Covid-19: Vaccine Availability

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, our £48 million of support for Gavi’s Covid-19 advance market commitment aims to ensure affordable access for developing countries. The UK has a proven track record of leading in this area. Gavi’s new strategy will increase its focus on zero-dose children, with targeted investments in health systems to improve immunisation access in the hardest-to-reach areas. And, of course, we will continue our significant work on nutrition.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

My Lords, we are faced with a pandemic that extends across every continent except Antarctica, affecting every country, rich and poor. To follow the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, will the Government encourage the creation of a global fund, as was done in the case of anti-retroviral drugs to combat AIDS, as a matter of urgency to enable all poorer countries to meet the costs of distribution of the drug as soon as it becomes available?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, we are supporting many international funds to ensure equitable access for all who need it. We support the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, which is the global call to action to accelerate development of a vaccine. We also support the recently formed Covax facility partnership, which is actively taking part in discussions on its mechanism and structure. Under the accelerator, Covax brings together international partners and Governments, and has the potential to ensure that a vaccine is accessible and affordable.

Sub-Saharan Africa: Water and Sanitation

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, my noble friend is of course quite right to point out that WASH is critical not only now as we deal with the immediate impacts of Covid-19 but for the future. That is why we are working closely with our partner Governments to ensure that the water systems in their countries continue to receive investment as countries around the world are challenged with the economic impact of Covid-19.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

My Lords, can the noble Baroness assure the House that everything possible is being done to assist villagers in poorer countries such as Malawi, in sub-Saharan Africa? Access to clean water for washing hands is often very limited, as has been pointed out, and traditional medicine inhibits knowledge of symptoms and how to deal with them. The provision of well-judged education and sufficient hand sanitation could save many lives.

[Baroness Sugg]

I certainly agree with the noble and learned Lord that we must make sure that the information provided to people is correct in order to help them save lives. I mentioned our project with Unilever, which aims to reach 1 billion people with the correct information about how best to protect themselves from Covid.

International Sustainability: Natural Resources and Biodiversity

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Bennachie. Unlike him, I cannot claim to be an expert in these matters but I am an ornithologist in my spare time. I care deeply about natural resources and the benefits of biodiversity, so I greatly welcome this debate. One does not have to travel very far to see and appreciate how much biodiversity matters, and how urgent the need is to preserve it. Although my main interest is in birds, it is no secret that they do not live in a world of their own. They depend on the environment around them for food and shelter, as I can see every day when I am in the hills of east Perthshire at Craighead. Especially, almost all of them depend on trees. Above us is a large forest which was planted about 40 years ago, almost all of it a monoculture of Sitka spruce. It provides shelter for roe and red deer, and foxes; little else seems to live there. But around our cottage the deciduous trees, some old and some new, are full of insects and bird life.

We have a mixture of residents and many visitors that come into our trees from the surrounding grazing land and elsewhere. We have brought new species on to our property by planting trees to increase our biodiversity, which we see when our local crossbills bring their young—with as-yet uncrossed bills—to nibble the buds of our ash trees in early springtime. At home in Edinburgh my wife, who organises these things, decided three years ago that we should stop cutting our grass every two weeks to keep it short and trim, and turn our lawn instead into a meadow. As a result, we now have rich insect life there too, as well as a variety of flowers that attract them. What she has done is part of a very welcome appreciation of the value of meadows up and down the country here in the UK.

What we do here is far from perfect but what a contrast it is to what is happening in far too many countries overseas. I have two images that stick in my mind and two points to raise with the Minister. One concerns Malaysia. A few years ago, I was taken by car from Kuala Lumpur to the international airport some 20 miles away. For much of the journey on either side were plantation upon plantation of palms, which had been planted for the production of palm oil. It was a depressing sight. They were laid out in vast, orderly, regimented rows stretching as far as the eye could see into the distance. I thought of what had been cleared away to make room for them and the huge loss of wildlife that must have resulted. It was the relentless industrial scale of what had been done that was so appalling. If there is a lesson here for all of us, it is that monoculture plantations cannot ever be a substitute for the mature, biodiverse forests that they replace. Protection of what remains of those forests around the world must be a priority.

