Navy warship on standby to patrol coast

A ROYAL Navy warship could be deployed to the English Channel to pick up migrants crossing the sea from France.

HMS Sutherland – already at high readiness defending Britain’s coastline – could be tasked with saving hundreds of migrants and dropping them off in the UK.

The Plymouth-based frigate is often used to escort Russian and Chinese warships which pass into UK territorial waters and through the Channel.

Navy sources have said it would take on a similar task to British ships currently in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas.

A source told the Daily Mail: ‘If asked by the Home Office, it could be tasked with the job. In an extreme situation it would be very strange if the warship did not pick up migrants. The laws of the sea mean it would have to. In theory it could pick up hundreds of people.’

But Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham, former deputy chief of defence staff, said the ship could become a ‘magnet’ for migrants.

He said: ‘The navy could certainly help but there needs to both legal and political discussions about what we would do with the people we pick up as it will undoubtedly act as a magnet to attract more people to do the journey.’ He added: ‘ Its deployment is also bound to be at the expense of some other task ... would have to be dropped.’

Another Navy source said there would need to be a policy put in place in order to make it a ‘directed task’ – like the mission in the Mediterranean – rather than one they just react to. It would require a request by the Home Office and then the Ministry of Defence would assign the ship.

Twice last month HMS Sutherland, based in Plymouth, was tasked with escorting a Russian ship in the English Channel. Trish Kohn, Commanding Officer of Ready to protect our borders: HMS Sutherland already has the job of escorting foreign ships through UK territorial waters HMS Sutherland, said last month of the escort mission: ‘We’re ready to protect UK territorial waters.’

It comes after Admiral Lord West, former head of the Navy, warned that Britain’s borders are at risk from terrorists and uncontrolled flows of migrants because so few boats patrol UK waters.

Just three Border Force vessels patrol 7,700 miles of coastline after another was deployed to the Aegean Sea to tackle the migrant crisis.

It comes after aerial surveillance of Britain’s shores was scrapped in January to save money. Both Britain’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency and HM Revenue & Customs officials are said to be ‘deeply concerned’ that the UK has not got control of its territorial waters.

Earlier this month a report by peers said claims Operation Sophia – the EU naval mission against people smugglers – would act as a ‘magnet to migrants and ease the task of smugglers’ had some validity.

But retired naval officer Rear Admiral Chris Parry warned that if action was not taken more migrants will flood across the Channel dur- ing the summer months undetected. He said the Government should deploy a warship to the Channel to defend Britain’s shores rather than giving it to the Mediterranean migrant operation.

He told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: ‘Most people who know how to use a boat could get across the Channel undetected and our border with France along the maritime coast is extremely porous.’

He added: ‘What we have to do is encourage our European partners to pull their weight.’