Operation Sophia: A Failed Mission (EUC Report)

Lord McInnes of Kilwinning Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord McInnes of Kilwinning (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege and honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who brings to the debate enormous knowledge of migration, human rights and refugees. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, and the other members of her committee for bringing forward this important and excellent report following up on the 2016 report from the EU Sub-Committee on External Affairs. It is slightly unfortunate, however, that it was not tabled earlier, particularly as Operation Sophia has been renewed until December of this year.

As is made clear in both reports and as we have heard from my noble friend Lady Chalker and the noble Lord, Lord Jay, migration is not a one-off issue caused by the Arab spring and current instability in sub-Saharan Africa—it will be with us long-term. We are so aware of it at the moment only because of the humanitarian tragedy that has taken place in the Mediterranean since 2016. The EU cannot solve, and perhaps should not seek to solve, the motivation for individuals to flee conflict or seek a better life for their families. We need to keep that in mind when considering any action the UK or our EU partners are taking. As I have said, despite these excellent reports, Operation Sophia has been renewed to the end of this year pretty much as it was through 2016 and 2017.

Operation Sophia was launched, correctly, in response to a humanitarian tragedy but its terms of reference, as we have heard, were far too broad. The men and women who have served in the operation have done a remarkable job in saving thousands of lives in the Mediterranean, as we have already heard from my noble friend Lord Horam. However, a pretence that the operation would deal with the fundamentals of the issues around people smuggling was unrealistic from the beginning.

We need to be aware that, despite the work of Operation Sophia, already in 2018 it is estimated that 500 refugees have drowned in the central Mediterranean area because of the fundamental issue at the crux—the people smuggling network. With a budget of €36 million and the enormous and immediate task of saving lives, Operation Sophia was never going to destroy the business model of the people smuggling networks that are bringing these desperate people to the Mediterranean.

The evidence suggests that, other than their excellent search and rescue role and the training of coastguards, those involved have not been equipped with the tools to properly disrupt the existing business model. A naval force cannot do that, especially in conjunction with what is a failed state in Libya and an increasing flow of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. Serious cogs in the people smuggling wheel do not join the migrants when they go to sea in a perilously ill-suited dinghy. We will therefore not be able to disrupt the people smuggling and capture those who run these lucrative organised criminal gangs—which is what they are—as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie.

I should like to hear from the Minister to what degree the Government have considered focusing future input into Operation Sophia purely on the search and rescue programme and the training of coastguards, avoiding a situation where we try to enforce a remit that is impossible to deliver on to an operation that is doing a good job. In my view, the ongoing focus of the EU and the UK must be on the source of the problem: the destruction of people smuggling gangs. That can be done only through a collaborative, sophisticated and land-based option.

The Turkish model of an existing state basically being paid to keep refugees out of the EU will not work in the north African context we currently face. I also suspect that the model is not sustainable in Turkey over the medium term either. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Jay, expressed so well, what would work is a focus on working with partner nations in Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa to bring about a two-stage environment. The first stage would be to create safe havens and conditions for those people who migrate and try to keep them out of the hands of the people smuggling gangs who transit them to north Africa. The second would be serious investment by DfID, as my noble friend Lady Chalker intimated, in the source countries to create a sustainable and safe environment so that people can stay in their country of origin. At the same time, serious investment needs to be made for an international criminal investigation into and the pursuit of those who are making so much money from other people’s tragedies. I look forward to my noble friend’s answer on this point.

As we have heard, Operation Sophia may have failed in its remit, but it has done an enormous humanitarian job by saving thousands of lives. It is now up to us and our European partners to ensure that we focus on creating safe environments for those who are fleeing their countries, while at the same time disrupting and destroying these criminal gangs.