he Government his plan to use controversial pushback tactics to expel migrants in the Channel after trials waived, MPs I heard.
Minister of the Armed Forces James Heappey told the Defense Committee on Tuesday that the Department of Defense (MoD) initially recommended against the tactic, which was scrapped following the conclusions of naval experts after trials by the Royal Marines.
The policy is said to have enabled Border Police patrols to intercept migrant ships in the English Channel and return them to France.
It was supposed to be challenged in the Supreme Court earlier this year, but was withdrawn just over a week earlier.
Mr Heappey told the committee that the small, often overloaded vessels used by migrants are each treated as a ‘ship in distress’ and returned to the UK under the obligation of seamen to save lives at sea.
He said: “We were asked to explore how those tactics could be used in the Strait of Dover, and our analysis after a series of trials at Weymouth using different techniques and an analysis of the water and the type of threat we faced was that it was inappropriate, and the argument was won.
“The government has decided not to because the evidence provided by professional seamen within the Royal Navy was of such a nature that it pleaded convincingly not to do it.”
He explained that the Home Secretary and Prime Minister had seen pushback used internationally, but there were no examples of a busy shipping lane like the one in the Channel.
He said: “So our opinion, who was involved in the trials and had some expertise around those waters, was that it would be a violation of the convention for saving life at sea to knowingly attempt to collide with another ship in an international shipping route.”
Dave Doogan, Scottish National Party (SNP) MP for Agnus asked: “So it was the moral component against pushback depending on how busy that shipping lane is, or was it dependent on pushing back civilians and unseaworthy ships with Royal Navy -craft is unscrupulous? †
Mr. Heappey replied, “All those things, all those things.”
But the minister also came under fire over the way the navy appeared to ‘guide’ migrant boats across the Channel after they were deployed to deal with crossings.
John Spellar, Labor MP for Warley, said it was “not the way this policy was being sold”.
Since April, military patrol vessels have been placed in the Channel to oversee the operations, after being put in charge by Boris Johnson.
Mr Spellar made the comments in response to Mr Heappey who said the Department of Defense was “clear from the start” about the role it would play in the plan to tackle border crossings.
Mr Spellar said: “Given the role of the Navy, and you could say you predicted that, although I would say again that was not the way this policy was sold by the Home Office to the British public, or the public and the media’s interpretation of it all.
“But given that the role of the Royal Navy now appears to be basically to escort these ships in, do you think the Navy is happy with that job?”
Heappey said he had “heard no suggestion otherwise”.
Mr Spellar later asked: “Will it be fair to say that the role of the Royal Navy now is basically to be a guide for illegal migrants to get them safely to our shores?”
Mr Heappey replied that this would be “an unfair reflection”.
He also told the Defense Committee that the Navy had not used “push-back” tactics after being barred from the trials.
Earlier this year, the Prime Minister pledged £50 million in new funding for boats, air surveillance and military personnel to ensure the measures are a “very significant deterrent” to crossings.
The role of the military in the English Channel is, in my view, quite closely related. It is there to take control of the flow of migrants from France to Kent
The commission learned that a total of 189 personnel from the Royal Navy and the British Army had been deployed as part of “Operation Isotrope”.
Mr Heappey also told the committee that since the Royal Navy and British Army became involved in dealing with migrant crossings, all but one of the boats have been brought to the UK in a “controlled” manner.
The one that did get through landed at the Dungeness Power Station and was intercepted by the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, he explained.
He said: “I think the role of the military in the English Channel is quite closely related. It is there to control the flow of migrants from France to Kent.
“Within there is greater certainty about the capacity of UK-based maritime assets to save lives at sea, but also to ensure that as much as we can, and so far only one boat has landed in an uncontrolled manner since we have taken primacy… that those arriving in the UK come under the control of Her Majesty’s Government and then go to trial.”
He added that the armed forces had been “broadly successful” in fulfilling their role.