The other image is from Malawi, one of the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Many of its people live in and around villages where they grow the crops they need to sustain themselves. The maize they produce needs to be cooked, and they need a source of heat to do this. For too many, that is provided by charcoal, which they obtain by cutting down trees. So the country is gradually being denuded of the trees that are needed to sustain wildlife. There is another problem too. Hillsides denuded of trees are being eroded, and the silt this produces is finding its way into Lake Malawi. As a result, the quality of the water in that huge lake is being diminished and this in turn means that fish, another important food source, are losing out too. The authorities are doing what they can to discourage this practice, but it is not easy to stop it in a poor country where other sources of heat are hard to find. This experience reminds us that trees are not just an important means of soaking up carbon from the atmosphere. They bring all the benefits of biodiversity, and they stabilise the ground on which they grow.

What can be done about this? There are obvious limits to what our Government can do to prevent the further loss of biodiversity in Malaysia in order to produce palm oil. But producers need markets, and they are vulnerable to international pressures. Our Government can surely add their voice to the many who are protesting at what has been going on there, and they can do more to discourage its use here for products that we use at home. I would be interested to hear from the Minister what is being done about this.

As for Malawi, where DfID has a significant and much-valued presence, as it has in the Sahel and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, there is an urgent need to do what we can to assist the authorities there in combating the cutting down of trees for charcoal. There are at least two prongs to what this might involve. One is investment in alternative sources of energy, especially the provision of solar-generated, carbon-free electricity. One can see that in villages where lighting has now been provided, on a small scale, in halls and birthing centres which were formerly dark after sundown but now have light to enable activity to carry on afterwards. Wider use of carbon-free electricity would assist the effort to stop the cutting down of trees. The other prong is education. Just as the people who live there are now learning about the benefits of access to clean water, so it should be about the benefits of preserving the environment. Life in these villages is rooted in traditions which are hard to break down. But surely we can do something to help there, out of the budget that is available for overseas development. I wonder what the Minister can say about this too. I look forward to her winding up this debate.

Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 (Specified Scottish Authority and Barred Lists) Order 2019

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the explanation of the purpose and content of this draft order, to which we are not opposed. Having said that, I hope that the Minister feels more confident than I do that she fully understands it. Much of what I want to say is taken unashamedly from the recent report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, and also, in part, from the wording of the Explanatory Memorandum. I will also raise a couple of points in the light of what was said when the draft order was considered in the Commons.

The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 sets out the arrangements under which the Disclosure and Barring Service may bar individuals from certain roles which involve working with children or vulnerable people in England and Wales. It also includes provisions setting out the relationship between the barred lists maintained under devolved legislation in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Section 74 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 amended the 2006 Act to place restrictions on duplication with the Scotland and Northern Ireland barred lists. The purpose of this order, as I understand it, is to implement that statutory restriction with regard to Scotland, so that the barring lists of England, Wales and Scotland do not duplicate each other. The restrictions on duplication under the 2012 Act apparently arise from concerns that double barring might create a further burden on individuals who wish to challenge their inclusion on the barred list, as they would need to pursue separate appeal and review processes in each jurisdiction. Duplication also gives rise to the potential that, if an individual’s challenge was successful in one jurisdiction but not another, he or she would remain barred across the whole of the United Kingdom.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee asked why, given that the restriction on duplication was introduced in 2012, it was only now being implemented. The answer from the Home Office was that responsibility for the Disclosure and Barring Service was changed to the Home Office following the passage of the 2012 Act, and the delay in bringing the measure forward was an oversight. What changes in processes or procedures have now been put in place to prevent what appears to be a seven-year oversight happening again in the Home Office? It does not inspire confidence in governance arrangements, which one would have thought might have been of some concern to the Home Office board—assuming that body still exists.

In its report on this draft order, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee said that the Disclosure and Barring Service did not have the technical capability for the automatic exchange of information with Scotland. The committee went on to say that, while it had no information about the efficiency or effectiveness of the current cross-checking system, it did have concerns that it appeared to depend on the vigilance of officials who operate the lists. Could the Minister comment on that point from the committee about the current arrangements and the efficiency and effectiveness of the current cross-checking arrangements? Also, what assurances, backed up by hard evidence, can the Government now provide?

The Committee also reported that a new IT system is planned, to make such cross-checks automatically. It seems that the current IT contract has been terminated, but that there is an extension notice until January 2020 to ensure continuity of services while the procurement process transitions to new suppliers. The committee went on to say that the Home Office could not offer a clearer indication of when the capability to undertake automatic checking of Scotland's barred list would be in place.

