EUC Report: Internal Security Strategy

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, for having finally secured this important debate. I congratulate him on an excellent report. Looking around the Chamber today I see that I am the only person speaking in this debate, apart from the Minister, who is not a member of this committee and therefore did not participate in the report. I therefore feel that I can more sincerely congratulate committee members as I am not in any way back-slapping myself. It is another thoroughly thoughtful contribution to this very important issue—of where the international meets the national and where a state’s responsibility to its citizens’ security is juxtaposed alongside their fundamental freedoms. It is intrinsic to where we are in today’s world.

I welcome the early assertion in the report that recognises that security cannot stop at the water’s edge. In the UK’s case, we know from our prolonged experience in Northern Ireland, and more recently from among our own diaspora communities, that much support for terrorism can come from overseas. Both bilateral and multilateral co-operation are therefore fundamental to maintaining security.

The report, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, is wide-ranging and extremely detailed. I just want to pick out a few of the themes. First, in the section on counterterrorism, the report was most interesting on the continuing role of the counterterrorism co-ordinator. I have great personal admiration for the current incumbent, but given the developments that have taken place since 2001, such as 9/11, the Madrid bombings—after which he was appointed—and particularly the adoption of the European Union counterterrorism strategy after 2005, I, too, share the views of committee members that it is extremely difficult to see how we might justify the role. I note the Government’s response, and particularly their emphasis on the co-ordinator being the interface between the EU’s internal and external policies on terrorism. I noted, too, with some dismay, the report’s bleak assessment of the relationship between the European Union and NATO, and certainly agree that that particular relationship needs strengthening. This was particularly brought out by Professor Paul Cornish of Chatham House. Third-country relations are also significant areas for attention and I would urge Her Majesty’s Government to encourage the co-ordinator’s efforts in this area. These will become ever more important as we come towards the drawdown of the NATO commitment in Afghanistan and, of course, with the increasing rise of extremism in Pakistan.

On radicalisation and the EU strategy, I would go further than the report in suggesting that this area is best left to member states to deal with. The report makes particular reference to the Prime Minister’s Munich speech of February 2011 on muscular liberalism. I should say that I am broadly in the PM’s camp on this one. When I served on Prime Minister Blair’s taskforce on Muslim extremism in 2005, it was increasingly clear to us that the drivers and subsequent triggers for extremism had quite a lot to do with the radicalised individual’s conception of their own identity, as well as the triggers in the external environment to which they responded through their actions. These factors differ across different diaspora communities and are affected by the environment within the country from which those individuals come at the time. One size certainly does not fit all. For example, those of Pakistani origin in the United Kingdom can have a very different take on things, and on their place within society in this country, than those of Pakistani origin in the United States. Likewise, the Baader-Meinhof gang was a rather different entity from the IRA in the 1970s.

I would firmly plump for subsidiarity in this area and suggest that member states are best placed to design their own deradicalisation programmes. However, voluntary networks should be encouraged, as they already exist very well across academia. An EU institutional-level handbook of actions and experiences would not only have little relevance to national-centric radicalisation but would also duplicate existing work.

I turn to the related area of research and its funding. Noble Lords may well remember the establishment—I think in 2006—of a significant ESRC funding stream for research projects at universities. The programme was called, I think, New Security Challenges. It was run by Professor Stuart Croft at Warwick University and had a wide enough remit to allow for a range of different approaches to research programmes and academic collaboration. In my mind, that programme is a model of how the EU should proceed to set up a network. Yes, I agree that it should be wider than this particular model, but it should be sufficiently focused so as to derive practical know-how for practitioners. I note that several submissions to the committee commented on this and also note that the committee welcomes the creation of an internal security fund. What was not clear from the report, probably due to the timing of it, was whether the next framework programme for research and development will cover the issues to do with co-ordination that Sir Richard Mottram raised in his submission at paragraph 196. I was therefore disappointed that the Government's response, while welcoming the creation of the ISF as an important development, ruled out any additional resources to be dedicated to this area. Has the committee since been updated by the Home Office, as it promised to do in its response to conclusions 252 and 253, as to where the resources for this work may be found?

