EU: Police and Justice

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will exercise their right to opt out of the police and justice provisions of the Lisbon treaty after 2014.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, the Government are considering carefully the many different factors and implications involved in this decision, which does not have to be taken until 31 May 2014.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that Answer, which does not quite give the full picture. The Government can opt out of all the 90 or so laws now and, if they want to, opt in to any of them individually thereafter.

Does the noble Lord remember the Prime Minister saying:

“We will want to prevent EU judges gaining steadily greater control over our criminal justice system by negotiating an arrangement which would protect it. That will mean limiting the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction over criminal law”?

First, will the Government support that promise in any vote on this matter—in the House of Commons and in your Lordships’ House—which, as the noble Lord knows, has been promised down the other end? Secondly, are not the Government faced here with a straight dilemma: is it to be the wishes of the British people or is it to be appeasement?

[Lord McNally]

The answer to the last question is the former. The length and complexity of the noble Lord’s supplementary questions indicate why the Government are sensibly taking great care to study and consult on these matters, particularly with the committees of both this House and another place, and as he rightly said, my right honourable friend David Lidington has made it clear in a Statement to the House that when the decision is to be made on these matters, there will be a full debate and vote in both Houses of Parliament.