Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he is taking to protect the integrity of British territorial waters (a) in relation to Spain and (b) otherwise.

Mr David Lidington

The United Kingdom has a range of measures in place to defend British territorial waters, including British Gibraltar Territorial Waters (BGTW). The Royal Navy challenges all unlawful incursions by Spanish state vessels into BGTW, the United Kingdom makes diplomatic protests to Spain in respect of all such incursions. Incursions are violations of, rather than threats to, UK sovereignty over BGTW.