Serious and Organised Crime: Prüm Convention

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

Way back in what seem like the mists of time—in May 2005, to be precise—I was appointed to the Home Office and given ministerial responsibility for the development of the European arrest warrant, and today I think back to the discussions that I used to have with the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) on that very issue. I remember that it was something of a hot potato, and I also remember that the nature of that debate changed very quickly in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings and, subsequently, the failed bombing at Shepherd’s Bush on 21 July. It was found that one of the bombers, Hussain Osman, had taken the Eurostar to Paris in the immediate aftermath of that failed bombing, and had then travelled on to Rome, where he was finally arrested on 29 July. A European arrest warrant was issued by the British police, and was agreed by the Italian courts on 17 August. Following the rejection of an appeal, Osman was flown back to the United Kingdom on 22 September, just two months after the failed bombing.

That case proved the value of the European arrest warrant, took the heat out of the political debate about it, and illustrated how the security of people here in the UK is, in fact, better served by ever closer co-operation between European law enforcement agencies.

[Sir William Cash]

As the right hon. Gentleman referred to me a moment ago, may I point out that in Staffordshire there was a case under the European arrest warrant in which a person was actually convicted of murder and was subject to penalties, although it was clear from subsequent evidence that he had not even been in Italy at the time, but had actually been in Staffordshire? There are many similar examples.

[Andy Burnham]

In any judicial process, there is the potential for mistakes and a miscarriage of justice. Is the hon. Gentleman honestly saying that he was right about the European arrest warrant all that time ago, and that it has been a bad thing and should be scrapped? If so, I think that he is in a small minority in the House, because people have seen the benefits that have come to UK law enforcement following its introduction.

I mentioned that case at the beginning of my speech because I see a parallel between the debate that took place then and the debate that we are having today. Ten years on, as the Home Secretary said, we find ourselves in the aftermath of an horrific attack in one member state that was conceived and planned in another—and I note the letter that the Home Secretary received from Minister Cazeneuve encouraging our full participation in Prüm.

In these difficult times, we—all of us in the House—have an obligation to consider every possible measure to protect the public. It seems to me that the case for greater data sharing and access to data that are held across Europe is now unanswerable, and that we have an obligation to support that case. It is no exaggeration to say that our national security depends on it. That is why, as the Home Secretary said, the last Labour Government made the original decision to sign up to the Prüm decisions in 2007, recognising their potential for our law enforcement agencies. It is also why, back in July 2013, we explicitly warned the Government against opting out of a whole range of EU justice and home affairs measures including Prüm. As I understand it, the Government received warnings from other senior figures in UK law enforcement, and they should have listened to them because, as was pointed out back then, that decision seemed to be driven less by an objective assessment of the impact on crime prevention and detection, and more by a political desire to appease the never-satisfied forces of Euroscepticism on the Conservative Benches. Tempting as it is to say, “We told you so” to the Home Secretary today, we will try and resist that and instead congratulate her on eventually arriving at the right decision and encourage her to resist the blandishments of the forces of darkness who are again rearing their head today.

[Keith Vaz]

In fact, the Home Secretary’s speech today was a tour de force as to why we should have been in Prüm last year. Think of the number of criminals we could have caught, or potential terrorists we could have found, if only we had joined a year ago.

[Andy Burnham]

The case the Home Secretary has just set out from the Dispatch Box was compelling and powerful, revealing, as it did, the zeal of the convert to the cause. She was right to make her case with such force, and I am sure my right hon. Friend would agree that the problem with the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Stone and others this evening is that it invites the House to prioritise the civil liberties of British citizens and risks to UK sovereignty over and above risks to national security. That is what the amendment to the motion invites us to do.

