European Council

Lord Wallace of Tankerness Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We certainly are working closely with our European partners and are committed to playing our full part in tackling the shared challenges posed by the global migration crisis. As the Statement said, we are committed to maintaining a maritime presence in the Mediterranean. The Royal Navy has intercepted 172 smuggling boats and saved more than 12,000 lives since Operation Sophia began. We are continuing the deployment of the Border Force cutter to the central Mediterranean to support the search and rescue activities under Operation Triton. To date, cutters have rescued more than 13,000 migrants across the central Mediterranean and Aegean. We are taking our responsibilities extremely seriously and are working with the EU in terms of looking at where these migrants are coming from and trying to help stabilise states. We take this extremely seriously and will continue to work with the EU, the UN and international partners to make sure that we work together to tackle this problem, because together is the only way we will achieve it.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)]

My Lords, in her Statement on 23 October, the Prime Minister referred to,

“a time-limited implementation period based on current terms”.—[Official Report, Commons, 23/10/17; col. 25.]

Of course, today she has said that if we Brexit in March 2019, we would not be members of the European Union after that. To pick up on the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, if we fast forward two years from now to the annual Fisheries Council to determine total allowable catches, will there be a British Minister at the table to defend British fishing interests? How does the noble Baroness see this working?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As the Prime Minister says, it will depend on the next phase of negotiations, but currently we expect the implementation period to be two years.