An already stretched and under resourced Royal Navy has been asked to deploy vessels from its ever shrinking Fleet to patrol the UK maritime border.
The Home Affairs select committee has proposed that the Royal Navy be deployed in the English Channel to protect the UK against migrant people-smugglers and the heightened terror threat. Extra patrols around the border are needed because the UK’s fleet of Border Protection cutters is depleted and not sufficient to protect against the threat to the country from the refugee crisis.
It emerged that just three Border Force cutter vessels were being used to patrol the UK's 7,000 miles of coastal borders. The English Channel has in recent months become the key front in the battle to protect Britain’s borders. Last week a court heard how smugglers were making up to £100,000 per journey ferrying boat loads of desperate migrants into tiny ports around UK’s porous coastline.
Demonstrating a misunderstanding of the current capacity of the Royal Navy the MPs warn that Royal Navy ships “must be used in our sea war against the traffickers” amid fears terrorists are exploiting the migrant crisis to gain access to European countries.
Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Home Affairs select committee, said: “Criminal gangs continue to exploit weaknesses in security at small ports in Britain to illegally transport migrants from the continent. “Despite maritime security being critical to an island nation, Border Force is operating worryingly low numbers of vessels to protect our borders. Royal Navy vessels must be used in our sea war against the traffickers. “The attacks in Paris demonstrated that terrorists are exploiting this crisis by using this human tragedy as a cloak to re-enter Europe.
What do you think? Is this an appropriate task for the Royal Navy? Do we have enough ships and personnel to carry out the task effectively? What tasks should be sidelined to enable the RN to take on this role?
NavyBooks' view is that while controlling our national maritime border is a vital part of national security it is not a role or commitment that the Royal Navy is currently properly equipped or resourced to carry out. Such a role might usefully be added to the tasks of the Fishery Protection Squadron - but the current squadron of four River Class ships would be insufficient and, in any case, are now routinely deployed 'out of area' to the Caribbean and other parts of the world - to cover for shortfalls in operational warship numbers.
If the task were to be properly resourced then there would be much benefit to the Royal Navy in taking over the UK Border Agency tasks, creating an RN Borders Patrol Squadron of a dozen, or so, cutters and patrol boats that would operate alongside the police, HMRC and security agencies and become an element of the existing Fishery Protection Squadron - which, in past times, frequently took on a security role, particularly during the 'Trouble' in Northern Ireland interdicting IRA, UDA and other terrorist traffic and smuggling operations.
Operating many more small ships than is currently the case would benefit recruitment and training at all levels. Service in small ships is a great way to test the calibre of personnel - giving everyone, ratings and officers alike, real autonomy and responsibility with consequential positive impact of the effectiveness of the Royal Navy personnel and their subsequent careers.
In any ideal world the RN would be bigger and HM Coast Guard would also be a larger and somewhat more adequate force.
I'd increase both and would go for a programme of building, in UK yards with UK materials, 16-24 offshore patrol ships to do the job + fishery protection, irrespective of whether we remain in the EU or not.
Realistically you would also need to increase HMRC staffing too - to track people who arrive illegally from outside the EU and work in the burgeoning 'black' economy.
I agree with Mark, the 'illegal Immigrant problem' is the ease with which a person can 'disappear' once in the UK, however a properly funded 'Coastguard' would go a long way to making us more secure.
Forget all these notions of cheap secondhand boats. We have the facilities to build our own and quickly, and please don't spend all the money on 'design concepts' just build the things!
Government funding to create British jobs, surely someone could make it happen. It needs vision and leadership from Westminster - something which is sadly lacking these days.