Of course our liberties and our sovereignty are important considerations, but the safety of the public must come first. That is the primary duty of any Government, and it is why the Government are right not to listen to the hon. Member for Stone. The truth is they got themselves into difficulty two years ago by listening to those siren voices, and I hope Members on the Treasury Bench will not make the same mistake today. Indeed, I hope they would have learned an important lesson from this whole episode. It was the European Council that required the Government, after notification of the opt-out, to conduct and publish a business and implementation case assessing the costs and benefits of Prüm. In other words, the EU forced the UK Government to face up to the benefits of European co-operation and in bringing this motion to the House tonight they are effectively conceding the EU was right all along.

That assessment was informed by a pilot undertaken by the Government which the Home Secretary referred to. It found an overwhelming case to opt back in. It involved DNA samples from 2,513 unsolved British murders, rapes and burglaries which were automatically checked against European police databases in France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. Searching the profiles against the databases of those four member states revealed 71 scene-to-person matches and 47 scene-to-scene matches, five relating to rape, two to sexual assault and 23 to burglary.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

On an earlier point, is not the greatest defence of the nation’s security the civil liberties of the people?

[Andy Burnham]

I would put it to the hon. Gentleman that security comes first and that is the primary duty of any Government—to keep the public safe. Once we have secured people’s safety, then liberty comes from that security. That is why I believe the amendment before the House tonight has got things the wrong way round. I conceded they are incredibly important considerations, but they are not more important than national security and any measures that enhance the security of the public here in the end contribute to enhancing their liberty. That is why security must come first.

As well as finding those matches, the pilot also found that information was provided in a much more timely manner than it had been under the old arrangements, as the Home Secretary said. It found that information was being provided in a matter of seconds, minutes or hours, drastically improving the speed and quality of investigations. At present, requests by the British police for DNA checks from other European forces involve a request to the National Crime Agency, which is then passed to Interpol before being passed on to the relevant national police force. On average, it takes 143 days for the results to come back. The benefits to UK law enforcement of opting into the Prüm decisions on data access are therefore abundantly clear, in terms of speed of investigation and of resources. DNA checks will be available within 15 seconds, automated number plate checks within 10 seconds and fingerprint matches within 24 hours.

[Mr Chope]

The right hon. Gentleman is emphasising the importance of DNA checks. Will he explain why the Eurodac regulations specifically exclude the possibility of taking DNA samples from asylum seekers who are entering the European Union?

[Andy Burnham]

I think the hon. Gentleman is conflating two issues. We are not discussing that issue today. Let us be clear, to avoid any misconceptions, that we are talking about the DNA of people who have been convicted of a recordable crime. It seems to me that that provides sufficient safeguards against the abuse of such data. If the hon. Gentleman is making an argument for the wider collection of DNA, as opposed to fingerprints—the fingerprints of people entering the country are collected—that would raise other civil liberties concerns that he would have to discuss with his colleagues. He seems to be envisaging going even further than the Prüm decisions, but I do not believe that we are at that point right now. Perhaps he will return to that issue with his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

In these times in which we live, the speed of investigation is essential. I invite every Member of the House to cast their mind back to the hours after we heard about the Paris bombings, or indeed to the hours after the shocking attacks in London a decade or so ago. People were hanging on to the news, waiting to hear of leads against those who might have committed those atrocities. That is what people want. They want the police and the security services to have, in those moments, the clearest possible line of sight across Europe, so that they can pursue immediate leads and track the suspects down. That is what we need to remember when we consider these issues. We need to ask ourselves whether we are prepared to give the police and the security services, not just here but across Europe, that ability to get on the trail of people who are committing atrocities against us and to track them down. In my view, the case is unanswerable: we should give them that power.

We should also ensure that the British police and security services have access to a much larger collection of biometric and biographical data, which will lead to more crimes here being solved and to more victims here getting the justice that they are being denied today. The earlier detection of crime and the conviction of the individuals responsible must be in the forefront of our minds.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Would the right hon. Gentleman like other countries, such as Iceland, to join Prüm?

