Operation Sophia: A Failed Mission (EUC Report) - Motion to Take Note

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:44 pm on 13 June 2018.

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Photo of Baroness Goldie Baroness Goldie Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip), Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip) 6:44, 13 June 2018

My Lords, first, may I say that I have genuinely enjoyed this debate? It has been interesting and stimulating and I am very grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions. I join all your Lordships in thanking my noble friend Lady Verma for tabling this debate. I thank her and all the other members of the European Union Committee for their detailed report. I say to my noble friend Lord McInnes and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that I realise that this debate is many months after publication of the report. As your Lordships will be aware, significant pressures have prevailed on this House in relation to workload but, as the noble Baroness pertinently pointed out, there is still a relevance and currency in discussing these issues, so it is timely that we are doing that this evening.

I also thank all noble Lords for their different contributions to the debate, and I shall try to respond to them. Before I do that, I would like to remind the House of the Government’s approach to illegal migration and the situation in the central Mediterranean. As noble Lords well know, migration is a phenomenon as old as humanity itself. People have, since time immemorial, left their homes in search of peace, stability and better prospects for themselves and their families; so it is today. What is different about this crisis is that, as a number of your Lordships referred to, organised criminals are exploiting these age-old vulnerabilities for profit with little or no regard for the well-being of the people passing through their hands.

My noble friend Lady Verma rightly referred to the distressing images we have all seen in news footage and the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, vividly described the evil of that activity and the challenges in addressing that matter. This is where the real blame for this crisis lies. These criminal gangs are responsible for the deaths in the Sahara, the drownings in the Mediterranean and the conditions endured by migrants in Libya, including modern slavery.

I thought the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, was fair in acknowledging that, while not perfect in all respects, Operation Sophia has saved lives. It has had successes: smugglers can no longer operate with impunity in international waters. It is not a search and rescue mission, but over 45,000 migrants have been rescued and more than 500 smuggling vessels destroyed.

As noble Lords know, tackling human trafficking and modern slavery is certainly a priority for the Prime Minister. We are committed to working alongside international partners to address this and the wider challenge of illegal migration. The Government maintain that the best policy is a whole-of-route approach. I was very interested to detect that many of your Lordships share that analysis, because the aim is to reduce illegal migration, tackle criminality and trafficking, and protect the vulnerable by making concerted, co-ordinated interventions at all stages of a potential migrant’s journey. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, spoke eloquently about that, as did the noble Lord, Lord Collins; they also spoke about working with international partners, which I agree is vital. Our policy complements the EU’s comprehensive approach to migration, which ranges from addressing its root causes in source and transit countries to humanitarian assistance and to tackling the smugglers.

My noble friend Lady Chalker spoke with great pith, punchiness and authority on that issue of root causes, the countries of origin and how we address these matters. The noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, also commented constructively on this aspect, as did the noble Lord, Lord Jay, my noble friend Lord Horam and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith.

Operation Sophia is just one part of this EU approach. I will come on to that in a moment, but I think it might be useful for your Lordships if I indicate what the UK has been doing. It has allocated £175 million since 2015 to the response to the Mediterranean migration crisis. This includes a new £75 million humanitarian programme over the next three years focused on the central Mediterranean.

For the benefit of Members, many of whom expressed an interest in this, I think some detail about the DfID programme might be helpful. The programme will be delivered by partners—the International Organization for Migration, UNICEF, the British Red Cross and a consortium of NGOs—and will specifically target vulnerable migrants in west and north Africa, including Libya, as well as communities affected by migration. More specifically, programme activity will take place in migrant source and transit countries such as Senegal, Gambia, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Libya and Sudan. That illustrates the UK’s wide-ranging vision in trying to deal with this critical issues of countries of origin and the root causes of people undertaking these dangerous journeys.