Continuing, the committee suggested that the House might wish to seek assurances, which are what I am now asking from the Government, about what mitigation is in place to offset any risk that information about individuals on a barred list in one jurisdiction may inadvertently fail to be shared with another jurisdiction. Also, will the Government provide further information about when and how the new IT system will achieve compliance with the requirements of Section 74 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, to which I referred earlier?

During the debate on this order in the Commons, the shadow Minister expressed her concern that, if the safeguarding of vulnerable adults and children is to be taken seriously—as I do not doubt for one moment that the Government do—we need to bear in mind that some cases of child abuse, trafficking and rape appear to be being dealt with by out-of-court disposal orders, which apparently means that they are omitted from DBS checks. The Minister in the Commons did not appear to respond to that point. Could the Minister now respond on behalf of the Government? Are there examples of such serious offences being dealt with by out-of-court disposal orders—and, if so, do the Government take the view that there is no potential danger in excluding them from DBS checks?

A further point was raised by a Conservative MP when this order was debated in the Commons. He drew attention to the fact that people posing a risk to children was an international problem and not simply a UK problem, and asked what progress had been made in the exchange of information with other countries. The same MP also asked about the length of time taken to get DBS clearance, and referred in particular to teachers who were new to a school, or newly qualified, because in the past it had led to such teachers not being able to take up their position. He asked for an assurance that the time taken to give clearance to essential public workers in particular was not an ongoing problem. The Minister in the Commons promptly gave that assurance, but gave no information on how long such clearance was now taking, and said that the list was,

“reducing at an acceptable rate”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/6/19; col. 160.]

That is not the same as saying that clearance times are now deemed to be acceptable. Can the Minister provide information on how long DBS clearance is now taking? If it is above an acceptable time span, what is the target figure?

Finally, the Minister in the Commons said that she would be writing to Tim Loughton, the MP concerned, on the issue he had raised about exchange of information with other countries. I too am interested in that point, and I would be grateful if I could be sent a copy of the Commons Minister’s reply.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome this order as achieving the necessary consistency between the two jurisdictions. Nobody doubts the value of the barring system in protecting vulnerable children from abuse in its various forms. The position in Scotland is accurately set out in paragraph 7.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which states:

“Existing Scottish legislation does not require Disclosure Scotland to consider individuals for barring where the individual has already been considered by the DBS”,


in England or Wales,

“and the DBS has considered all relevant information. Nor does it require Disclosure Scotland to apply a bar in cases that are barred under England and Wales legislation”.

That sets out what in Scotland is the system to avoid duplication, and also to maintain consistency.

As I understand it, the aim of this order is to achieve the equal position in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a view to enabling the authorities on both sides of the border to work together better to protect children and vulnerable adults. I think that every noble Lord in this House would support the broad aims. I am not in a position to join with the noble Lord in the criticisms he made—I do not have that information. As far as I am concerned, the order deserves to be supported because it is achieving what everybody wished it to achieve: consistency to enable the authorities to work together.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining this order. I now understand why the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, wanted to speak first—I too am relying on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s 53rd report, so I will try to say things in a slightly different way.

I understand that the purpose of the order is to ensure that those placed on a barred list by the Disclosure and Barring Service in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are not also placed on the barred list in Scotland by Disclosure Scotland for exactly the same reason—so-called double barring—so that, if there is a successful appeal in one jurisdiction, the person does not have to go through a second appeal process in the other jurisdiction. I also understand that this protection against double barring was supposed to have been brought in in 2012 and is being done now simply because of an oversight, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, pointed out.

I further understand that the current computer systems do not allow automatic checking of the Disclosure and Barring Service against the Disclosure Scotland barred list but relies on the DBS, for example, asking Disclosure Scotland to do a manual search of their list if it believes the subject has a Scottish connection. There is no date, other than beyond January 2020, for changes being made to the IT systems to allow automatic checking, as the contract with the current IT company has been terminated but the system is being maintained by the current company until the new one takes over in 2020.

While I can understand the reasoning behind the protection against double barring, is it not in the overriding interests of public safety for the name to appear on both lists, rather than relying on the Disclosure and Barring Service making a specific request of Disclosure Scotland if, and only if, they suspect a Scottish connection, at least until the IT issues have been sorted out?

