Mediterranean: Refugees and Migrants

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an extremely serious issue. The whole House should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, for raising it today and for first raising it in a Written Question. I agree with the noble Lord that this issue should be tackled at source in the countries affected and that they should look to tackle people trafficking and the reasons why people want to leave their homes. However, last week, I asked the noble Lord—the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, raised this as well—whether the Government really believe that this needless loss of life, with people drowning in the Mediterranean, will ever act as a deterrent to the criminals trafficking people or to those desperate enough to get into small boats and leave. He failed to answer the question then. Will he answer me now?

[Lord Bates]

I have tried to answer it. These are very early figures but there is some evidence from Frontex, in a briefing that we received in the past 48 hours, that the trend is turning. We should remember that the relevant figure went up from 70,000 per year to 150,000 and that the number of deaths went up from 700 to 3,000. We think that there are between 300,000 and 600,000 people in Libya waiting to make a crossing. The indications are that the numbers fell in October. There could be other reasons for that and we are following the situation closely. This is something we take very seriously indeed and are trying to abate.