EU: Police and Criminal Justice Measures

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tomlinson]

My Lords, over recent months, so many things have been said on so many occasions about opt-outs that most people had not heard about before the decision was taken to consider the consequences of Protocol 35 of the treaty of Lisbon. We heard so many contradictory statements. Today, we are not really having a debate about what our relations should be. Our debate has nothing to do with the improved governance of Britain. It has precious little to do with our relations with the EU on police and criminal justice measures. Our debate has everything to do with appeasing Eurosceptics on the Conservative Benches in the House of Commons. So concerned are we about appeasing them that we cannot even put the same Motion before the two Houses. The Motion that they approved did not ask them to endorse anything, and, as recently as yesterday, we were not asked to endorse anything. It is all down to the process of changing your mind as you go along to appease the Eurosceptics. I warn the Government that what they are doing is not appeasing them but driving them to seek ever greater concessions.

Everywhere, the tactic has failed. Their Motion to appease Euroscepticism differed from the one we are dealing with here. They could not be asked to endorse the list of the 32 measures. When we were beginning to have controversial arguments about the measures for police and criminal justice measures, I was somewhat reassured by a Written Ministerial Statement made on 20 January 2011 by Mr David Lidington, the Minister for Europe. He included references, for example, to consultation before the Government make a formal decision. He also referred to consultation on the arrangements for the vote. All those ideas were there.

There were further statements on the issue. The Home Secretary wrote two letters to the European Union Select Committee which repeated the undertaking and provided the first list of these police and criminal justice measures. She assured us of prior consultation. Yet within the space of the two letters, between the first one promising continued consultation and the second one promising continued consultation, the Prime Minister, probably thinking that he was escaping the glare of publicity by speaking in Rio de Janeiro, made a speech in which he promised that we would opt out. He announced it at a press conference, saying that,

“the opt-out is there. We’ll be exercising that opt-out”.

This was at a time when your Lordships’ Select Committee was working hard on the basis of the promises that we received from the Minister for Europe and in two letters from the Home Secretary. Yet the Prime Minister pulled the rug from under their feet because he thought that that would gain him a few extra brownie points from the Eurosceptics in the House of Commons—so much for the assurances of the Minister for Europe and the Home Secretary.

I contrast the work of your Lordships’ Select Committee with the rather tawdry, shoddy apology of a response to Parliament from the Government which they sneaked into the Printed Paper Office today, several months too late. Your Lordships’ report was a thorough, evidence-based analysis. However, the Government’s response to it came at the very last moment and is hardly worth the paper on which it is written. There are some good bits in it but most of it comprises points which the relevant Members should be ashamed of writing. It has the same level of competence as what purported to be an Explanatory Memorandum.

I have almost observed the five minutes speaking limit. However, at the risk of really getting up the nose of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, I will ask him the same question that the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, has asked. We are opting out of all the relevant measures by 31 May next year. At that point none of those measures will apply to us. We will apply to rejoin some of them but by the time we do so we will be extending new competences to the European Union which we have given up through the opt-out.

The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, asked a fair question and did not deserve to be muttered at and abused by the Front Bench: namely, are these the sort of measures—where there is a transfer of competence back to the European Union—whereby, under the rather stupid legislation that the Government introduced in relation to European referenda, we will be required to have a referendum? Will the referendum be on the whole package or will there be one on each of the 35 measures? The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, has a right to know that. When the Minister replies to him, I would like to be told the answer as well.