I turn now to the issue of cybersecurity. The report was written before the London conference of last November, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, pointed out, and things have moved on a bit, but the analysis of the importance of the issue and of the need for an appropriate architecture to support work in this area still stand. In particular, given that the technology used for cyberwar and terrorism is often in the hands of state actors, the establishment of an EU cybercrime centre is most welcome and I note that its situation within Europol is both the committee's and the Government’s preference. But there is a further important way that the UK can help EU partners; that is where some countries have not build up the requisite capacity with national computer emergency response teams. Can the Minister tell the House whether the UK has offered its expertise through its dedicated public sector capability, to assist those states whose public sector has experienced cyberattacks and are not competent to resist them?

Noble Lords will also be aware of how cybercrime plays out in foreign policy through non-state actors. We have a situation where increasing numbers of private sector firms in the UK are targeted as they are in other countries. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, raised the issue of how expensive that is. I am one to agree with those experts who advocate a mandatory licensing system for the private sector to ensure that they have adequate levels of protection. Outside the EU, we now have a cyberwar going on in the Middle East, with pro-Palestine groups claiming to be behind the attack on El Al, the Israeli airline's systems and the Tel Aviv stock exchange, while pro-Israeli groups have attacked the Saudi Arabian and Abu Dhabi stock exchanges. As these escalate they pose an economic and security threat not only to the infrastructure of the counties involved but also to wider business and security interests. While acknowledging the seriousness of this kind of threat, it is important to note that both groups are politically motivated, although the actor on the Israeli side clearly takes its name from the Israeli Defence Force, as it calls itself the Israeli Defence Force Team, and it is therefore unclear what the role of the state may be in this case. What is not helpful is that the lsraeli deputy Foreign Minister in describing the attack as “comparable to terrorism” and threatening to respond forcefully, did not take the opportunity to disassociate the IDF from this so-called Team IDF. Israel’s neighbours will no doubt draw their own conclusions from that.

The need for international action to help counter these kind of politically motivated threats is as urgent as is the need for action at national level to deal with opposing states’ acts, which we are more familiar with. I note that the outcome document for the London conference highlighted:

“The need for governments to act proportionately in cyberspace and in accordance with national and international law”.

I hope that all Governments in the Middle East will bear that obligation in mind as they go forward in the current febrile atmosphere.

The London conference also posed some wider international security challenges, covering such questions as: how can problems between states be prevented and mitigated? What lessons can be learnt from other areas of international security and conflict prevention work? How do we develop and apply appropriate principles of behaviour? What are the most appropriate fora to take this debate forward? What tangible steps are Her Majesty’s Government taking to move this urgent agenda forward? In particular, do they hope to have more concrete outcomes at the Hungary summit later this year?

My concluding remarks shall be about the remit of the Standing Committee on Operational Co-operation on Internal Security, or COSI, as it is more comfortingly known. COSI’s remit is to ensure that operational co-operation is promoted and strengthened and to provide a measure of accountability through the Council to the European Parliament and national parliaments. I share the committee’s views that it would be extremely beneficial to rationalise the alphabet soup of other bodies also charged with responsibilities in this area, in order that COSI can emerge as the lead organisation. I also share its view that there is little justification for the chairmanship to rotate along with the EU presidency for precisely the reasons given by the noble Lords, Lord Hannay of Chiswick and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. In order to maintain expertise and consistency, it is fundamental that we have an expert chairmanship and expert membership. I am therefore disappointed in the Government’s response, which seems to say that just because we have done it this way with other EU bodies, we will use the same straitjacket this time, too. I argue that the establishment of a new body is precisely when the architecture can and should be improved.

On transparency, the Government’s response to the committee’s recommendation is, if I might say so, equally mealy-mouthed. While the European Parliament might have received its report after an 18-month period, I am not aware whether the UK Parliament has yet had transmittal of this work. Perhaps the Minister or the chairman of the committee might be able to fill in the blank here when winding up.

The work of the committee and its detailed recommendations have been of the usually high calibre that one expects from their Lordships’ European Union scrutiny processes. I do hope that this report continues to inform our thinking around these matters here in the UK and across other EU capitals.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, put it, a large number of questions have been put to me and I hope to be able to answer as many as possible in the course of my speech.

I am grateful that there is a least one question that I do not have to answer: the question posed at the beginning of his speech by the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, when he talked about the security problems in our car park. That, at least, is not a matter for Her Majesty's Government; we can leave that to the House authorities.

