Extradition (Provisional Arrest) Bill [HL]

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Tuesday 4th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, I have followed this debate with enormous interest. I feel a little daunted, given the enormous experience of many of the speakers so far. In fact, it has been so fascinating a debate that I thought time had stood still, but then I discovered that actually the clocks were not working.

I am here really as an informal emissary from your Lordships’ European Union Select Committee, chaired by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Jay, neither of whom can be here. As a member of both committees, I wanted to at least draw attention to the work on the issue of extradition done over a number of years by the two committees and, in particular, do a little plug for two of the committee reports done under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Jay: Brexit: Judicial Oversight of the European Arrest Warrant of July 2017 and Brexit: The Proposed UK-EU Security Treaty of July 2018. Both are very relevant to the wider context of this debate.

Like others, I wanted to explore a little the relationship between the powers sought in this Bill and the EAW world—this has been a theme throughout the debate. As other noble Lords have noted, there is a somewhat delphic remark in paragraph 7 of the Explanatory Notes which says that, should the UK lose access to the EAW, a statutory instrument could be made to designate some or all EU members. This has been the elephant in the room throughout this debate, but it appears only very briefly in the explanatory material. I think it deserves a little more explanation.

There is a lot of useful detail about the value of the EAW in the reports that I have mentioned, as was apparent in the statement we had this afternoon. As a lay man, it has always seemed to me that it is a way of making extradition far easier, more rapid and more straightforward than the alternative, the 1957 Council of Europe convention. Under that, it took an average of 18 months to achieve an extradition; that fell to below two months with the arrival of the EAW. Given that we are talking about exporting—to use that word—up to 1,000 people a year under the EAW, the idea of going back to the 1957 convention arrangements seemed to us and all the expert practitioners we heard from in the sub-committee to be an enormous retrograde step. I think of my own period as ambassador in France. A regional procureur’s office in a small French city will have got completely out of practice with the 1957 arrangements, which involve diplomatic notes and passage through interior ministries. This risks a considerable delay in what has been a very effective process.

A number of noble Lords spoke in the conditional tense about “if we lose access” to the EAW arrangements. But it is clear that, at the end of the transition period, Britain will not be in the EAW process, which is for EU member states, and that, as others have made clear, the process of disengagement has already begun, with the operation of Article 185 and the own-national provision. Germany, Slovenia and Austria have already applied it—so even now, in the transition period, we are already seeing a restriction of our access under the EAW. The issue therefore is whether we will be able to negotiate an agreement with the EU that allows what the then Minister of State in the Home Office, Nick Hurd, spoke to the committee about in 2018: “effective arrangements” on the lines of the EAW.

The only precedent for this is the agreement that the EU has with Norway and Iceland. But we should not hold our breath—that negotiation took 13 years. It was finally agreed in 2014 but, as far as I know, is not yet in force. So there is potentially a very long time gap between us leaving the transition period at the end of this year and reaching an agreement.

The European Commission published its draft negotiating mandate yesterday, which indeed contains a reference to continued extradition arrangements. It uses the term “effective arrangements” but there are markers about judicial control and the own-national provision.

Given the importance of the EAW for the whole law enforcement process in this country, I therefore think that it is worth the Minister responding to a number of the questions that have been asked in this debate. I too came armed with many of them, but I have tried to filter mine, given that a number of other noble Lords on the list asked them. It would be helpful if the Minister could make it clear that, as from 1 January 2021, we will not be part of the EAW, and whether it is still the Government’s intention to negotiate effective arrangements to parallel it as far as possible. If so, what is the likely timescale and what about judicial control, given the EU’s attachment to ECJ involvement in the arrangement?

Secondly, given that it is very likely that we will not have an agreement by the end of the year, will the Minister accept that the designation arrangements in the Bill are in no sense a substitute for the speedy and effective arrangements in the EAW, and that they do not begin to address the issues of mutual recognition and the own-national problem. Personally, I can see the importance of the Bill for closing a gap in the UK domestic arrangements for arrest, but it is very important that it should be recognised that it can be only a very small step in addressing the much larger and more difficult problem of how to replace the many advantages we have had through the EAW.

