The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)
My Lords, I join noble Lords in expressing my gratitude to the European Union Select Committee for organising this debate. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, for acknowledging the Government’s willingness to give practical effect to the procedural undertakings that they have given. As a result, we have had a discussion on the Floor of the House at an early stage of consideration. The Government will take very serious account of what has been said today.
One of the things that has emerged from the debate is that the European Union Committee, the Government and a number of noble Lords are in agreement that there is concrete evidence of the utility and benefits to be derived from the analysis of PNR data in terms of passengers’ security. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, put the case for the directive containing intra-EU PNR data as well as data on third-country flights as least as cogently as I could, if not more so. Therefore, I do not need to go over why the Government consider this to be an important part of the legislation, and why they wish to continue to strive to get it included. We have consistently argued that the directive should contain this information and that it should cover intra-EU routes.
I note what my noble friend Lord Hodgson said—that this is a “nice to have” rather than a “must have”. However, I shall seek to explain why the Government take a different view for two reasons. First, the argument that it is possible to evade the information that this provision might yield by choosing another form of transport may be valid. However, that is not itself a compelling argument for not obtaining the information if you believe it to be necessary to inhibit terrorism. Secondly—this is the major point—we have had ample evidence since earlier drafts of this legislation that aviation is a major terrorist target. We cannot ignore that. Therefore, it is right, consistent with individuals’ right to privacy—I entirely take the points that have been made about that and will return to them—to provide and maintain the maximum security that we can for passengers on aircraft, otherwise aircraft may well be blown up before they reach us.
Lord Dykes
Further to that point, with which I agree, does the Minister agree that it is remarkable that, although the security procedures at airports are extremely irritating for most passengers and that we all suffer, there is a high degree of psychological support for those measures among passengers, who know how vulnerable air flights are?
Baroness Neville-Jones
The noble Lord’s point is entirely well made. One of the things that the Government are nevertheless trying to do, with international co-operation, is to reduce as much as possible the burden of those procedures—a lot of them are physical. The more information we have that enables us to alleviate some of the other constraints and put them together in a package, the safer we will be and the less intrusive the security procedures will be.
The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, made various points. API information is already collected and it is possible to know with whom you are travelling. He is quite right to say that extra information will be collected. It is precisely because that information includes details of how the ticket was paid for, which is a major indicator of the kind of passenger with whom you are dealing, that it is thought wise and helpful to have it. This directive will go no further in the information that it asks for than that which is already contained in the agreements that the EU has negotiated with third countries, such as the United States, Australia, Canada and possibly others. I repeat that the Government’s first duty is to ensure the security of their citizens.
The UK has tabled an amendment that it hopes may form part of the negotiations. Our view is that the directive should allow member states—not oblige them, if that is unachievable—to require carriers to provide PNR data. That will increase effectiveness and help us to ensure that our borders are adequately protected. The committee and the House will entirely understand that this is a key consideration regarding our decision on whether we opt in.
We have been lobbying hard on this issue for some considerable time. I am pleased that an increasing number of member states are being persuaded by the arguments involved. However, I have to say that we do not yet believe that we have reached where we need to be to ensure that such a requirement becomes part of the directive. A great deal of work remains to be done. Even if we obtain the support we need in the Council, the Government are also conscious that many Members of the European Parliament hold strong views on data protection and on whether the proposed measure is proportionate. I know that many noble Lords have connections with Members of the European Parliament, and the Government would be extremely grateful if noble Lords, if they had occasion to, were able to persuade those MEPs of the merits of our case and reassure them on any concerns they may have.
I say to the noble Earl, Lord Erroll and others that the Government will take the whole question of the safeguarding of this information extremely seriously. There is a whole section of the proposed directive that addresses that issue, and we will scrutinise that as carefully as anyone. We understand and believe in the necessity of allowing security and privacy to ride together, and not allowing them to be put in opposition to each other. We believe that the directive is proportionate, and that it would continue to be proportionate if it included intra-EU PNR.
The House wishes to know whether the Government will be able to opt in. As I said, further work must be done on the directive and we must do more lobbying in order to get to the place where we feel we need to be. There will be further discussion of the directive at an important home affairs Council on 11 April. We are striving to ensure that the Council, in its final statement, will send a strong signal that intra-EU PNR will be the common position. If we can get that signal, it is likely—and that is a very positive “likely”—that we shall want to opt in to the directive from the outset.
I hope that the House will accept that at this stage the Government need to maximise their negotiating leverage. They will reflect very carefully on the points that have been made today before they reach a final decision; they take the points made by noble Lords extremely seriously. There may be points of detail between us, but not fundamental points. We will of course communicate our decision to the House as soon as it has been made.