I start by offering my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, on bringing forward the report and for all the work done by his committee. I also offer my apologies—if it is appropriate for me to apologise; I never know whether it is—for the delay between the publication of his report and the day on which it is debated. I think that that is a matter for the usual channels, not me. I see the noble Lord, Lord Roper, nod, but I am sure that he, as chairman of the EU Committee has been pressing as hard as he can to get this, along with a whole host of other valuable reports that his committee has produced, debated in a timely fashion.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said that he wanted to concentrate not so much on the Government's response but on where it had been less than adequate. It would be useful if I could start by saying a little about where the Government and the committee were in agreement. There is much that both the Government and the committee found to commend in the internal security strategy. We came to many of the same positive conclusions, not least that the scope of the ISS and the priorities established therein are the right ones. The Government and the committee found points of agreement throughout the strategy, including, but not limited to; support for the establishment of the EU policy cycle; the use of joint investigation teams; the value of the EU passenger name records directive—I note the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, on that subject; and the role of EUROSUR and FRONTEX in enhancing border security.

Again, like the committee, the Government welcome the priority given to cybersecurity in the strategy. We see that the EU has an important role to play in raising standards in, and awareness around, cybersecurity among member states at both the EU level and—stressing points made by a number of noble Lords—the international level. We know that in security matters of this sort there are no boundaries.

In November, as noble Lords will be aware, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary successfully hosted the London conference on cyberspace, and I shall be saying a little more about some of the cybersecurity questions later. Delegates agreed that the immediate next steps must involve taking practical measures to develop a shared understanding of the threats and to agree common approaches and confidence-building measures at an international level.

The Government also find common ground with the committee on a number of cross-cutting issues, such as the safeguarding of fundamental rights. I make it clear that this coalition Government are committed to defending security and defending civil liberties so that the Government infringe less on people’s freedoms, while providing the public with effective protection from terrorism and crime. Given the number of EU data-related dossiers which will impact upon security and the need to tackle threats to security while at the same time protecting civil liberties, we would have liked to have seen those issues addressed more directly in the ISS communication. We believe that the alignment of internal and external security policy is also an area where the Government and the committee take a similar position. The Government support the committee’s call for closer working between the Commissioner for Home Affairs and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

I should like to discuss one or two points that noble Lords raised. I start with the whole question of funding the cybercrime centre, which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, raised. He asked me to look at this area but I think he accepted, although he was sorry, that it was something that I could not help on directly. He is no doubt right. I am sure we all agree that there are other savings within the EU budget that could be looked at. We could look at the budget of the High Representative herself to see whether more money could come out of that to help with such a centre. However, we understand that the Commission will bring forward a communication later this year regarding setting up the cybercentre, and it remains the Government’s view that this should be managed within existing resources. However, the question of where those existing resources come from will obviously have to be discussed at a later stage.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, also suggested that oversight of Europol should be carried out by an interparliamentary committee. The Government’s view is that Europol now has fairly robust scrutiny and accountability structures in place. We believe that the Europol Council decision, which came into force in January 2010, means that the European Parliament can require the Europol director, the chair of the management board and the presidency of the Council to go before it to discuss Europol-related issues. Additional mechanisms are in place that ensure the transparency of Europol as an EU agency. They include the submission of the Europol work programme and annual reports to the European Parliament. That provides a useful job for the European Parliament, and we think that it is something it can probably do effectively. I believe that the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and its various sub-committees can also scrutinise the activities of Europol with some vigour, as they have done in the past.

My noble friend Lord Hodgson hoped that the Government would make use of the various and valuable resources within the EU agencies themselves. Our position remains that member states can and should do more to share information, not just among EU agencies but among themselves, and to put that at the disposal of Europol. Improving our information-sharing strategy with Europol is very important in terms of influencing the EU intelligence picture at a strategic and operational level. It is important to make the most of Europol’s analytical capabilities to ensure that it can identify, for example, key persons of interest and operational opportunities for multilateral co-operation.

I turn to a query raised by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. He expressed some interest in the role of the Armed Forces in EU internal security and the committee’s concern that that was an oversight in the communication. We recognise that military assets can play a very significant role in supporting, for example, disaster relief activities, but we also believe that they should be used only as a last resort where there are no civilian alternatives. Decisions in such matters are, we believe, a matter for national authorities acting on a case-by-case basis.