Defence, Diplomacy and Development Policy

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, gave us an admirable review of a complex and interlinked series of issues that we face as we leave the EU. He has got us off to a very good start and offered us a tempting menu of dishes to choose from. I will focus particularly on the “safer world” part of the menu.

I am very much looking forward to hearing the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Penn; she is almost there. She brings expertise on development in Africa and recent, up-to-date experience from the very heart of government, which will be a real asset to us. Although we may be a slightly select group in the House today, I promise the noble Baroness that we will be appreciative and attentive to all she has to say.

Since the start of this year, we have begun to see the outlines of what a post-Brexit foreign policy will be like for this country. I offer three pointers that I think are already clear. First, we will find ourselves aligning with our European friends more often than with the US on international foreign policy issues. In many ways this is not surprising, because we are in the same geography and are the same size as our European partners. That was very clear in the Johnson Government’s first international security crisis, the killing of Soleimani by the Americans just after Christmas. The strongest and clearest statement made by the British Government in that crisis was the joint declaration by the Prime Minister, Chancellor Merkel and President Macron. That rightly emphasised the importance of preserving the Iran nuclear deal and a dialogue with Iran and signally failed to make any reference at all to the US strike, still less condone it.

On the so-called US peace plan for the Middle East, I studied in Hansard what the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, had to say earlier today. He tiptoed around the minefield with admirable dexterity, but the message was clear: we have always supported the European position that there needs to be a genuinely negotiated two-state solution. The US plan is light-years away from that.

Our proposed digital services tax is along the same lines as France’s and has run into the same sort of criticism from Washington.

As the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, says, as the year advances the Glasgow climate summit will loom larger and larger on our international agenda. There, again, we will work closely with European countries to build a consensus, and I fear the US may be one of the obstacles to achieving that.

Secondly, while it is true that we will often make common cause with European partners, we need to make sure that the tensions with Washington do not cut across the absolutely fundamental defence and security partnership with it. That will be a real challenge when we come to a free trade agreement, because it will be far more difficult than Ministers have already told us to find ways of achieving an agreement with the Americans that is at the same time acceptable to British public opinion in sensitive areas such as food security. We will have to ensure that that does not sour the wider relationship.

One area in which we should work closely with the Americans is the future of NATO, to give a clear and convincing answer to President Macron’s challenge that the organisation is brain dead. I do not believe it is, but we need to do some serious thinking about its role, purpose and narrative in the world, which are moving on rapidly from their post-war origins, as the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, said. A NATO reflection process is under way, and the British and Americans ought to be providing real thought leadership on that.

My third pointer to the shape of foreign policy to come is that we will constantly be caught up in the wider US-China competition for global influence, particularly in the high-tech area. That was the real story behind the sharp disagreements over the last few days on Huawei. I do not believe it was ever really about national security. We have all now seen the painstaking work done by the world-class National Cyber Security Centre. From what I understand, the technical communities on the two sides of the Atlantic were never far apart on how we could manage the risks. The problem was that the British issue of how to find a British solution to our own circumstances became a political football between the China hawks in Washington and the Chinese technology industry.

The weakness of the American position struck me all along: it did not have an American solution to the 5G problem to offer. Its increasingly strident efforts to influence the British Government’s own decision went too far and became counterproductive. I pay tribute to Britain’s National Security Council for taking a calm and measured decision despite the noises off. This is not the last time we will find ourselves caught up in this competition. Outside the EU, I am afraid we will be all the more vulnerable to the kind of lobbying and arm-twisting that is bound to go on, as we have to reconcile our interest in trade and investment with our wider values and security objectives.

