WORLD_ Libya war has cost UK £200m

Libya war has cost UK £200m
Ministers to bring forward announcement about cost in attempt to counter Labour over military bill

Allegra Stratton, political correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 June 2011 23.44 BST
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George Osborne has refused to be drawn on the precise cost of the war in Libya. Photograph: Luke Macgregor/Reuters

The government is expected to tell MPs on Thursday that the operation in Libya has cost about £200m in an attempt to head off growing concerns that the military bill is spiralling.

Ministers will put down a written ministerial statement to the house, bringing forward the announcement from next week.

However, some defence economists have warned the cost could reach £1bn if the campaign lasts into the autumn.

Details had been expected in a few days, but the government appears to want to close down the issue as an avenue of attack for the opposition.

After a grilling from the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, in the Commons on Tuesday, George Osborne and chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, refused to be drawn on the precise amount.

At the weekend Alexander said in an interview with Sky News that it could be "hundreds of millions". Balls pointed out this was markedly different from the line in March that the operation would cost "tens of millions not hundreds of millions".

On Sunday Alexander told Sky News: "The campaign is costing tens of millions, potentially into the hundreds of millions as it goes on, but that money is coming from the reserve that we have set aside, precisely for contingencies such as this."

When the military campaign started, the chancellor said the cost would be "in the order of tens of millions of pounds, not hundreds of millions".

The news came as a minister in Libya's opposition force, the National Transition Council, wrote an open letter challenging the decision by the UK attorney general, Dominic Grieve, not to release funds to the rebels. Dr Ali Tarhuni, minister for finance and oil in the NTC, said the body would run out of funds in less than a week, according to journalists in Benghazi.

Grieve has said Britain cannot release the 1.4bn dinars (approximately £700m) printed by De La Rue – Britain's banknote printer – which have been impounded in the UK as the revolution has unfolded.