Piracy

Lord Clinton-Davis Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to combat the threat of piracy on the high seas.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom is playing a key role in counterpiracy operations at sea, and we are leading international work with regional countries to build penal, judicial and law enforcement capacities in support. More than 1,000 pirates are now in custody. The first line of defence remains self-defence measures by ships to minimise the risk of a successful hijack. However, the long-term solution lies on land, with the rule of law and increased stability in the region.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

Off Somalia alone, was there not an increase in piracy of some 60 per cent in 2010? The situation has not improved this year. I understand that masters and crew have been subjected to horrendous behaviour. Do the Government agree that this behaviour has been financed largely by al-Qaeda? Is it not self-evident that ships entering such waters should carry armed guards?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

On the first point, the noble Lord is not quite correct; the figures that we have show that there were 47 hijacks in 2009 and 41 in 2010. In the first six months of this year the number was down to 18 and the number of unsuccessful attacks has also dropped very dramatically, so the total number of attacks so far this year is way down on last year. There is no room for complacency there at all because it is still a very ugly situation, as the noble Lord indicates, but a number of measures are being taken on land in building the prisons to deal with convicted pirates and on the high seas through unprecedented co-ordination between all the navies of countries such as the United States, Russia, all the NATO countries, Japan and China—a degree of co-ordination never before seen among navies. This is having the effect of reducing, not increasing, the incidence of piracy, but we still have a long way to go.