UK — Cost of Libya operations

The net addi­tion­al cost of Oper­a­tion ELLAMY — costs incurred by the Depart­ment on oper­a­tions which would not oth­er­wise be incurred — is esti­mat­ed at £212m, Defence Sec­re­tary Philip Ham­mond announced today.

A Roy­al Air Force move­ments sec­tion loads Storm Shad­ow mis­siles into a Her­cules air­craft for trans­port from Gioia del Colle, Italy, to the UK at the end of Oper­a­tion ELLAMY [Pic­ture: Senior Air­craft­woman Tracey Dob­son, Crown Source: Min­istry of Defence, UK Click to enlarge

In a Writ­ten Min­is­te­r­i­al State­ment to Par­lia­ment, Mr Ham­mond said: 

“I have pre­vi­ous­ly informed the House that I would pro­vide a final esti­mate of the cost of oper­a­tions in Libya in ear­ly Decem­ber. We esti­mate that the net addi­tion­al cost of Oper­a­tion ELLAMY will be £212 million.” 

Speak­ing ear­li­er today at the Roy­al Unit­ed Ser­vices Insti­tute in Lon­don, the Defence Sec­re­tary said: 

“This is almost a third low­er than the esti­mate my pre­de­ces­sor pro­vid­ed to Par­lia­ment in Octo­ber — this is due to the speed with which oper­a­tions were con­clud­ed and a reassess­ment of the cost of replen­ish­ing muni­tions used; a suc­cess­ful out­come in every respect.” 

The ful­ly audit­ed cost of Oper­a­tion ELLAMY will be pub­lished in the Min­istry of Defence’s annu­al report and accounts. 

As pre­vi­ous­ly announced, the addi­tion­al costs incurred by the Min­istry of Defence on Oper­a­tion ELLAMY will be borne by the Trea­sury Reserve, and are in addi­tion to the core Defence Budget. 

Press release
Min­istry of Defence, UK 

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