EU: Justice and Home Affairs (EUC Report)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach) (Con)
My Lords, I join in expressing gratitude to all noble Lords who have participated in this debate; fewer, perhaps, than might be considered enough to do justice to a very thorough report and a serious matter, but of course it is soon after we discussed matters last Thursday evening. I am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Boswell of Aynho, in his place. I thank him and, through him, all members of the House’s European committee for their excellent work. They do great service to the House by the diligence with which they study these matters. I thank, in particular, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. A bit like Frank Sinatra, I cannot imagine that this is his last appearance, but this is, I am sure, his last appearance as chairman of Sub-Committee F. I am grateful to him and to his sub-committee for the work they have done on this report and I pay tribute, along with all noble Lords, to the work that he has done on a whole range of matters. It has been of great benefit to the House in European affairs and I am sure that that will continue. If not as chairman, I am sure that he will still be involved in other ways.
The sub-committee’s inquiry, to which my ministerial colleagues from the House of Commons, James Brokenshire and Shailesh Vara, gave evidence in February, was very thorough. Its subsequent report was of its usual extremely high standard and the Government were grateful for such a well considered contribution to the debate. As noble Lords will be aware, the new strategic guidelines in the field of justice and home affairs were agreed by the Prime Minister at the June European Council. The Government are pleased with the strategic guidelines, which reflect all our key priorities in this area. The Government were successful, as noble Lords will know, in securing a strong and clear reference to the need to tackle “misuse” of free movement and fraudulent claims. We welcome this and hope that it will lead to member states and the Commission being more proactive in addressing cases of fraud and abuse of human rights.
The new strategic guidelines also contain welcome references to the need to strengthen the EU’s external border, in particular through strengthening co-operation with countries of origin and countries used for transit. We were also successful in securing two explicit references to the need for action to tackle human trafficking, which reflect the importance we attach to the fight against modern slavery. Indeed, noble Lords will know that the Modern Slavery Bill is going through its Committee stage in the House of Commons at the moment. This is an area where the EU can and should be ahead of the curve and I hope that, in turn, so can we.
The overall messages of the new guidance are ones of implementation and evaluation of existing measures, and on strengthening practical co-operation rather than bringing forward new legislation. That is in keeping with the general tenor of the committee’s report. In a field where we have seen so much new EU legislation over the past few years, this is welcome. As noble Lords will be aware, the Government place particular importance on the full implementation of the prisoner transfer framework decision by all member states. We welcome the explicit reference in the guidelines to the need to improve cross-border information exchanges, particularly in relation to criminal records.
As noble Lords will know, the Government shared the disappointment of this House that a proper mid-term review of the Stockholm programme did not take place. We are therefore very pleased that we were able to secure a Council-led review mechanism in the new strategic guidelines. I think that was genuinely welcomed by all speakers when they referred to it. This review mechanism will give us an opportunity to work closely with the new Commission, and the current and forthcoming EU presidencies, to ensure that the Council continues to hold the Commission to account as concerns the proper implementation of the strategic guidelines. The Council now has a clear role in ensuring that the Commission’s future actions in this area are in line with the strategic guidelines agreed by the member states.
I will do my best to respond to all the points raised during today’s debate but, as usual, I promise to write to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, to copy all those who have spoken in on that letter and to place a copy in the Library if there are any that I do not address at this stage.
The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, asked specifically about the implementation of the European supervision order. I can confirm that we are preparing legislation on this matter and I hope that it will be in force by the end of this year. He also asked whether the Government would carry forward raising the proportionality issues and strengthening the yellow card procedure. As we made clear in our response to the committee’s report, the Government would like to see the yellow card mechanism strengthened. We want to have the scrutiny period extended from eight to 12 weeks and to extend the scope of the yellow card mechanism to include proportionality as well as subsidiarity. We also want to lower the threshold at which the yellow card is triggered.
The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, also asked whether the Government will have another look at the idea of a scorecard. I thank noble Lords for their further explanation as to how this matter would work. We will give the committee’s recommendation further reflection.
The noble Lord, Lord Judd, in another of his excellent speeches, referred to Home Office culture and the need to support links in the EU where countries are weak and need support. The UK offers practical support to member states. For example, we have provided a wide range of support to Greece to assist with the implementation of its action plan on asylum and migration. It is obviously in our interests—is it not?—to make sure that the EU borders are secure and properly policed and that we do not have the difficulties at Calais which we do, simply because people have leaked through what should otherwise be secure borders.
It was nice that my noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart was able to speak in the gap. He asked whether the budget was adequate for work on drugs, particularly for the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. The UK benefits considerably from the information we receive from the EMCDDA; but, as with all these negotiations, this Government have stressed the importance of budget discipline. That means that EU agencies must operate within their budget. We are satisfied that they can still do good work within that budget.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, asked me a number of questions. I will do my best to answer what I can now but I will be writing to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, as I have said, and if she does not mind I shall copy her in on that. It is a good way of making sure that everybody knows the answer.
The noble Baroness was concerned that the Government were not sufficiently focused on cybercrime and co-operation between the public and private sectors. I am surprised at that, given that whenever I speak I try to make it clear that we see it as a very serious issue. We fully support programmes that bring together the public and private sectors to share information on threats and to take co-ordinated action against them. I am happy to confirm on the record that we seek co-operation on cybercrime matters across a whole series of things, not just matters of security or even serious crime, but beyond to domestic incidents of cybercrime, which aggregated together can become very serious crime very quickly.
I am pleased that the noble Baroness noted that the report was helpful, informative and useful. I agree with her; I felt that the report did justice to the issues. I agree with her also that crime does not stop at Calais and that there is a need for European-wide co-operation in dealing with crime. I hope that she can be satisfied that when we discuss the Serious Crime Bill on Report these matters can be made clear in debate. There is no conflict between the Government’s policy on the matters contained within the report and our policy in legislating here within the UK.
I hope that noble Lords will be happy that I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, on the points that have been made and not answered in the debate.