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Tunisia

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that response. First, I shall deal with the rapid deployment team, which has, by all accounts, done an excellent job. The initiative of setting up the rapid deployment team was taken by the noble Baroness’s own Government, perhaps by her and her immediate predecessor, and has worked extremely well. It is a very valuable initiative and I congratulate the previous Government on putting in place a team organisation of this kind which has helped in such dramatic situations as the tsunami a couple of years back, the Haiti horror and the effects of the volcanic ash. The noble Baroness asked why the rapid deployment team did not move faster. In fact, it moved extremely fast but there was one snag which was outside its and indeed our power and control, which was that of air transport, getting it organised and getting the team into the country fast. However, it is now there and is doing an extremely valuable job. It is a credit to this country as a whole, quite aside from who happens to be in government, that we are able to mount this sort of operation. The noble Baroness said that she had hoped for a stronger Statement. I understand that; we all feel very strongly indeed about our core principles as a nation and we should proclaim them at all times. However, the difficulty, particularly in these very early days, is understanding which way the trend of events is going so that we can be most assured that the number one step is achieved: namely, the restoration of order and calmness and the end of violence, killing and bloodshed so that a sensible pattern of government can evolve. Although parliamentary convention required my honourable friend to say that there was a prospect of a new Government, in between him making the Statement and me repeating it, such a Government have been set up, with opposition Members. If one dare say so, that is somewhat encouraging. As the noble Baroness rightly implied, this is the point when we urge that this new Government, who embrace opposition Members, put to the forefront the concern for human rights, realise that they have a duty to accountability and that there is much to be learnt from past events which have led to this very ugly and dangerous situation which may—who knows?—we hope calm down, but which may have all kinds of domino repercussions in a wider area, some of which could be very injurious to general global and regional stability and to the interests of this nation. That is my broad answer to the noble Baroness’s questions. She asked about regular contact with European Union high officials. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary is in close contact through his office at all times. We are particularly in touch at official level with the French Foreign Minister and with the office of the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton. They are key actors in the situation and strengthen our overall European Union approach as well as anything we can contribute bilaterally. I hope that those are regarded as satisfactory answers to the noble Baroness’s points, but I am very happy to elaborate on them in more detail in what is still a very fast moving situation.