My noble friend Lady Falkner was somewhat concerned about a lack of co-operation between the EU and NATO. I note that concern. We believe that that can be improved and developed, including in new fields such as cybersecurity, which has been raised a great deal. We have pressed both the high representative and the Secretary-General of NATO to encourage further information sharing and increased co-ordination on the ground in all areas between those two organisations.

I turn to structures and, in particular, to the questions relating to COSI which were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, by my noble friend Lord Hodgson and by other noble Lords. We do not consider that there is a case for the standing committee on operational co-operation on internal security, or COSI—I forget how the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, interpreted those initials—but there are obviously a number of ways in which we can replace all oversight bodies that have a legislative role, such as the Article 36 committee. I want to make it clear to my noble friend Lord Hodgson, who was worried about a lack of representatives from FRONTEX, Europol and others, that my understanding is that representatives from Europol and FRONTEX attend COSI meetings as a matter of course alongside representatives of the other EU and justice and home affairs agencies—for example, Eurojust. It is important that they are there.

I should also address the question raised by my noble friend Lord Hodgson, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and I think by my noble friend Lady Falkner about their concerns about the chairmanship and whether it should rotate. I forget who suggested that they were likely to get a rather mealy-mouthed response from me on this; from her reaction, I suspect it must have been my noble friend Lady Falkner. I understand that it is a working group and subject to the same chairing arrangements as other working groups. It is chaired on the six-monthly rotational basis that works for the Council presidency. That means that we hope we have an incoming, outgoing and current chairman and we hope that they will work together over that 18-month cycle as a troika. I think it was my noble friend who suggested that this might be the opportunity to change those arrangements, but I think for the moment it would probably be best to stick to the arrangements that we have in place for that. I am not sure that the COSI chairmanship would be the right one on which to make such a fundamental change. As regards transparency, again, it operates the same rules as other groups do. In some case-sensitive operational issues these matters can be discussed, which means that certain documents obviously cannot be publicly released. That would have to be handled appropriately, as with all other information.

The last point that I want to deal with is the question of ratifying the Warsaw convention. I appreciate that there might be other points, but time may be beginning to run out. I also appreciate that I came under a certain amount of pressure from the committee when I appeared before it the other day. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, referred to that and criticised my possibly imprecise remarks on ratification, when I said that I hoped it would happen in a year or so. I think he implied, in Sir Humphrey-speak, that that answer was not really as precise as Ministers ought to give. I have to say that, although one would like to ratify that convention, there are always concerns about ratifying and one has to get these things right.

The noble Lord referred to another convention that I was dealing with at Question Time today. We should always be very careful about any ratification; I do not think that we want to be like those countries which—dare I say it—ratify somewhat lightly, because we should consider the precise implications of ratification. In terms of the convention that I was talking about at Question Time, there are very serious concerns about extraterritorial jurisdiction, which would have a major effect on our own United Kingdom domestic law. We need to consider those carefully before we ratify and the same applies, although it is more a question of resource points, to ratifying the Warsaw convention.

As I said, a number of other issues probably need to be addressed, but time is running on—

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

I fear that the Minister is coming to his concluding comments and I wanted to get in before he sits down concerning the question that I asked about the forward plan, after the London cybersecurity conference of last November. Hungary is due to host the next summit and while I appreciate that he may not have the information to hand now, might he be able to write to tell us what tangible steps Her Majesty's Government are taking to implement the recommendations of the London conference?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I have some details somewhere about Hungary. I am not sure that I will be able to help my noble friend at this stage but, if I may, I will write to her in due course. As I said, I feel that I am beginning to run out of time and I am probably keeping the House up later than it ought to be. What I want to make clear is that I will respond to any points that I have not yet answered in due course by letter, but that we will keep the implementation of the EU internal security strategy under review.

As always, we are eternally grateful for the work of our own scrutiny committees: the EU Committee in this House, and all its sub-committees. They do a valuable job, and probably do a better job of scrutiny of EU matters than those of any other Chamber in any other country throughout the EU. On that, they should be congratulated. I also hope that the usual channels—that strange body which the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and I used to be members of many years ago—will take note of all the comments, particularly those of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and ensure that in future these matters are debated in a timely fashion, as appropriate.