Spanish ships have entered Gibraltar waters 178 times in last year The Ministry of Defence said the Royal Navy responded to 178 incursions between November 1, 2011 and October 31, 2012 but only 23 in 2011, 67 in 2010 and 26 in 2009. In July alone this year there were 40 incidents, a rate of more than one a day. Earlier this month the Spanish corvette Vencedora had entered British waters, leading to a showdown with the far smaller and lightly armed Royal Navy patrol boat HMS Scimitar, one of two such vessels which form the core of the Gibraltar squadron. There were two further incidents last week, which resulted in the Spanish ambassador Federico Trillo being summoned to the Foreign Office for a dressing down. Mr Rosindell said: "The people of Gibraltar feel like they are basically under threat. If we let the Spanish get away with it they will carry on. The time now has arrived for the British Government to come down very firmly on them. The Royal Navy needs to be there in force. Setting out the action he would like to see taken, he said: "We should confiscate any vessel that enters our waters. They have ignored all the polite requests to stop doing this. The time has come to show that we are not prepared to tolerate it. We do need to apprehend any vessels (that enter sovereign waters) and if that same vessel keeps coming back it should be taken away permanently. The MoD confirmed in response to FoI requests that no live ammunition had been discharged by British ships in any of the incursions naval vessels had responded to.