[Andy Burnham]

I personally see no objection to that, but let us start within Europe. Let us get a clear set of standards and arrangements within Europe first. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that one of the benefits of the European Union is that it sets a standard that the rest of the world then begins to follow. We are seeing that now with Norway and Iceland. In effect, they have to follow all the norms of the European Union if they want to be a full trading partner. So I would not see a problem with the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion. The Home Secretary has said that there will be many safeguards. I put it back to the hon. Gentleman: would he be happy with somebody who has committed a crime going back to Iceland and thus avoiding justice? I would not be happy with that and I would want measures in place to ensure that they could be brought to justice. Opting in will also lead to a much better use of police time and resources, as the Home Secretary has said, and will improve the intelligence picture that the crime and terrorism authorities have, so that they can better understand the patterns emerging across Europe.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that I have huge respect for him, but I want to tease something out a tiny bit further. He said that security trumps civil liberties. Does he believe that security trumps the protection of our common law system?

[Andy Burnham]

I reiterate that security comes first. The first responsibility of any Government is to secure the people who live here by taking reasonable measures to reduce the risks to them, because from that foundation of security come all our traditions, our laws and our liberties. That is why co-operation in this field is a good thing, given that the nature of crime now is international. If we fail to understand that, our own legal system will never be able to respond to the changing nature of crime that we face.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I agree with the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making, which is that it is sensible to co-operate, but does this co-operation need the institutions of the European Union?

[Andy Burnham]

Why should it not, if the co-operation is improved by those institutions? The hon. Gentleman is putting an in-built dislike and distrust of them ahead of the actual issue before us. That is what some Conservative Members are doing, but they should judge this on its merits. Surely the better we can facilitate that co-operation, the more benefits it will bring back to the police and security services. I would imagine that co-operation will be enhanced by working with established institutions, as opposed to making ad hoc arrangements, Government to Government. That is the benefit of the European Union, although I know he probably does not accept that.

The Government have come to the right decision, albeit in a roundabout way, but I wish to press the Home Secretary on a few points of detail, the first of which is on the cost. She said that in the original assessment the cost of opting into Prüm was put at £31 million, but she now says it is £13 million. We are prepared to accept that at face value, but can she say what is responsible for such a significant reduction in the cost? The business and implementation case says that the estimate is based on “high level requirements”, which implies that it is based not on a fully fledged implementation of Prüm but just on the “high level requirements”. Will she say more about that? What are the “downstream operational running costs” to which the business case refers? How much will it cost every year to run the system, set against the benefits that she said it would bring? My next point may be of interest to those who have signed the amendment. Will the Home Secretary say what the UK will be liable to pay back to the EU if the House does not back this decision this evening? I understand that it is a significant sum, and perhaps it would help the House to know what it is.

I now wish to deal with the safeguards. We welcome the appointment of the oversight board, although there is concern that extradition should not be possible under a European arrest warrant purely on the basis of a DNA or fingerprint match. I think this was the point that the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) was raising earlier. The point was that other corroborating evidence should always be required before extradition can be granted. I think the Home Secretary was confirming that was the case, but it would help the House if she or one of her Ministers could say a little more on that at some point.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful for the opportunity to do that, and I apologise to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) if I slightly misunderstood his question. It would be my expectation that an EAW would require more evidence. We have put a number of safeguards into the way in which EAWs are operated, to ensure that we do not see people erroneously being extradited from the UK, and I would expect there would be more evidence as the basis for issuing an EAW. And those normal EAW processes will apply even when there has been a Prüm hit.

[Andy Burnham]

I think the whole House will find that explanation helpful. I would share the concerns of the hon. Member for Stone and others if the match could then trigger a European arrest warrant immediately without any other evidence. I think everybody would find that worrying, but the right hon. Lady has reassured the House on that point.

It is also reassuring that only people convicted of recordable crime can be searched by another police force. That still does not take away the higher level of concern that there would be over the sharing of DNA profiles from named individuals. Does the Home Secretary feel that there should be a higher proportionality test in this area, linked to more serious crime and terrorism, and does she favour a stricter test before DNA information can be shared with another police force? That is an area in which a higher safeguard could be introduced. It might be effective in limiting blanket person-to-person searches, which bring potential for abuse.

