European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 26th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, we will come to the issue of children’s rights later in the Bill: the right to education, the right to contact with both parents and the right to rehabilitation from abuse and torture. While listening to the debate I recalled my mother’s experience of losing her younger brother when he was one or two years of age. They were in an air raid shelter that was cold and wet. He contracted, I think, meningitis. I was also thinking of the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, which is a centre of excellence for helping children and young people. Originally it was known as the Hampstead War Nurseries. It was set up by Anna Freud during the Second World War to care for children dealing with the trauma of bereavement as a result of losing their parents in war. I hardly need to say to your Lordships that this is a very important matter. We need only to look at what is happening to children in Syria, so we must take the most constructive and proactive course possible.

We can keep this country safe, but other countries rely on our strength to keep them safe and secure, and help their children to lead stable and secure lives. I am sure that the Minister will want to make a constructive response to this debate and I hope that she will be as sympathetic as possible to the concerns raised.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be brief because most of the points have been made. I am grateful to the noble Lords who tabled this amendment and have thus ensured that this important issue is being discussed today. As has been said, the Prime Minister’s speech in Munich did rehearse the case that,

“our security at home is best advanced through global cooperation, working with institutions that support that, including the EU”.

We also had a welcome reminder from my noble friend Lord Adonis of the Prime Minister’s earlier, pre-referendum speech on the same issue. In Munich, she went on to outline her desire for an ambitious post-Brexit EU security relationship, talking about a security treaty as part of the “deep and special partnership” with the EU that she wants to see. However, as we have heard from most speakers in this debate, there was a curious lack of detail, or “beef”, in what she said.

As with last week’s amendments, these issues are integral to how we leave the European Union and indeed to the vote which will take place in this House in due course over the withdrawal deal, with its framework for our future relationship with the EU. As has also been mentioned, there is clearly a relationship between trade and security, as my noble friend Lord Adonis reminded us. I hope, therefore, that when the Minister answers the various points of the debate, she will do so in the spirit of these being an integral part of what this Bill is looking at, which is the method by which we leave the European Union. Given that our role in defence is most probably the main defence power in the EU and the only one already hitting the 2% target, our departure will have a significant impact on the defence and foreign policies of Europe and will therefore affect our other relationships with it.

Indeed, we should be mindful that, while the UK possesses full-spectrum military capability—although a little stretched, as my noble friend Lord Judd reminded us, and no doubt my noble friend Lord West would if he was in his place—and an extensive diplomatic reach across the globe, we should note that our hard and soft power has been greatly enhanced by our membership of the EU. That is why, as we have heard, Mr Callaghan as he was then focused on this and why the last Labour Government helped to launch the common foreign and security policy and the common security and defence policy. So while the Government have rightly indicated that they will seek to continue our participation in, for example, EU missions and interacting with relevant EU bodies, what we need is for the Minister to outline how the Government envisage this happening and on what terms—a point made by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. This is needed with a degree of urgency since, as my noble friend Lord Judd said, there simply cannot be an interregnum or hiatus, to use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, before something is put in place. We have a year and a month to go.

I will take a moment to pose a different question to the Minister. Given the demands at the weekend by Spain’s Foreign Minister for joint management of Gibraltar’s airport after Brexit, could she confirm that at every step of the way the Government of Gibraltar are being informed and consulted on the Government’s evolving position on these and other issues, and that nothing will be agreed to jeopardise Gibraltar’s future—mindful, of course, of its worries arising from paragraph 24 of the EU’s negotiating mandate?

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[Baroness Goldie]

The noble Lord will understand that I am a very lowly mortal and that I am not privy to the detail of the negotiations. What is clear from what the Prime Minister has said is—just as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, very helpfully identified—how extremely important these issues are to the Prime Minister. I am absolutely certain that, within the holistic forum of the negotiations, these matters are certainly being discussed and looked at.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

The noble Baroness has said, and it keeps being implied, that these are not issues for this Bill. I am sure that she knows the Bill far better than I, having read it more often, but I remind her that on page 7, Clause 9(1) says that the use of regulations is,

“subject to the prior enactment of a statute by Parliament approving the final terms of withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union”.

