Law Enforcement: Brexit Impacts

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

There will be continued scrutiny of the effectiveness of the new arrangements. The noble and learned Lord is right that these things need to be swift and efficient but, as I said in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, they also need safeguards built into them. I have every confidence that the new arrangements will work well.

[Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]]

If there has been no weakening of our security arrangements as a result of the new agreement with the EU, why, in the negotiations with the EU, did the Government seek to retain access to all the existing direct real-time data-sharing arrangements, including the Schengen database, that we had as EU members—not all of which we have retained?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Lord is right that we have not retained everything. We have not got everything we wanted, which was always going to happen in a negotiation. But we believe that we have a set of agreements that protect our citizens and keep people safe.