Who will take the decision to share personal information if a match is made? Will it be a designated individual in a police force or will all decisions be taken at a national level by NCA officials? It is important to be clear about who will be making these decisions. Will it be an individual who makes only one or two such decisions in the course of a year, or an official who deals with many of them? I think people will have more confidence in someone who deals with a good number, because they will be able to weed out the more frivolous requests.

Will all participating nations collect DNA profiles and fingerprints from crime scenes using a shared quality assurance standard? There is concern about the lack of uniformity across Europe, and people will want some reassurance on that matter. Finally, will the Home Secretary expand on the role of the European Court of Justice when it comes to the Prüm decision, if we choose to opt into it? As I understand it, it is quite a minor extension of its jurisdiction and there is not the fear that has been expressed by some in the motion.

With those caveats—I insist that they are just caveats—I conclude by saying that we on the Labour Benches believe that the Government have reached the right decision, albeit they have done so in a roundabout way, and that they deserve our support this evening. I hope they agree that this whole issue and the way in which we have arrived at this point illustrate how our continued membership of the European Union enhances the security of our country in these difficult times. The Home Secretary has made a convincing and powerful case tonight to rejoin the Prüm decision, and she will have our support in taking an important step to catch more criminals and keep our country safe.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

In these troubling times, this debate raises troubling questions about vital matters of policy and principle, not only for the United Kingdom as a whole and our Parliament but for our civil liberties and our common law.

First, before reaching a decision on our participation in Prüm, we should consider very carefully the implications for our parliamentary sovereignty, from which all law should ultimately derive. If we opt into Prüm, in which areas would the UK be accepting exclusive EU competence? The Government must be clear on that, because only the EU could act in those areas, which would mean taking the decision away from Parliament.

I have to ask the Home Secretary this: how assiduously have the Government considered alternative means of securing the benefits that Prüm offers in a way that would be less damaging to our parliamentary sovereignty? Furthermore, what is so special about the European Union when it comes to security, terrorism, organised crime and all those things that we deplore and want to control as compared with matters that arise in other parts of the world? What is the real distinction to be drawn as we seek to protect our citizens in the EU or any other country in the world?

Secondly, by participating in Prüm, the United Kingdom would be compelled to accept the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice. The extension of that Court’s jurisdiction under the Lisbon treaty to sensitive areas of policing and criminal law was the key factor in the previous Government’s decision to opt out.

[Andy Burnham]

I have listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said. He asked what was so special about national security that it required a European dimension, if I heard him correctly. Does he agree that the fact that the Paris attacks were exclusively planned in another member state answers his question?

[Sir William Cash]

It does not. The reasons why that terrible carnage took place have a great deal to do with insecurity and instability as a result of the failures of border controls and the manner in which people made their way to Paris. We do not have time to go into all those matters, and they are not the subject of this debate, but I question whether national security for United Kingdom citizens, which is our prime concern, will be advanced by surrendering these powers to the European Court of Justice.

The Government concede that accepting the Court’s jurisdiction is not risk-free. They should have explained what practical impact they expected the extension of the Court’s jurisdiction in relation to the UK to have, and they have not done so.

Thirdly, the Government say that they intend to put into place extra safeguards to ensure that Prüm would operate in a way that

“respects fully the civil liberties of British citizens.”

Liberty gave evidence to the House of Lords on a number of matters in this respect.

In the report of the European Scrutiny Committee that was published the other day, we make it clear that there is an important balance to strike between law enforcement co-operation, especially when it involves the exchange of personal data, and the need to protect individuals against the risk of false incrimination and unwarranted interference with their right to privacy. The Government’s business and implementation case can provide only anecdotal evidence of cases in which Prüm has been instrumental in advancing an investigation or securing a conviction. The paucity of evidence that we have been given on the value and impact of Prüm in respect of law enforcement makes it difficult to measure its added value and to ensure that an appropriate balance is being struck. We find that lack of transparency and accountability troubling.