To avoid the scenario where a successful appeal to the Disclosure and Barring Service does not result in the barred person being removed from the Disclosure Scotland list, if the person is barred for exactly the same reason in Scotland, what is to stop the Disclosure and Barring Service, as a matter of course, alerting Disclosure Scotland whenever there is a successful appeal against inclusion in the England, Wales and Northern Ireland list, and vice versa? The Government have failed for seven years to implement the protection against double barring. What difference will another six months or so make, until a reliable IT system is in place that can automatically check one list against another, particularly as there seems to be a perfectly reasonable workaround—or have I misunderstood?

Crime (Overseas Production Orders) Bill [HL]

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 11th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 13A in this group is in my name. I make it clear from the outset that we support this Bill, which is why at Third Reading in the other place we did not vote against it. What we did—and what Labour did in the other place—was to vote against the Government’s Amendment 13 proposing a new clause after Clause 15, because it does not go far enough. It does not ensure that death penalty assurances are secured from foreign states to make sure that data provided by the UK, whether by law enforcement agencies or private companies, does not lead to someone being executed. The Government claim to have come a long way in their amendment, but it requires only that a Secretary of State seek death penalty assurances, not that any agreement is dependent on death penalty assurances being received.

The UK is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, which is incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1988. It is also a signatory to Protocol 13 to the convention. Article 2 of the convention states:

“Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which the penalty is provided by law”.


Article 15 states:

“In time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation any High Contracting Party may take measures derogating from its obligations under this Convention to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation, provided that such measures are not inconsistent with its other obligations under international law”.


Article 57 states:

“Any State may, when signing this Convention or when depositing its instrument of ratification, make a reservation in respect of any particular provision of the Convention to the extent that any law then in force in its territory is not in conformity with the provision”.


However, the UK is also a signatory to Protocol 13 to the convention, Article 1 of which states:

“The death penalty shall be abolished. No one shall be condemned to such penalty or executed”.


Article 2 of the protocol states:

“No derogation from the provisions of this Protocol shall be made under Article 15 of the Convention”.


Article 3 states:

“No reservation may be made under Article 57 of the Convention in respect of the provisions of this Protocol”.


In other words, there should be no death penalty in any circumstances whatever. That is our international legal obligation.

The UK has been clear—until this Conservative Government took office—that it will campaign to remove the death penalty wherever it exists in the world and will never facilitate the execution of anyone in any foreign state. The difficulty with the type of agreement covered by this Bill is that data provided by the UK to an American law enforcement agency, for example, could result in someone in the US being sentenced to death, contrary until recently to both the UK’s international obligations and its declared intention to do all it can to eradicate the death penalty wherever it exists in the world.

I say “until recently” because, in a High Court case in October last year, it was revealed in correspondence from the Home Secretary to the then Foreign Secretary that, in the case of two ISIS terrorists, evidence was going to be supplied to the US without a death penalty assurance. His letter said that,

“significant attempts having been made to seek full assurance, it is now right to accede to the MLA”—

mutual legal assistance—

“request without an assurance”.

The then Foreign Secretary replied that in this,

“unique and unprecedented case … it is in the UK national security interests to accede to an MLA request for a criminal prosecution without death penalty assurances”—

a unique and unprecedented case to provide evidence to the US that may lead to executions. The Bill as drafted allows the Government to enter into a data exchange agreement where potentially there would be no death penalty assurance in any case. The Government’s new clause requires the Secretary of State only to seek such assurances; it does not bar the Secretary of State from entering into the agreement without death penalty assurances.

The Government will say that not entering into an agreement with the US could potentially allow terrorists and paedophiles to be a threat for longer. We say that we will not stand in the way of such an agreement provided that it does not result in UK data resulting in people being sent to the electric chair. The first thing to say about what the Minister said in her opening remarks is that these agreements are about securing legal authority to enable data to be provided that can be used in evidence in criminal proceedings. It is about giving legal cover for the handing over of data. It should not prevent the arrest and detention of dangerous suspects while that formal legal authority is obtained, and it can still be obtained through existing MLA arrangements, as in the case of the ISIS suspects. It may delay the trial, but it should not prevent the arrest and detention. Even if there were circumstances that I cannot personally envisage where the arrest and detention of a dangerous criminal were delayed, if the US says it will not sign an agreement containing death penalty assurances then it is the US that is prepared to allow the threats from terrorists and paedophiles to go on for longer by having to rely on the current MLA system.