Those are the three pointers I offer your Lordships. Plotting a way through these minefields would be easier if we knew where we were going. The old narratives—of a bridge between Europe and America, or of Tony Blair-style liberal internationalism—are more or less played out, as Dean Acheson might have said. We need a new vision for Britain in the world. It has to take account of the fact that this country is international by instincts and interests, but we also need a real honesty about where our influence can best be deployed. We do not need declinism, if there is such a word, but we do need honesty.

Of course, as noble Lords have already said, we have huge assets to deploy. Our Armed Forces are world-renowned, as are our soft power assets. I have argued before in this House for full resourcing of the Foreign Office. I will not make that case again, but I will touch briefly on three other important vectors of influence in the world.

I agree with other noble Lords about the value of maintaining DfID as a fully fledged department of state. It is having a good afternoon here, actually. I have worked very closely with DfID, including as Permanent Secretary. I have great respect for its professionalism. I know that it is held in high regard around the world. Co-ordination between DfID, the MoD and the FCO should happen in the National Security Council, but I would not tinker with DfID’s position in Whitehall.

If we were the French and we had a cultural promotion arm as effective as the British Council, we would double its budget. If we had an instrument for the promotion of our culture and language half as powerful as the BBC, we certainly would not be squeezing its funding and obliging it to shed jobs.

We need to look to where we have assets and make the most of them. It is a moment for hard strategic thinking about Britain’s role in the world and where we are trying to go. That should be the starting point for this integrated defence and security review, which I welcome. As the Minister knows, I had a modest role in the 2010 review. It is time to refresh it. We have in our National Security Council the right forum to produce the kind of global comprehensive view that the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, offered us in opening the debate.

Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, for securing this debate, which gives me the opportunity to speak about intelligence matters for the first time since I joined your Lordships’ House. I follow three speakers who have eminent credentials for commenting on these matters. Mine are far more modest. I was, as a member of the Diplomatic Service for 40 years, an enthusiastic consumer of the intelligence community’s products, and I had some oversight of their activities twice: first as chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee in 2000 and, more recently in 2010, as National Security Adviser, when I also oversaw their budgets, and indeed wrote the annual appraisals of the heads of the intelligence agencies. It was a singular privilege.

Having worked very closely with the intelligence community throughout my career, I regard the men and women of the agencies as one of the greatest assets we have in the British public service. They are quite rightly held accountable to the very highest standards, largely by the ISC itself. I am perhaps the only person here who has had the privilege of appearing in front of the ISC in various capacities—although perhaps my noble friend Lord Anderson has. Inevitably, the agencies’ triumphs are not well known to the British public, while their failings and shortcomings come under intense scrutiny.

Things were in a fairly patch when I became the National Security Adviser in 2010. There had been a great deal of adverse publicity around rendition. The agencies were engaged in the grinding civil litigation brought by the Guantanamo Bay detainees, which was absorbing a huge amount of resources, but they were handicapped by the fact that the Government could not produce in court the secret evidence to support their case. It is very encouraging to see how successfully a line has now been drawn under that period. Credit for that goes to the Cameron Government, and particularly to the then Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, who was willing to legislate to make exceptional arrangements for the agencies to be able to defend themselves in court where necessary.

A good deal of credit for the turnaround in public confidence in the agencies and in the morale of agency staff goes to the ISC. Its work on detainees and rendition absorbed an enormous amount of time and effort and there were frustrations at not being able to bring it to a final conclusion. None the less, the 2018 report shed as much light as was possible on what went wrong and why. Like others who have spoken, I believe that establishing the facts and being honest about failings is important in re-establishing public confidence. The committee’s report makes it very clear that the staff of the agencies were working under intense pressure, at a time of real national emergency, in the months and years after 9/11. True to their values, they have learned from their mistakes.