We know that, under Article 50, those final terms of withdrawal have to include the framework for our future relationship, which is almost bound to affect and comment on issues such as this. Although on many occasions Ministers may not want to answer, there is reference in the Bill to the withdrawal deal and surely it is appropriate for us to bring to the Government anything that might be in that.

[Baroness Goldie]

Yes. My position that I advance to the noble Baroness—I was just going to come to this in my speech—is that there will be a subsequent opportunity for Parliament to look closely at whatever the withdrawal agreement is and its implementation. In addition, the Government have committed already to providing Parliament a vote on the final deal. Parliament will be given the opportunity to scrutinise the future relationship between the UK and the EU. That is why I submit that the Bill before us is essentially of a mechanical nature. That is what it is: it is trying to ensure, as we leave the EU, that we make sense of transferring the necessary laws, enactments and regulations, whatever they may be, into the statute book of the United Kingdom. The noble Baroness is quite correct that Parliament should have that right to scrutiny, of understanding what the agreement is and questioning how the implementation will take place; I am pointing out that these opportunities will be there. Parliament will not be denied that opportunity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for not speaking at Second Reading; I took the view that I was unlikely to add anything new, bearing in mind the number of speakers. However, I have a few new things to add as a result of today’s debate. I had more than 30 years of service in the Metropolitan Police Service—which pales into insignificance when you consider the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe—but I have also been briefed by the National Crime Agency lead on Brexit and by the director-general of the National Crime Agency on these issues.

It might be considered a technical point, but there is a difference between counterterrorism intelligence exchange and law enforcement. The counterterrorism intelligence tends to be of such a sensitive nature that it is exchanged on a bilateral basis and therefore is nothing to do with the European Union. When sensitive data, for example, are shared by the United States with the United Kingdom, the United States would not do that if it was on the basis that the United Kingdom would then share all that intelligence with the EU 27. However, there is a technical difference between counterterrorism in terms of intelligence and counterterrorism in terms of bringing terrorists to justice, and here we are talking about bringing people to justice using these various mechanisms.

My noble friend Lady Ludford referred to the European Court of Justice and the Charter of Fundamental Rights as two important mechanisms which allow this co-operation to take place within the European Union. In her Munich speech, the Prime Minister tantalisingly mentioned the European Court of Justice and the potential for a role for it after the UK had left the European Union in relation to things such as the European arrest warrant. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, made the point that this is not about relationships between two sovereign nations, it is about individual rights in terms of whether an individual is going to be moved from one country to another. Perhaps the Minister can give us some clarity on the Government’s position on the European Court of Justice by explaining what the Prime Minister meant in her speech.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, talked about the need for the closest possible co-operation, which is what the National Crime Agency would say, and that the measure of the success of the negotiations would be how closely we can replicate the existing arrangements. I believe that the Government’s position is that they want to replicate all of these things as far as possible, and that is what I took from what the Prime Minister said. So to say that the Government cannot give away their negotiating position by saying what the objective is going to be is not, I think, true in this particular case. Perhaps the Minister will tell us that what the Government seek to achieve is as close as possible to the arrangements we have, but that is not the question. The question is how the Government are going to secure those arrangements; that is the critical question, not what they are seeking to achieve, but how they are going to do it. That is because there seems to be a contradiction between not wanting to have any jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice on the one hand and yet wanting to participate in things such as the European arrest warrant on the other.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, helped the House to introduce the very important issues around protected persons. For example, the victims of domestic violence have the protection of orders that are made in one country enforced in another, which brings a new dimension to the importance of these arrangements. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, talked about the importance of the protection of children through the European arrest warrant and the other measures, in particular the European Criminal Records Information System, which enables law enforcement to quickly check the antecedents of people who are suspected of these sorts of offences. These are extremely important issues in terms of bringing people to justice and in terms of protecting citizens not only of the United Kingdom but of other European states. We have heard from my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford how extradition can take years—four and a half years in the case he mentioned—whereas under the European arrest warrant justice can be brought far more swiftly.

