Royal Naval Deployment: Mediterranean Debate
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Lord Beamish
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Royal Naval Deployment: Mediterranean
Lord Beamish Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I welcome this deployment and wish RFA Mounts Bay and her crew all the best. What is the legal status of immigrants if they are picked up by Mounts Bay, and particularly if they claim asylum? We faced that issue when we were in office and there were operations off the coast of Somalia.
Michael Fallon
The legal position is that people cannot claim asylum on board Mounts Bay if it is not in UK territorial waters, so that is not as easy as the hon. Gentleman might think. We are working with other Governments to develop a policy that will ensure that those who are picked up in international waters can be returned to Turkey. At present, those who are picked up in Turkish waters by the Turkish coastguard can be taken back to Turkey, but as I have said, if they are picked up in Greek or international waters—the boundary there is complex and indeed disputed around the islands of the eastern Aegean—at the moment they will be taken to a place of safety in Greece.