Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the call by the UN Refugee Agency and the International Organisation for Migration on 20 August 2020 to strengthen the search and rescue capacity of refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean to prevent further loss of life.

Search and Rescue in the Mediterranean continues to have an important role in saving lives at sea. The UK Government remains concerned about the continued high number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean and the number of fatalities.

Since October 2015, the UK has allocated over £175 million of humanitarian assistance in response to the Mediterranean migration crisis. Any assistance assigned to Libyan search and rescue entities should be made conditional on no one being arbitrarily detained, ill-treated or subjected to human rights violations post-disembarkation.