Refugees and Migrants (Search and Rescue Operation) Debate
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Richard Ottaway
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Refugees and Migrants (Search and Rescue Operation)
Richard Ottaway Excerpts(10 years ago)
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James Brokenshire
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, and I commend him and members of his Committee for the focus they have attached to this issue. I know they have undertaken a number of visits to the region to see the situation for themselves. He is right to say that the solutions lie in north Africa, which is why I made a point about the need for focus and attention there. The mayor of Calais characterised the UK as the primary destination, but let us analyse where asylum applications are being made. The UK anticipates around 25,000 applications this year, but France anticipates around 65,000, Sweden around 80,000, and Germany more than 200,000. This is an issue for the whole EU, and it is important, as I have said, to continue to work together to find solutions.
Sir Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)
The flow of migrants across the Mediterranean is now more than just a trickle, and the Minister is right, as is the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), to say that the solution is to work on the causes of migration. I commend to the Minister the report by the Foreign Affairs Committee on instability in north and west Africa, and I put to him a question posed in that report that did not get a very clear answer: if a British warship finds a boatload of refugees in the middle of the Mediterranean, is the policy to escort it back to north Africa, or to usher it into a European port?
James Brokenshire
I thank my right hon. Friend for the work of the Foreign Affairs Committee in looking at the pressures in north Africa and across the region. We have a keen focus on and interest in the Committee’s reports and recommendations. On identifying and rescuing boats at sea, clearly if vessels are in the territorial waters of a particular country I would expect the normal rules of the sea to apply. That is why Frontex, with its mission to protect the security of the external European border, will focus on the 30-mile limit off the Italian coast.