**Families of IRA victims have criticised the government for failing to put pressure on Libya to pay compensation.**They say Libya should pay compensation - as it has to the families of US victims - because it supplied the IRA with explosives used in atrocities.
Downing Street said Gordon Brown did not think it was appropriate to discuss the claims with Libyan officials.
Colin Parry, whose son was killed by an IRA bomb, said it made Britain “look very, very weak and insignificant.”
‘Oil deals’
The bomb which killed Tim Parry, 13, in Warrington is thought to have been made with Libyan semtex.
Mr Parry said: “It does make Britain look very, very weak and insignificant if, for reasons of worrying about oil deals or other economic considerations, this government of ours is prepared to disregard all the pain of the thousands of victims of IRA terrorist campaigns.”
Alan McBride, who lost his wife in an IRA bombing, is now the co-ordinator of the Wave Trauma centre in Belfast, which supports those who lost family members during the Troubles.
He said: "I do believe that where nations have been responsible for supporting acts of terror it’s only right that they should contribute to some sort of compensation fund for the victims of those acts.
"So the fact that the British government didn’t press Libya or refused to press Libya on these matters just isn’t right you know.
“At the same time I can understand that governments always have bigger agendas. If they’re thinking about the war on terror or they’re thinking about various trade deals in relation to oil I can understand why that’s the case. But it’s cold comfort really to the families that have been traumatised and affected by those acts of violence.”
The government has denied claims it refused to press for compensation because of fears of jeopardising oil deals with Libya.
Children’s Secretary Ed Balls conceded British companies had lobbied the government over trade with Libya, but insisted there was no evidence that they had swayed its decisions.
“Nobody is saying - including in the case of compensation - that trade or oil or economics was getting in the way of doing the right thing,” he said.
‘Strongly opposed’
Mr Brown’s office released a letter written by the prime minister to IRA victims’ lawyer Jason McCue last October in which Mr Brown wrote that the government did not “consider it appropriate to enter into a bilateral discussion with Libya on this matter”.
“* Libya are an essential partner in the fight against terrorism and it is in the UK’s interests for this co-operation to continue*”
Gordon Brown’s letter to victims’ lawyer
He added that Libya would be “strongly opposed to reopening the issue.”
In an earlier letter dating from last September, the prime minister told Mr McCue that Libya was now an “essential partner” in the fight against terrorism and it was in the UK’s interests for that co-operation to continue.
Democratic Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson, who is part of a cross-party group of MPs preparing to travel to Tripoli for talks about compensation, said Mr Brown had done far less for victims than US leaders.
Out-of-court deals have been agreed by Libya with three American victims of IRA atrocities.
More than 100 UK IRA victims, who had been pursuing similar claims through the American courts, had been excluded from those deals.
Their campaign has been boosted by the Scottish government’s decision to free Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
The victims argue Libya should show similar compassion regarding their demands.
The Conservatives said the public needed to know “on what basis” the government had reached its decision not to press for compensation.
Shadow foreign secretary William Hague told Sky News: "These latest revelations are part of an ever-expanding farce, with more revelations really every day about how the government have conducted themselves.
“These latest revelations greatly strengthen the case we have made for an independent inquiry.”