European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Kennedy of Shaws and Baroness Massey of Darwen

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

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, there cannot be anyone in this House who does not agree that the security of this country is vital and that collaboration in fighting crime is really important. We have to remember that international cross-border crime is one of the real challenges that we face. It has been made easier because of developments in recent times, such as the electronic transfer of money, the ease of travel and the whole business of communicating by cell phones, email and the like. Just as that makes it possible for us to trade, it makes it much more possible for illicit trades to take place, too, so international cross-border crime is something that we really have to contend with in a way that was not the case 50 years ago.

Countering cross-border serious crime, whether it is terrorism, the transportation of drugs, the importation of firearms or all manner of illicit products or trading in human beings, involves incredibly important collaboration and co-operation, so like other noble Lords I welcome the fact that the right noises are being made about future co-operation in policing and security matters, particularly because of the real complexity of this stuff. I was with a group of recently retired senior counterterrorism police officers and someone who was about to retire last Thursday talked about the invaluable nature of these collaborations and the ways in which the European arrest warrant, Eurojust and the things on the list that was read out by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, are so vital in countering this really serious level of crime. If you can penetrate the dark web, it shows just how active this criminality is.

I strongly support Amendment 13, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and other noble Lords, but it raises an issue. The issue is that, if we are going to use something like the European arrest warrant, it involves something different from the need for arbitration or for some supranational tribunal to deal with trading disputes, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said. This is of a different order. When we are dealing with something like the European arrest warrant, we are talking about the liberty of the subject. We are talking about people being arrested, kept in custody and transported from one place to another. The rights of the individual there are so significant that we have to have a court with highly trained judges at the apex of any legal system because people resist the possibility of being transferred for criminal trials to proceed.

I want to reiterate what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said about the old days. It would be a frequent occurrence that attempts would be made to extradite people and it took years. People were able to resist extradition for years. I see the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, in his place. Once, many years ago, he led me in a case that involved lengthy extraditions and had gone on for years. The arrival of the arrest warrant put paid to that. The difference it has made has been considerable. The UK has extradited 1,000 people to other parts of Europe to be prosecuted for serious crimes and has received some 200 individuals from other places for serious crimes. I urge the Committee to think through the consequences of that. We need to have a court at the apex of this, and the court that is sought by the rest of Europe is the European Court of Justice, which already exists and knows and understands the nature of these processes. What do we do? Do we create some new court which has all the same powers and just give it a different name in order to appease those who do not like the European Court of Justice, or do we recognise that for this area there has to be the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice?

A number of amendments in this group are tabled in my name, and I want to refer the Committee to them. Amendment 99 relates to the protection of “protected persons”. This may be something that noble Lords are not really aware of, but we adopted the European protection order directive in 2014. This relates to difficulties which are faced mainly, but not exclusively, by women who are stalked or victimised, often by former partners, and who go to live in other parts of Europe. Across Europe we have developed victim protection orders which involve mutual recognition so that, if someone stalks someone to somewhere else but we have created a protection order in the UK, it can be immediately made effective in another country where someone has pursued the person who is the obsession at the end of their malign intent. Such victim orders are used not just in relation to domestic violence and the stalking that happens in relationships but in relation to other forms of stalking, for example, in witness protection issues or in trafficking. It is an area in which I have particular experience, and these orders are going to be vital in providing protection for people in different jurisdictions. I really hope that, in seeking to create the right kind of regime for us to operate across Europe in relation to these criminal matters, we also protect the victim protection order regime—the European protection order regulations—as well.

The other matter on which I have put forward an amendment, in which I am supported by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and my noble friend Lord Judd, relates to justice and home affairs measures. I know it is the Government’s objective that some of these processes continue after departure. We are most concerned that there is a serious understanding of what mutual recognition means. There is some concern being expressed in other parts of Europe that we do not use the terms mutual recognition and harmonisation in quite the way that is intended when it comes to this collaboration on criminal and civil matters. I have spoken about this before in the House. It is about the fact that it is not enough to introduce European law into the UK, as some of these regulations require reciprocity of a very deep kind. It means that we will respect orders made in other countries and that they will respect orders that we have made here.

Think of the difference that it makes to a woman whose family are in Germany and who takes her children there to visit them, but who after a divorce is being harassed and stalked by her previous husband. She can get an order in her local court and know that when she goes to visit her family in Germany, the order will operate there too if she is pursued by her former—abusive and violent—partner. We know that this also happens in relation to matters such as access to children, where people can get maintenance orders in the local court: you can go down to the court in Bromley, get your order and it will be made effective in another country in Europe. It is so important that people do not have to instruct lawyers in other places, when they could ill afford to do so and thereby secure justice in the circumstances they find themselves in.

The mutuality there is of a very deep kind. Just introducing European law into our system and legislating for it will not be enough. What we really require is something that creates a regime that continues what has been established with great care over very many years.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 209, which is in my name, follows directly from the remarks of my noble friend Lady Kennedy, so I thank my noble friend Lord Adonis for allowing me to slightly skip the order.

The amendment echoes the concerns of others, notably the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and my noble friend Lady Kennedy about the UK’s access to and participation in Eurojust, Europol, ECRIS and the European arrest warrant. This also includes the database of the Schengen Information System II and the European protection order—I think we must have covered them all between us. I want to look at this from the perspective of child protection. This amendment has implications for a huge area that includes child trafficking, child abduction, forced migration, sexual exploitation, criminal proceedings, online abuse and missing children—a long list of concerns, also mentioned by my noble friend and the noble Lord.