Somalia: Piracy — Question

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 3:06 pm on 11 January 2012.

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Photo of Lord Howell of Guildford Lord Howell of Guildford Minister of State (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) (International Energy Policy) 3:06, 11 January 2012

My noble friend is quite right that this is a very serious situation spreading of course not only to the Gulf of Aden area, but out into the Indian Ocean and the west of Africa. He perhaps would accept that the statistics show-maybe because of diversion of shipping but for other reasons as well-that successful attacks fell dramatically last year. There were 127 attacks in 2010, 47 of which were successful, and by 2011 there were more attacks-150-but only 25 were successful. The success rate for the pirates in achieving their ugly objectives has been much reduced. Nevertheless, my noble friend is absolutely right that very firm action is required. The matter of UAVs is under consideration but there are difficulties, even for UAVs, in covering such an enormous area. We are talking about somewhere twice the size of Europe. On the question of vigorous action when these pirates are encountered, the Government believe that interim guidance is a strong first step, as initiated by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, in his discussions on these matters in Australia a few months ago. The details laid down are definitely an advance in dealing with pirates in a most vigorous manner, and rightly so.