Piracy

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, it might be helpful if I explain to the House that although we are talking about piracy, the matter falls into two legal capacities, and some of the figures amalgamate the two. Of the criminal attacks taking place at sea, some are in territorial waters—which is where the majority of the real theft is done, from oil tankers anchored off Nigeria—but outside those territorial waters there are also kidnappings and thefts of a much lower amount. Perhaps I may give a general answer to my noble friend’s three major questions. We do not believe that it would be appropriate to take from our experience internationally in Somalia and replicate it in west Africa. First, most of the crime in west Africa is in territorial waters, and in the area covered—from Senegal right the way down to Angola—there are a range of functioning Governments who can implement their own efforts to combat maritime crime in territorial waters. Outside territorial waters, maritime crime clearly has less of an impact. However, international discussions are going on. My noble friend raises the point, “Why not arm?”. The Government and the UK maritime industry have made it clear that they do not wish to see private armed guards on boats, because another difference between Somalia and west Africa is the level of sheer vicious assaults in the latter area. In west Africa they are not afraid to kill.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the waters in the Gulf of Guinea are highly complex, as the Minister says, with overlapping territorial seas and a lot of stuff taking place in those waters. However, there is no doubt whatever that the threat to the mariner is growing and growing, and we have to do more than we are doing. Does she not agree that we have a perfect storm developing in this region, with the huge growth of kidnapping and piracy in the south? There is a discussion to be had around Abubakar Shekau and ISIL, and now Boko Haram is taking over territory and declaring an Islamic state—then there is the growth of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb and the incidents taking place in Chad and Mali and all those countries. There is Ebola in the west and the enhanced flow of drugs from Colombia into west Africa. Some of these are Commonwealth nations, and we as a nation should do more in that region to try to pull this together. Ideally, I would like to see ships going there from east Africa, but of course we cannot do that because we have too few. Perhaps a motor boat with noble Lords like the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, who served in the Navy, could go out there and do something.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, first, I pay tribute to the Merchant Navy, which is often the unsung hero; without it, world trade comes to a halt. The noble Lord referred to the Royal Navy. Two Royal Navy vessels visited west Africa last year and three so far this year. They conducted a series of visits and training exercises; their efforts vary from hosting senior officers and training small boat crews to organising multiple ships in a passage exercise. So they are covering all the bases to make sure that the skills are there and that action can be taken. There are also diplomatic efforts to ensure that we encourage the Yaoundé agreement to go ahead and so that the Maritime Trade Information Sharing Centre in the Gulf of Guinea is operative, and we contribute funds to that.