EU Migration: Valletta Summit

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, it is clear that everybody who will participate at Valletta will consider what legal routes of migration are appropriate. This Government have already made it clear that migration has assisted this country but it needs to be managed and legal. Other aspects will need to be discussed at Valletta. There will be an agreement at the end to make sure that all parties understand that we need to assist those in greatest need and in the greatest crisis areas across all of the Horn of Africa and north Africa.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, how many people smugglers have now been arrested by the new methods we are meant to be using with our ships as part of the EU force? Have any of any importance been arrested or are we actually encouraging more people to try to take that route and, as the weather gets worse and worse, which it is day by day, thereby effectively condemning more and more people to death?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, progress has been made as a result of a United Nations security resolution that has enabled us to move from stage 1 to stage 2 and seize those at sea who are peddling this appalling trade and making billions out of victims of smuggling and trafficking. Those are operational matters. Now, we wait to see what the results of that are. However, the National Crime Agency is in the forefront in Europe in tackling organised immigration crime. This is an issue not only across the Mediterranean but across the whole of the Balkan area.