Informal European Council Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Cabinet Office

Informal European Council

Keith Vaz Excerpts
Monday 6th February 2017

(7 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Theresa May Portrait The Prime Minister
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I can assure my right hon. Friend that in looking at the future negotiations, we will be looking at every angle of the relationship with the European Union.

Keith Vaz Portrait Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
- Hansard - -

May I welcome the €200 million that has been pledged for the Mediterranean crisis? As the right hon. Lady knows, 3,800 people have travelled from Libya to Italy since 1 January. I ask her to be very careful with regard to the Libyan coastguard, because there is strong evidence that it is working with people smugglers to allow these boats to leave Libyan waters. How much of that money will actually be used to counter the work of the criminal gangs?

Theresa May Portrait The Prime Minister
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The work we are doing with the Libyan coastguard is of course about training its people to be able to do the job that we all expect them to do and that many of them want to be able to do. Separately from that, we will be working to enhance our ability to work across borders and through international agreements, using things such as joint investigation teams, to ensure that we are catching these criminal gangs. We have put some extra effort into this. I think we have to put even more effort into it in the future.