Merchant ship guard rules may change

The government is investigating measures which could allow shipping firms to employ armed guards to deter pirates off the coast of Somalia and in the Indian Ocean,

a Foreign Office minister has said.
The Home Office and Department for Transport are being consulted on possible changes to legislation regarding firearms as well as official advice which "strongly discourages" the use of private security on merchant ships.
In evidence to the Foreign Affairs select committee, Henry Bellingham said shipping companies had been pressing "very hard" for guidelines on the use of private security to be relaxed.
Currently international naval forces patrol the Gulf of Aden and some of the Indian Ocean in an attempt to deter pirates, but the area affected by the problem of Somali piracy is vast, and ships are not always available when merchant vessels are hijacked. Shipping companies often pay millions of dollars in ransom money to retrieve their crew and cargo.
Bellingham said that no vessel which carried private security contractors had ever been hijacked in the region and that strengthened calls for the Department for Transport to change its guidelines, which currently "strongly discourage" the use of guards.
"We want them to change those guidelines to at the very least neutral," said Bellingham. "The government recognises that armed private security companies are a fact of life.
"We take the view that the UK government shouldn't encourage this, but should not discourage it, so it would be a decision for the shipping industry on a case by case basis."
Bellingham said that use of small numbers of military personnel, known as Vessel Protection Detachments, aboard merchant ships - as used by France and Spain – would be "very welcome" but that Britain's armed forces were too committed in Afghanistan and Libya to provide these.
The head of the Defence Crisis Management Centre, Captain David Reindorp, said that around 1,500 Royal Marines would be needed to make 500 available at any one time to form the detachments.
Source: Defence ShipManagement