Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many days HM Cutter (a) Seeker, (b) Searcher, (c) Vigilant, (d) Valiant and (e) Sentinel spent (i) on patrol and (ii) out of service for repair in January 2023.

Vessels become non-operational either to rectify minor faults which only take a short period of time, because they are going into planned maintenance, including the requirement for annual safety assessments and certification and for work as part of our ship life extension programme or due to developing a more significant defect which was unplanned.

Border Force will always try to arrange for the longer planned maintenance periods necessary for our vessels to be undertaken, when operational demand is less.

For security reasons Border Force does not release information regarding individual vessels