VIDEO: House of Commons

Air strikes against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's "command and control centres" in Libya are "wholly legitimate", Foreign Secretary William Hague has said.

At question time in the Commons on 3 May 2011, Mr Hague told MPs that "there must be a political settlement" in Libya, calling again on the Libyan leader to step down.

British military officers were working on the ground helping the rebels to establish headquarters and organise their resistance, he added.

Colonel Gaddafi's youngest son, Saif al-Arab, was killed in an air strike, along with three of the Libyan leader's grandchildren, in Tripoli at the weekend.

Labour's David Winnick asked: "Considering the killing of one of Gaddafi's sons and his very, very young grandchildren, is it not the case now, despite the denials that have been made, that first and foremost it is regime change that is the policy of Nato - and secondly the policy is to kill Gaddafi himself?"

Former leader of the Liberal Democrats Sir Menzies Campbell suggested that the government risked losing the support of the Arab League if it appeared that it was now targeting Gaddafi.

Shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander asked Mr Hague whether the United Nation's mandate for military action in Libya excluded "the direct targeting of individuals".

But Mr Hague said that individuals were targeted according to "how they behaved" and if they were "part of command and control centres".

He added: "I don't think it is right to provide a running commentary on targeting, nor is it militarily sensible to do so."

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VIDEO: House of Commons

Prime Minister David Cameron has said it is "good news" that the UK's economy grew 0.5% in the first quarter of this year.

On 27 April 2011, at his first Commons question session since the Easter recess, Mr Cameron welcomed the recent GDP figures but he acknowledged that figures for the construction sector, which shrank by 4.7% in the quarter, were "disappointing".

Ed Miliband accused the prime minister of "terrible complacency" and said the economy had "flatlined".

He also attacked the government's plans to reorganise the NHS, asking why 98.7% of delegates at the Royal College of Nursing conference had voted against the plans.

Mr Miliband attributed rising waiting times in the NHS to the diversion of "billions of pounds away from patient care into this costly reorganisation".

But the prime minister denied that waiting times were rising and said many GPs wanted to see the NHS reforms succeed.

Tory backbencher Dr Sarah Wollaston, a GP, said that the previous Labour government's implementation of the Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) was remembered by junior doctors as a "disaster".

But she asked the PM: "Are you aware that there are concerns that current proposals to reorganise medical training and workforce planning could have similar unforeseen consequences?"

Mr Cameron replied: "I can absolutely guarantee that we are not going to make the mistake that the last government made about medical training, where they created an utter shambles."

Also asking questions: DUP MP Jim Shannon, Tory Brian Binley, Tory Nadine Dorries, Labour's Kevin Brennan, Lib Dem Adrian Sanders, Labour's Debbie Abrahams, Tory Peter Aldous, Tory Bill Cash, Labour's Phil Wilson, Labour's Bill Esterson, Lib Dem Stephen Gilbert, Lab/Co-op MP John Woodcock, Conservative Fiona Bruce, Labour's Ian Lucas, Tory Jonathan Evans, Labour's Jamie Reed, Tory Richard Harrington, Labour's Paul Flynn, Lib Dem Ian Swales, Labour's Ben Bradshaw, Tory Lee Scott, the DUP's Nigel Dodds, and Tory Henry Smith.

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