Committee pushes PM over report on Gaddafi

THE chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has told the Prime Minister he is prepared to use the committee’s power to send for an unreleased government report on Colonel Gaddafi’s sponsorship of the IRA.

Families of IRA victims were left distraught last month after they learned that the Shawcross report may not be published.

The report was expected to boost efforts to win compensation for those affected by Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s sponsorship of terrorism in Northern Ireland.

Former journalist William Shawcross was appointed as Foreign Secretar y Dominic Raab’s special representative on the issue last year.

He was asked to advise on how much compensation should be sought and how best the Government could support efforts to obtain redress from the Libyan government.

But when former UUP leader Lord Empey asked the Foreign Office when the Shawcross report would be published, he was told that “ministers will consider the report in detail in due course, including whether to publish any elements of it”.

In a letter addressed to both Mr Raab and Boris Johnson, Conservative MP Simon Hoare urged them to prioritise the publication of the Government’s response to the Shawcross report.

If the Government is “unable or unwilling” to do so, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee will use its power to “send for persons, papers and records” if necessary, he said.

“In my capacity as the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee chairman, I want to raise the Government’s response to the report by William Shawcross on compensation to UK victims of Gaddafi-sponsored IRA terrorism, a matter in which the committee and I have maintained a long-standing interest,” Mr Hoare added.

“In March 2019, the then Foreign Secretary appointed William Shawcross as the UK’S special representative on UK victims of Gaddafi-sponsored IRA terrorism to examine the feasibility of making compensation payments to UK victims from Libyan assets frozen in the UK.”

Despite the Shawcross report being submitted in May, it was explained that the Government would only consider the report once the focus on the Covid-19 crisis abated, but Mr Hoare argued that Libyan politics did not stop in the summer because of the pandemic.