EU: Justice and Home Affairs (EUC Report)

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I once again thank the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and his committee and its sub-committees—as well as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, who has served on them—for the work that they have done in providing this report. We have another quite remarkable report in front of us. Having been to seminars that the committee has undertaken, I have found its work to be extremely helpful and useful in informing our debate and my own knowledge. I think back to the number of debates that we have had around these issues with the committee’s reports, specifically on the Government’s opt-out and opt-back-in on justice and home affairs measures, and they do a great service to your Lordships’ House. We have had some of the most informed debates that I have taken part in here.

Not only is the range of issues covered by the justice and home affairs brief extraordinarily wide but the seriousness of them and their impact on the public are enormous. I know that it is very popular with some parts of the party opposite, although none of them is in their place today—and UKIP is rarely seen in your Lordships’ House for debates on these issues—just to think, “National good, European bad”. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, I thought somewhat tongue-in-cheek, referred to his optimism that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, would at some point pay tribute to the committee’s contribution to the debates. He may well have to wait a very long time, because the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, despite his strong views on European issues, is rarely seen in your Lordships’ House to discuss them, but I am happy to pay such a tribute to the committee.

The issues that we are debating today reach into personal safety and security and national security, and have an enormously positive impact. That is not to say—the noble Lord, Lord Judd, made the same point—that there is not room for improvement or that we do not seek changes, but it is essential to public and national security that we have international co-operation on these most crucial issues. Specifically referring to,

“asylum, immigration, border controls, judicial cooperation in civil and criminal justice matters, and police cooperation”,

the report states:

“These matters affect the day-to-day lives of European citizens and are of considerable importance”.

It also makes clear, in paragraph 4, that:

“The whole field is one of shared competence—that is to say, one where the Member States retain exclusive powers on some matters, such as counter-terrorism, but where the Treaty provides for the European Union to take legislative decisions on a limited number of issues”.

My next point, which was made eloquently—more eloquently than I shall be able to make it—by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, is about a fact that we have discussed before: crime does not stop at Calais. We have heard numerous examples in previous debates in your Lordships’ House of cases where co-operation has been essential to bring criminals back to the UK to face justice, and cases where only by Europe-wide international co-operation can a complete picture be built up and effective evidence obtained of criminal activities.

The Minister and I have debated the Serious Crime Bill at some length over the past few weeks, and I know that he, too, is aware of how important it is that we do not try to tackle serious organised crime in glorious isolation in this country but work with other countries to tackle it. Indeed, it is a matter for some regret that normally when we talk about co-operation on such matters, the debate tends to centre around terrorism and national security. Again, it was the noble Lord, Lord Judd, who made the point that we do a disservice to the public by not being very clear about the benefits to the public of such Europe-wide co-operation. I am talking about human trafficking for slavery and prostitution, drug crime, and money-laundering, in which criminals are trying to hide the ill-gotten proceeds of their activities.

The report helpfully starts with a timescale and a narrative of the sequence of treaties, with an explanation of the issues and priorities. It also deals honestly with concerns about the effective implementation of legislation. Following on from the Stockholm programme, a decision needs to be taken on how to proceed. We also need to discuss and define strategic guidelines for legislative and operational planning in the area of freedom, security and justice. The committee addresses the question of how this should be handled.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, referred to the subtitle of the report, Steady as she goes. It seems to me that that very phrase oozes responsibility; it inspires confidence. I have a picture of the noble Lord himself at the helm of a trusty seaworthy vessel: “Steady as she goes”. More seriously, the subtitle indicates the style and tone of the report and its recommendations. The noble Lord joked a little bit about it, but I think it is a very apt and helpful subtitle.

