Gibraltar

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Those are very understandable questions. I will answer the second one first. The response was fairly swift. We have to balance our diplomatic and our military response and we have to live with the reality that while in many fields Spain is our close ally around the world and helping us, on this issue we have our differences. It is a question of balance. As to the longer-term situation, our hope and our intention are rooted in the Cordoba Agreement, the trilateral forum of dialogue, which was set up very successfully under the previous Government. I emphasise that it involves not just Britain and Spain, but Britain, Gibraltar and Spain—it is trilateral. If we can keep that process going, it must be the way forward to end these incursions which, I agree, do create a sense of irritation and seem unnecessary.

[Lord Chidgey]

Does my noble friend the Minister agree with the statement made by Peter Caruana, the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, that there are absolutely no circumstances in which his Government will permit local waters to be treated,

“other than as waters of exclusive British sovereignty”,

under their exclusive jurisdiction? Will the Government join the Government of Gibraltar in appealing the ruling that their cases against the decision that these waters should become one of Spain’s protected sites under EU law are inadmissible?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

We agree with Peter Caruana completely. We also take the view that, as these are British Government sovereign waters, any redesignation is for us and not for Spain.