EU-Turkey Agreement Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Kevin Foster
Main Page: Kevin Foster (Conservative - Torbay)Department Debates - View all Kevin Foster's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(8 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Lidington
Turkey already assigns a large proportion of its coastguard resource to the Aegean. For the reasons that I gave in answer to an earlier question, intercepting every small boat making the relatively short crossing to one of the Greek islands is not as straightforward as is sometimes suggested. For greater detail, I refer my hon. Friend to the statement that the Secretary of State for Defence made in the House on Monday, in which he said:
“The primary purpose of the mission is to provide monitoring, surveillance and reconnaissance of the migration route across the Aegean, which will better enable the Turkish and Greek coastguards”—
and the EU Frontex mission—
“to intercept the boats and disrupt the business model of the criminal traffickers.”—[Official Report, 7 March 2016; Vol. 607, c. 27.]
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I was interested to hear the Minister confirm that Britain would not be required to be part of the visa waiver arrangements, given that we are not part of Schengen. However, we are part of another common travel area, with the Republic of Ireland. What discussions will the Government be having with the Republic of Ireland’s Government about their approach to these issues?
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend makes a reasonable and important point. Like the United Kingdom, Ireland is not in Schengen and therefore not obliged to participate in any visa liberalisation. We keep in close contact with the authorities in Dublin, because the existence of the common travel area means that we need to ensure that we take account of each other’s decisions on this matter. I do not anticipate any difficulties in this regard—we normally think pretty much alike—but my hon. Friend is right to register that this is an issue that we need to keep in mind.