Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the level of threat from piracy in (a) current and (b) prospective shipping lanes of economic interest to the UK.

Piracy remains a serious problem and the Government keeps threat levels under regular review. I chaired a Ministerial Working Group on Maritime Security on 3 November 2016, at which the range of threats to British maritime interests, including piracy was reviewed, and the work being done to protect our interests both at home and overseas.

The Government's assessment is that piracy is on the decline in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore Strait. It remains suppressed but not eliminated in the West Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden, where there remains a threat emanating from Somalia. In the Gulf of Guinea, we are concerned by an apparent increase in the number of attacks and a trend towards kidnapping crew for ransom.

The UK continues to play a leading role in efforts to uphold global maritime security. We provide the Commander and Operational Headquarters for the EU's Operation Atalanta whose mission includes deterring and disrupting piracy in the Southern Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and a large part of the Indian Ocean. We also help to safeguard shipping in those areas through the Royal Navy's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO). In June 2016 the Royal Navy and the French Marine Nationale established the 'Maritime Domain Awareness for Trade - Gulf of Guinea' reporting mechanism which enables information on maritime incidents to be shared with shipping in West Africa. We also support capacity building programmes in West and East Africa, and in South-East Asia.