It is vital for all of us that we have a self-confident and well-respected intelligence community, and I believe that we are in a much better place now than in 2010. Given the high level of terrorist threat that the country has been under in recent years, it is pretty remarkable that so many plots have been thwarted. However, there are always lessons to learn when things go wrong. Here, the committee’s report on the 2017 attacks and what needed to change was exemplary, both in helping the public to understand the incredibly difficult context in which the agencies work and in bringing forward useful and practical recommendations for future improvements.

I will not comment further on counterterrorism while in the presence of such a distinguished specialist as my noble friend Lord Anderson of Ipswich. Instead, I offer two comments that look forward and will perhaps help inform the committee’s judgments about its priorities in the coming years.

The first is on the impact of Brexit on intelligence work and co-operation. It will be important for the committee to keep this under review in the months and years to come. My feeling is that this is one area of Britain’s national security which is unlikely to be seriously impacted by Brexit. While Britain’s overall international standing and weight is bound to be diminished by leaving the EU, our key intelligence relationships should not be damaged. That is clearly true of the Five Eyes community, which operates well outside any EU context, and will largely be the case for co-operation with our main European partners, which exists almost entirely outside EU channels.

That is in sharp contrast to the position of law enforcement and judicial co-operation, where a no-deal Brexit risks very serious and immediate damage to connectivity to databases, the alerting systems and the European arrest warrant instrument that we need for our security. I was worried to read in my Financial Times this morning a suggestion that in the current round of discussions in Brussels being held by Mr David Frost, international security and defence is going to be given less priority in the negotiations. That seems worrying. The Minister may be able to help us on that aspect. If the connections we have with our European counterparts through the EU are severed from one day to the next by a no-deal Brexit, that is bound to make the job of law enforcement more difficult. The relevance of that to this debate is that however good intelligence work is, it normally requires flexible, agile law enforcement work to give it effect and to stop the threats that that intelligence illuminates.

My second and last point is more general. Throughout my career, I have seen that the intelligence community has been able to refocus as the threat changes. For the first 40 years of the post-war period, it was the confrontation with the Soviet Union, and for a lot of that time it was the effect of IRA terrorism. After 1989, we saw the intelligence community very effectively refocus on regional issues to back up western interventions in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. After 9/11, counterterrorism obviously became the central issue, particularly for the Security Service, but the threat moves on. For example, cyber is now rightly a very high priority. It is excellent that we have a first-class National Cyber Security Centre under its director Ciaran Martin, in whom I have the fullest confidence.

I hope the committee will keep in mind the need for the intelligence community to reflect the fact that great power competition is rising as a challenge to this country. It is very encouraging that the committee has been looking at Russia, and I welcome the inquiry into China, Huawei and telecoms security. I hope the committee may be able to untangle for us all whether Huawei indeed represents a national security threat to this country or whether it may not be more about industrial competition and protectionism from some of our allies. There is an issue about whether the intelligence community has the human skills in the right place to deliver this new focus on the emerging threat of great power competition, given that we are likely to face a post-Brexit world where we have nationalist powers increasingly feeling that they can ignore international rules with impunity.

Brexit: Proposed UK–EU Security Treaty (European Union Committee Report)

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, I am a member of my noble friend Lord Jay’s sub-committee. I want to take issue partly with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, when she says that the report we produced last July has now been largely overtaken. It has taken six months to reach the Floor of your Lordships’ House, and we are shooting at something of a moving target—I know the Royal Navy has always found that difficult—but it is still relevant.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham]

My Lords, I meant absolutely no criticism of the noble Lord, Lord Jay, or the committee; it was just the result of the way these things work. I understand that timeliness is not necessarily in the hands of the committee.

[Lord Ricketts]

I understand. I was going to say that the report is still very relevant because it is a powerful and evidence-based assessment of why it is vital that we maintain close security co-operation with the EU, whether or not—and on what terms—we leave. As such, it is important to have that on the record.

