Brexit: Armed Forces and Diplomatic Service

Lord Selsdon Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Selsdon (Con)]

My Lords, I have a difficulty in that I should disclose a number of interests. I am first and foremost the secretary and treasurer of the House of Lords Yacht Club. As your Lordships will know, by tradition all British-flagged vessels are entitled to the protection of the Royal Navy, Her Majesty’s ambassadors, consuls, proconsuls and plenipotentiaries—although we are slightly short of plenipotentiaries at this moment—wheresoever they may be on the face of this earth. In terms of British-flagged vessels, we have 3,600 commercial vessels, 6,500 fishing vessels, 20,000 yachts and 320,000 small ships.

International law, which I am not very good on, recognises, as stated in the relevant Admiralty publication, that,

“every vessel afloat has a national character, and places duties on flag states to regulate and restrict the legitimate use of flags that indicate national character. The regulation of the use of British national colours is not therefore an outdated ritual, but Britain’s duty as part of the international community”.

As for my noble friend on my right, I have decided myself, because there is no committee around, that we will make him an honorary member of the House of Lords Yacht Club. However, the difficulty, as we know, is the use of flags. Every vessel afloat has this national characteristic. That places duties on different people, and to find the flags is a problem.

In the past, we in the House of Lords Yacht Club found several things that we were concerned about. The first was coastlines, of who went where and when. The UK and Commonwealth together have a coastline of 44,000 kilometres. France and the French territories have 31,000 kilometres. The former Soviet Union had 44,000 kilometres and the United States has only 22,000 kilometres. Does this matter? Effectively, the United States has a much shorter coastline than I thought when we were looking at this matter.

There are more than 60,000 British-flagged vessels which, by tradition, are entitled to the protection of the Royal Navy—we have had very few incidents, other than man over board from time to time or, perhaps more important, the loss of the ensign, because to get a new ensign is quite complicated as they almost have to be made by hand.

A question to have come up recently is that of illegal fishing, also by private boats. The costs of illegal fishing are somewhere between £10 billion and £24 billion a year, so I am advised. These are not particular issues, but it is when we come to the economic exclusion zone, or EEZ, that we have a certain difficulty over how we may be protected. An EEZ, which effectively cuts across the channel, is legally meant to be something you observe. However, the data and ability needed to follow the rules and regulations is pretty considerable.

As I said, I have sailed a lot and I had the privilege to follow my favourite thing, which was the travels of St Paul. That took quite a bit of exercise and wore out quite a lot of young feet—my own would not wander about—until I realised that the travels of St Paul were around the same places as the travels of the illegal immigrants at this particular point in time. I had entered and come out successfully of a point of considerable danger.

I am grateful for the chance to have this debate, and in particular to my noble friend Lord Sterling. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord West, for introducing me to NIMIC, where I came across some of the most impressive people I ever met in the maritime field. They are down in Portsmouth at the moment, fortunately with new equipment and services. The Navy that will emerge in the next few years will, without doubt, be the strongest and best Navy we have had in this country for some time. If the amateurs can help, I am sure almost all my members would willingly accept a new junior commission if there are insufficient officers to go to sea again.