Part of the programme—up to £5 million-worth of further assistance—is committed to Libya. It will include healthcare and psychosocial support for migrants. We will also continue to provide humanitarian relief and to monitor conditions in Libya’s detention centres. Through the International Organization for Migration, we will also fund urgent humanitarian assistance and protection services for migrants while working to ensure that support is also given to those wishing to return. Indeed, we have helped migrants wishing to return and reintegrate into their countries of origin as part of our whole-of-route approach. We have also funded communications campaigns to warn potential migrants of the risks and realities of taking the route to Libya. We are exploring further opportunities to work with EU partners or to complement their activities in the Sahel. We are also continuing to support the creation of the regional operations centre in Khartoum. This will help to share intelligence about people smuggling and will support the work of our organised immigration crime task force. That was an issue which my noble friend Lord McInnes raised, and I hope that reassures him that this matter is under consideration.

Turning to Operation Sophia, the Government accept that it has not been wholly successful, but I want to make clear that we do not accept the committee’s conclusion that a naval mission was the wrong tool, nor should we overlook what the operation has achieved. The facts speak for themselves. As I said earlier, smuggling gangs no longer operate with impunity in international waters, more than 500 smuggling boats have been put out of action and the number of migrants attempting the journey is falling. In the first five months of 2018, numbers were more than 70% lower than in the same period in 2017, and we are confident that the involvement of naval vessels through Operation Sophia contributed to this.

The noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, raised efforts to trace smugglers. That is an important issue. Specifically in relation to Libya, on the Foreign Secretary’s last visit he announced a package of additional support to help Libya deal with the terrorist threat and to tackle illegal migration. It included an increase in engagement with Libyan law enforcement authorities to tackle organised crime and trafficking, building on the work the UK is already doing with European partners.

It is also worth noting that Operation Sophia is additionally tasked with the important work of implementing the UN arms embargo on Libya on the high seas. Military vessels are vital for this task, which prevents deliveries of arms that would further destabilise the fragile situation in Libya. I was pleased to hear that the UN Security Council renewed the authorising resolution on Monday. The UK continues to support Operation Sophia, and we have had a vessel, currently HMS “Echo”, on task since the operation began. We also provide staff to the operational headquarters and have supported the training of the Libyan coastguard.

My noble friend Lord McInnes sought slightly more information about the future of Operation Sophia, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. I shall deal first with the coastguard training issue. The training really matters because an effective Libyan coastguard will be a vital part of the long-term solution to the migration crisis. Operation Sophia has trained over 200 members of the Libyan navy and coastguard on human rights, gender and search and rescue in order to improve their conduct and effectiveness in these areas. It is positive that the Libyan coastguard is now better able to rescue migrants at sea, and this is reflected in the reduced numbers of crossings of the central Mediterranean into Italy. I alluded earlier to the fall in the first five months of this year compared with those of 2017.

We are concerned about allegations against the Libyan coastguard, including over the mistreatment of migrants, something that a number of contributors raised. We have made clear to the Libyan Prime Minister and to the Libyan coastguard’s senior leadership that any human rights violations are unacceptable. I reassure noble Lords that all coastguard trainees are vetted to exclude anyone found to have committed human rights violations. The operation’s monitoring mechanism for the coastguard will also help to provide greater assurance.

As I said earlier, Operation Sophia is just one part of the wider EU maritime effort, which is also supported by UK assets. For example, Border Force cutters, deployed as part of the FRONTEX-led search and rescue Operation Themis, have saved more than 4,800 lives in the central Mediterranean since this crisis began. I make clear that the UK remains committed to Operation Sophia, including the deployment of HMS “Echo”, until the end of 2018. The Government will take a decision on future support in due course.

A number of noble Lords—my noble friend Lady Verma, the noble Lords, Lord Jay and Lord Collins, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith—raised issues about participation in the CSDP post Brexit. In line with the withdrawal agreement and the March European Council, the UK will be able to continue to participate in CSDP operations and missions, including Operation Sophia, during the implementation period. No decision has been taken regarding our exact contributions during the implementation period. Our future contributions to CSDP, as part of the wider UK-EU security partnership, after the implementation period, are of course a matter for the negotiations, and I think noble Lords will understand that. The Prime Minister has offered the use of British assets and capabilities as part of a partnership—