Royal Naval Deployment: Mediterranean

Steve Baker Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

Those deployed on the Border Force cutters have that kind of training, but Mounts Bay is a much larger ship—16,000 tonnes—and will be operating in deeper waters to the west of Chios, so it is less likely, although not impossible, that it will be picking up large numbers of migrants; it is its helicopter that we hope will be identifying boats in distress, much closer to the shore, and working closely with the two respective coastguards.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

EU Navfor concentrates on Somalian piracy but claims in its mandate to provide support to other EU missions. Will the Secretary of State explain why it has not been able to meet this tasking without NATO support and when he expects EU Navfor to expand to the point where it is capable of deploying British naval power without NATO?

[Michael Fallon]

Maritime standing group 2 operates in the eastern Mediterranean, and so is the logical group to deploy to the Aegean, and happens also to comprise a Greek and a Turkish ship, which is equally important when operating in Aegean waters, as well as a Canadian, a German and an Italian vessel. In this instance, therefore, the NATO group was ideally placed. As my hon. Friend says, however, EU Navfor, commanded from Northwood, is bearing down on piracy in the horn of Africa. It has been a very successful mission, and it is an EU mission because if we are to enable the pirates to be prosecuted in third countries, we need the legal instruments available to the EU that would not, for example, be available to NATO. That is another illustration of how it is useful to be members of both the EU and the alliance.