I shall summarise our position using someone else’s words:

“Our amendment would prevent authorities in this country sharing data with overseas agencies where there is a risk of the imposition of the death penalty. More than 50 years ago parliament as a whole passed a law which ‘opposes the death penalty in all circumstances’. That is the law of the land. It means we do not co-operate with any government if the consequence could be capital punishment. Parliament has for a long time believed that the death penalty is so abhorrent, and the risks of a miscarriage of justice so awful, that we outlaw it. Our ban applies to all countries where the death penalty is still on the statute books. But government Ministers are desperate to cosy up to Donald Trump’s administration in the US, where the death penalty is still imposed. Our amendment simply blocks data sharing co-operation with all countries if the death penalty is a risk”.


I have just quoted, word for word, the shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott from her column in the Daily Mirror on 28 January this year about the Labour amendment that was replaced in the Commons by Amendment 13. However, Amendment 13A is designed to have the same effect as the Labour amendment passed by this House.

The opposition parties have worked together on this issue from the beginning, but this should not be a party-political issue; it is a question of fundamental human rights. Again, the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but essentially this Government are willing to sacrifice people to the electric chair in America if that is what it takes to secure the kind of agreement that the Bill covers. Asking us not to tie the hands of those negotiating the deal really means, “Do not ask them to insist on death penalty assurances”.

The question is: do we stand by Article 2 and Protocol 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and do we oppose the death penalty in other countries, or do we not? If we are prepared to see people being executed on the back of evidence provided by the UK, then noble Lords should support the government amendment rather than Amendment 13A. This is a question of principle, a question of conscience and a question of human rights, and we should support it on all sides of this House.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I have been struggling to understand what the Government’s position might be. I think I picked up the Minister saying that the amendment concerns prosecutions in the United Kingdom only. With great respect, if that is right, I do not understand how that fits in with the language of the statute and the amendment itself. I will explain where I am coming from.

Section 52 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016—the section being amended—is headed “Interception in accordance with overseas requests”. We are contemplating a situation where a request comes from another country, presumably for prosecution in that country, on the basis of information that we have obtained via intercepts. The whole point of Section 52, without the amendments, is to authorise the making of interceptions in accordance with that request.

My understanding is that subsections (6) and (7) of Clause 1 deal with a precaution against the kind of point that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, was talking about—our international obligations. I agree almost precisely with the background which the noble Lord traced for us, set against Article 1 of Protocol 13 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which provides that sentencing to death is a violation of the right to life under Article 2 of the convention. If one applies Article 1 of Protocol 13, it would seem to be a breach of our convention obligations to provide information to a foreign country that would lead to somebody being sentenced to death. I do not know whether that has ever been tested in a court, because I do not think the issue has been brought before a court—I am not aware of that happening. However, there seems to be a strong prima facie case that if the Secretary of State was proposing to do that, he could be stopped on the grounds that it would be in breach of this country’s international obligations.

I am puzzled about whether the Minister is right that the purpose of this section is to enable us to prosecute in our own country, where we have no death penalty. The idea of an international agreement is, I think, that it should be reciprocal; it would be a bilateral agreement with a particular country—let us assume it is the United States—and there would be obligations on both sides. We would seek the benefit of the agreement to obtain information for us to prosecute cases of child abuse, which the Minister referred to; one would very much want to secure an agreement which would enable that information to come to us. However, in the context of Section 52, the thrust seems to be the authorisation of intercept information by us to provide for prosecution abroad. I am having difficulty seeing how that fits in with what the Minister said earlier.

Let us assume that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is right that this is really dealing with provision of information to go abroad. Then one comes right up against Article 1 of Protocol 13. What mechanism does one install to prevent a breach of the article? I think I am right that the mechanism of an assurance is well established in international law. In fact, in 2006 the United Nations produced a very helpful note, Diplomatic Assurances and International Refugee Protection, which traced the mechanisms that had been established to protect people who were being sent abroad by a country in answer to a request. The message in the United Nations paper is that one can protect oneself or one’s country against a breach of the international obligation by obtaining an assurance. However, the emphasis is on obtaining the assurance, because an assurance is given by the requesting country to the country from which the information to go abroad is being requested.