My own judgment, as the UK’s first National Security Adviser, like that of the noble Lord, Lord West, is that the security of this country and its citizens is best provided for by staying in the EU. If that is not to be, the,

“broad, comprehensive and balanced security partnership”,

set out in the political declaration is a lot better than a no-deal outcome. No deal would immediately exclude us from the whole range of EU security co-operation set out in the report, which has saved British lives. Speaking of no deal, I note that there is nothing, so far as I can see, in the technical notices issued by the Commission on no-deal contingency planning on its side about continuing co-operation on security.

I realise that the view I have set out on the importance of EU security co-operation is fundamentally at odds with that of some distinguished retired practitioners. Yes, I refer in particular to Sir Richard Dearlove and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie, who sent a joint letter last week to the chairmen of Conservative Party associations—not, I suppose, an address list chosen completely at random—which mysteriously found its way into the media. This letter thundered that the withdrawal agreement would,

“threaten the national security of the country in fundamental ways”.

It spelled out that the proposed security partnership would cut across the Five Eyes alliance, and put control of aspects of our national security in foreign hands. These are serious charges. However, the letter did not explain why the authors took such a doom-laden view. It may be relevant that both writers had retired some time before the EU developed the full range of co-operation we now see. As a more recent security practitioner, I want to touch on why I believe the EU plays a vital role, and to reassure the House that we in the sub-committee have not somehow missed an important area that threatens our security co-operation.

Defence is not the subject of today’s debate—although the noble Lord, Lord West, has touched on it—but since it is a major point of the letter, let me say that if Britain were to participate in some EU military missions after leaving the European Union, as I hope we would, that would be a sovereign decision of this country. Nothing in the withdrawal agreement would bind us to do so; it would be a voluntary choice.

On intelligence co-operation, nothing proposed in the security partnership with the EU would cut across our vital Five Eyes intelligence sharing. That is for the simple reason that co-operation between intelligence agencies in Europe happens outside the EU treaties and will continue to do so. Do not take my word for it: the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, to whom reference was made in the debate in your Lordships’ House on Monday, described it as “nonsense” to suggest that co-operation with the EU on security would upset the Five Eyes community. Indeed, she said that its members have always valued our link with the EU. This reflects the key point that intelligence is useful only if it is followed up with good, effective police co-operation work. The whole thrust of our committee’s report is that it is the measures and instruments that have grown up in EU co-operation that enable UK law enforcement to operate effectively across borders. The police consulted the SIS II database 539 million times in 2017.

Of course, the EU takes the same view, and the political declaration makes that very clear. In a proliferation of adjectives, it refers to the need for a,

“comprehensive, close, balanced and reciprocal … future relationship”,

on security. That is fine as a prenuptial contract, but it now needs to be translated into reality. I share the concerns expressed by other noble Lords and set out in the report over whether a vast, overarching security partnership across many areas can be agreed even in the course of a transition period, to say nothing of what would happen in the event of a no-deal departure.

My experience is that the wheels of Brussels grind awfully slow, and certainly on such a sensitive issue. The report is right to suggest that work should be done on ad hoc security arrangements to mitigate, if necessary, any reduction in operational co-operation while a longer-term agreement is negotiated. I hope that is already under way and the Minister will be able to reassure us that it is the case, even if we have an agreement and a transition period. Like others, I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about no-deal contingency planning. We cannot afford to take risks with the safety of people in this country.

Russia: Threats to Individuals in the UK

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As far as I know, the individuals have not died. The policeman in question is showing evidence of slight improvement this morning.

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure that everyone in the House would condemn this outrageous and cowardly attack. While I recognise that the Minister cannot speak about the diplomatic measures that might follow if the evidence leads conclusively back to Moscow, does she agree that, in terms of deterring future attacks, one of the most powerful actions would be to show that there can be no impunity from this kind of attack, and that, therefore, bringing the individuals responsible for this to justice would send a very powerful signal?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I repeat that anybody who carries out an attack on a citizen of this country in such a way will be dealt with severely.