Piracy

To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport what information his Department holds on the number of pirate attacks that have been recorded in each region of the world in each year since 2006. (305775)

The number of ships that have reported piracy incidents to the International Maritime Bureau in each of the last four years are as follows:

	Number of attacks	UK registered
2006	239	3
2007	263	3
2008	293	6
2009	380	3

In areas of significant pirate activity the numbers of attacks in each of the last four years are as follows:

*Number*
	Bangladesh	Indonesia	Malacca Straits	Nigeria	Gulf of Aden	Somalia
2006	47	50	11	12	7	10
2007	15	43	7	42	10	31
2008	12	28	2	40	92	19
2009	15	12	2	26	113	74

Volume 502: debated on Monday 14 December 2009