For me, the essential question is not what the Government want the end position to be, because that is quite clear—and it is certainly what the National Crime Agency and other law enforcement officers want, and indeed what the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, has also said. The question that the Government need to answer is this: how on earth is this going to be achieved, bearing in mind their apparent contradictory stances on other issues such as the European Court of Justice?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, as we have heard, these amendments relating to reciprocal issues are key to continuing to protect and assist British citizens after Brexit, including children and protected persons, in ways that hitherto our EU membership and cross-border agreements have provided. In particular these are the European arrest warrant, the mutual recognition of family court judgments, information exchange, Europol and Eurojust.

The Government’s approach to these issues must be agreed in principle with the EU in time to be included in the framework part of the Article 50 requirements and form part of the withdrawal agreement, so a satisfactory approach to these will be key to the future vote on that deal. However, as we have heard from speakers tonight, there seems to be an extraordinary lack of urgency, especially if there is any chance—I am not sure whether this is what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, hinted at—that a standstill transition agreement could not cover these issues. That would make it even more urgent.

I ask in particular about the Government’s urgency, or lack of it, as I began asking Written Questions on this a year ago. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, will remember it very well: it was on St Valentine’s Day last year—I do not think he chose it to be that day, but never mind—that he answered some of my questions on matrimonial and maintenance proceedings. It was very reassuring: he said that the Government,

“recognises the importance of the issues”.

Wow. There was no more than that then, nor indeed on civil judicial co-operation and cross-border disputes and family law when he replied to a similar Written Question in August. I worry about the lack of progress since then.

As the Prime Minister has remarked and others have repeated, keeping our citizens safe is the first mission of any Government. Therefore, like others, I welcome that she used the Munich speech to reiterate her desire to negotiate continued, and in some cases enhanced, co-operation with EU nations and particularly with these bodies and schemes. As we have heard, the amendments cover the Schengen Information System, the European arrest warrant, the European Criminal Records Information System, Europol and Eurojust. Given what we have heard today and in earlier debates, the Minister will recognise the importance of our continued participation in all of those, but also the challenges that that will bring to them in negotiating.

While we heard from Munich the desire for this comprehensive agreement, it is time for the Minister to offer a bit more detail and clarity sooner rather than later. It is about the direction of travel or the objectives. It does not undermine any negotiations for us, not just our Parliaments, to know what the Government want to do. As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said, it is time for the Government to move from intention to reality. These issues, as has been touched on just now, are partly held up by an obsession with red lines around the ECJ. They cannot be allowed to stand in the way of some logical and sensible solutions to these problems. These issues are too important to be left to a divided Cabinet. At the moment I see a pantomime horse, or Dr Dolittle’s pushmi-pullyu, being pulled in two different directions, mostly about red lines that are immaterial to the issues we have been discussing. I hope we can hear about some direction and some practical steps from the Minister, particularly on how these negotiations are taking place.

[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords and noble Baronesses who have contributed to what has been a fascinating debate. I reiterate the Government’s commitment to ensuring that the outcome of our negotiations with our partners in the EU delivers continued close co-operation on internal security matters.

There are parallels between the effect of Amendment 13 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and that of Amendment 12 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, which was debated previously, in so far as they both seek to discuss the future relationship with the EU, which is, of course, subject to the negotiations. The noble Baroness’s amendment seeks to prevent the Government from bringing regulations into force until agreed procedures for continued participation in EU internal security measures have been approved by both Houses. The Government have already committed to providing Parliament with a meaningful vote on any final deal. This will give Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise the future relationship between the UK and the EU in all these areas. For this reason, it is our view that the amendment is not needed.

I must come back to the points made by my noble friends Lord Hamilton and Lord Lamont. Many noble Lords have pushed me and asked for further detail and clarification on the negotiations. This Bill is negotiation agnostic; it is not concerned with the negotiations. I understand why people want clarification in all those areas, but, of course, when we have reached an agreement, it will be the subject of future legislation that noble Lords will no doubt want to comment on in great detail. However, I will attempt to answer as many questions and go into as much detail as I can. I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, may be a little disappointed yet again, but I will do my best.