implied conclusion that at ministerial or at least prime ministerial level, the release of Megrahi was handled pretty crassly. However, Libya’s leadership seems to have changed in recent years. Prime Minister Blair, ably supported by all the departments of the FCO, in 2004 played a leading part as a bridge between Gaddafi and the West. As a result, to some extent at least, Gaddafi has come in from the cold.

Has the Minister yet had a chance to read Gaddafi’s Green Book, as I have? If so, she will recognise his muddled and fumbling attempts to give power to his people. Does she agree that what he really seems to be trying to do—although he does not appear to have read the original source—is to follow Abraham Lincoln’s adage at Gettysburg that the object is to have government of the people, by the people and for the people? Does she further agree that, in practical terms today, Gaddafi’s enemies are our enemies? They are those Islamist jihadists who would be as keen to kill him as they would be to kill leaders of the West. Does she also agree that Libya, with 2 million barrels of oil a day and only6 million people, has much scope to improve the lot of its own people? Does she agree that we have an important role to play, for example through education? We have something like 6,000 Libyan students in our universities, who produce some £120 million a year in fees for our university system.

I thank the noble Lord and promise that I shall put Gaddafi’s Green Book on my Christmas wish list. My background has been in international development, so I well understand the need for state-building and nation-building. A prerequisite for that is a subscription to democracy-building, to good governance and the rule of law. Those are matters for anyone who engages with a country such as Libya. Of course, trade and energy security are important issues, but part of the relationship has to be the importance of building those structures, including an educational system, and giving real freedom to the people. That is something that we would all believe to be a priority in Libya, as with other countries in which the UK has an interest and involvement.

My Lords, noble Lords will know that I was Solicitor-General for Scotland when the two accused were handed over in Libya for trial and I was Lord Advocate at the time of the prosecution. I appeared myself for parts of the prosecution and was responsible for it. I have been asked on many occasions for my view on the compassionate release of Mr Megrahi and have taken the view that it would not be proper for me as the prosecutor to comment on that. However, I shall say one thing. I have known Mr MacAskill for more than 30 years and know that he is someone who would take a decision on proper grounds and not on extraneous matters. In particular, when he said in his statement that the withdrawal of the appeal by Megrahi was solely for him and his legal advisers and that no pressure had been put on Megrahi to do so, that should be accepted.

Does my noble friend agree that in respect of the conviction, no fewer than six Lords Advocate have taken the view that there was sufficient evidence for Megrahi to stand trial and that he was appropriately convicted on that evidence, and that no fewer than eight judges of the High Court of Justiciary have similarly concluded on the evidence that he was guilty of the crimes? He remains convicted of the worst terrorist offence on British soil—the deaths of 270 people, 11 of whom were in the town of Lockerbie.

I wish to raise one matter. Assurances were given that, if convicted, Mr Megrahi or his co-accused would serve their sentences in the United Kingdom. Those assurances were important in securing the support of the American relatives for the trial process, which was particularly important in ensuring the legitimacy of the trial. They now feel alienated from the trial process. It is a source of regret to me that I gave those assurances based on the assurances that were given by the United Kingdom Government to the relatives when I met them, and they now feel aggrieved about that. Will the Minister work with the Scottish authorities to make overtures to the families, particularly the American relatives, to ensure that they know the full facts behind the decisions that were taken and assure them that we have always had their interests and the interests of justice in mind?

I thank my noble friend. I will certainly pursue the issue that he raised, particularly in relation to the importance that we attach to having contact and engagement with the American relatives.