The recently published photographs of illegal immigrants and their boats show well dressed immigrants packed onto pristine boats loaded to the Plimsoll line. As an ex-Merchant Navy Officer I am certain that it is impossible to make a long distance sea voyage loaded like that, with so many passengers on board. These boats are surely being launched from ships within sight of land.

Until illegal immigrants find life at their destination to be extremely unattractive, they will continue to arrive. I suggest that a suitable deterrent is an enforced stay on a refurbished old oil tanker moored in the Mediterranean. The vessel can house a workshop so that the platform becomes a self-financed home for the detainees, until such time as they wish to be returned to their place of departure.

I suggest that cooperation with Spain and Italy to establish a number of such vessels presents a far more substantial deterrent. Enforced stays on offshore vessels worked in the 17th century - it can work today!