There was sometimes some doubt about whether that mechanism was reliable in a case where the threat abroad was of torture, because some countries are really not capable of preventing torture being perpetrated by all manner of officials, so an undertaking in that sort of situation is not really reliable. The paper goes on to say that if one is dealing with the kind of problem that we are contemplating—the risk of a death penalty being imposed—that is easily verifiable and an assurance could be relied upon as a secure protection against a breach of the international obligation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pannick]

I am very grateful. I do not have immediate access to that judgment, but perhaps the Minister can provide the House with some assistance in relation to it. Can the Minister also confirm what I understood her to say: no information will be provided abroad under the Bill, unless and until there is an agreement with the relevant state—here the United States? My understanding—again, I think the noble Baroness said this, but I should like her to confirm—is that before any such agreement has practical effect, it must be put before this House and the other place for approval. Ratification cannot take place unless and until, under CRaG 2010, Parliament has had that opportunity. It seems that is the time at which both Houses of Parliament can consider whether they wish to approve such an agreement, if it does not contain the sort of assurance that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is seeking.

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

I can respond to two of the noble Lord’s points. First, I am happy to agree with him about the stages in which we are moving, which was my earlier point: we are at the preliminary stage of negotiation, rather than the CRaG stage. As for whether the provision of information over which we have control is a breach, that is still open to question. That is why I said that I realised it had not been tested. I was certainly thinking about the very point that the noble Lord makes. It is quite different if you have an individual—that is absolutely plain—but if you are gathering information nevertheless, it runs up to the big question of whether that is a breach. It is an uncertain point, so we have to be very careful.

[Lord Pannick]

I am entirely in agreement with the noble and learned Lord. All I was saying was that I would not wish to assert to the House that it would be a breach of our international obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights to provide information to another state in circumstances where we are not extraditing a person to that state. The courts and the European court may take a different view. I have no doubt that in the legal proceedings arising from the case referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, one of the grounds of challenge would have been that this is a breach of the human rights of the individual concerned, who, as a consequence of our providing the information, may face a death penalty. That is why I should like the Minister to give any further assistance to the House on what the court said.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 12th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, it is perhaps worth reflecting on the fact that when the whole issue of retention came up about 10 years ago, the system in place in this country was for indefinite retention. That was regarded as contrary to the convention rights and was quite rightly addressed by the Government. With respect, it seems to me that here we are dealing with a matter of fine detail where what really matters is the operational necessity for retention. To suggest that there is some inconsistency with an individual’s human rights is possibly going too far provided that an operational case can be made for the length of the period that is in issue. That is a broader perspective in order to put this amendment into its overall context.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

My Lords, I am in sympathy with the idea behind the amendment but I fear that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is right that one cannot participate in the framework decision which sets up the arrest warrant without being a member state. When you read the framework decision, it is perfectly clear that that is what you must be. The advantage to us of the present system is that it gets over the constitutional problem of Germany, which agreed to the framework decision but is most unlikely to be able to extend the benefit to something else. Having said that, I hope that the Government can achieve, by treaty arrangements, something as close as possible to the present system.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I thank all three noble Lords for their points on the European arrest warrant and our future law enforcement, internal security and criminal justice relationship with the European Union following our exit from it. The Prime Minister has repeatedly made clear that the UK is unconditionally committed to maintaining Europe’s security now and after our withdrawal from the EU. We are proposing a comprehensive security relationship which preserves that mutually important operational capability that enables UK and EU operational partners to work together to combat fast-evolving security threats, including in respect of terrorism and hostile state activity.

In July, the Government published a White Paper on our future relationship with the EU. It sets out how we are seeking a relationship that provides for mechanisms for rapid and secure data exchange, practical measures to support cross-border operational co-operation, and continued UK co-operation with EU law enforcement and criminal justice agencies. We continue to value our co-operation and information sharing on issues such as extradition, and believe that a pragmatic solution is in the interests of EU member states and the UK. Our primary objective is to keep our citizens safe.

While I welcome this opportunity to reiterate the Government’s commitment to maintaining a strong security partnership with the EU after exit, the nature of the future relationship is a matter for negotiations. As such, it would not be appropriate or necessary to include in primary legislation any measure that pre-emptively binds the Government’s hands by setting our negotiating objectives. That point was accepted when this matter was voted on in the House of Commons in September, and was accepted by both Houses when the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill was enacted.

We are clear that we want a security partnership that maintains co-operation in these areas but negotiating objectives are just that, and not a matter for this or any other Bill. Parliament will agree the final form of the withdrawal agreement when legislation to give effect to it is brought forward in due course. Therefore, at this stage, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.