I shall pick up a couple of issues. One that leaps out at me is that of cybercrime. We have debated it in your Lordships’ House recently. Indeed, we are currently dealing with it in the context of the Serious Crime Bill. As noble Lords are aware, I think that the Government’s proposals on cybercrime should have been bolder. When we return to the subject on Report there may be an opportunity to see whether we have got that aspect right and whether more can be done. What strikes me about the whole area of cybercrime and cybersecurity is how fast technology moves, and how quickly legislation—and also our knowledge and understanding of the issues—becomes out of date. I refer back to the debates we had last week on the fast-track legislation on data retention. We were then debating a directive passed in 2009 that has been struck down by the European Court. We also debated the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which deals with intercept capabilities. That legislation is now out of date. It was clear in our debates on it how urgent and important it is that we do not just keep trying to make small changes and “sticking plaster” amendments to it, but have a proper, detailed, thorough review, and try to understand not just the issues we face now but how we might not exactly future-proof the legislation but at least make it easier to amend in order to deal with future developments in technology.

When we are looking at crime and threats in the cyber world, it is not just about Governments. In an increasingly global and technological world, the ability for cybercrime to damage companies and individuals as well as nations—damaging companies can have a huge impact on national infrastructure as well—is a growing threat. The use of technology has now intruded into some of the most heinous crimes. We have heard reports of them in the press involving child sex abuse, and there are new crimes that were not even invented or thought of 10 or 20 years ago, such as cyberstalking and revenge porn. Technology is available to enable new ways of committing offences and crimes against the individual.

The Stockholm programme recognised the challenges, and the European Cybercrime Centre was set up within Interpol in January 2013. There are issues about some of the work that it was doing, but the report highlights comments made at the Europol meeting that I found extremely useful and interesting.

In our debates last week on data retention, very little mention was made of the role of, and information held by, the private sector. Not only does the private sector hold enormous amounts of information about citizens but the advice from everyone in the industry and the recommendation of the report was that far greater emphasis must be placed on closer and more productive co-operation between the private and public sectors. There are common interests. There is a necessity for sharing expertise and good practice. A common theme throughout the report is its emphasis on consolidation and implementation. Specifically when we are talking about achieving that balance, co-operation between private and public sectors is important.

I was slightly disappointed by the Government’s response. If the noble Lord can clarify that, that would be useful. When I read the Government’s response to the committee’s recommendations, I expected to see strong agreement on the need for private and public co-operation on cybercrime. However, the Government’s response seemed qualified. I hope that that is just a misunderstanding on my part, but the Government’s response does not just say, “Yes, we totally agree. This is something we have to do. We want to co-operate. We want to ensure that we find mechanisms and support for public and private co-operation”. It starts by saying:

“As the Committee is aware, the Government’s policy objectives are”,

and then gives a list of policy objectives that do not include cybercrime. Only in the second paragraph does it come on to say, “Yes, we think that that is also an issue”. I would have liked to have seen something stronger to give greater confidence. Will the Minister place on record an absolute commitment from the Government on their determination to tackle cybercrime and ensure that essential private-public co-operation?

Another point to draw attention to in the report relates to serious and organised crime. I am interested to hear the Minister’s comments on that part of the report. It is not a recommendation, but the report draws attention to the point raised by Sir Hugh Orde and Rob Wainwright of Europol that:

“Further action to fight against drugs and radicalisation should also be priorities”.

They were not listed in the Government’s priorities. I am sure that the noble Lord can confirm that they are also a government priority. Rob Wainwright also said that,

“we should be arguing for a much more effective integrated response to organised crime within the EU”.

I hope that the debate that your Lordships’ House and the other place have had on the Government’s proposals to opt out of EU criminal justice matters and then seek to opt back in have not been damaging to our relations with Europe. We take that co-operation seriously.

I welcome the committee’s recommendations in “Chapter 3: Strategic guidelines for the Next Programme”, which include a recognition and acknowledgement that the priorities are implementation of existing agreements and consolidation. That does not mean that nothing new can be considered, but it means that a case must be made. I was certainly interested in the comments that any future programme should be more succinct, targeted and strategic—clearly, we do not want to fall into the trap of being vague or woolly—and have flexibility so that it can respond to unforeseen developments and trends. The noble Lord’s comments on that would be helpful.

Finally, the Government’s comments on passenger name recognition were interesting. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, also referred to this. It is not the first time that this issue has been raised; it has been raised for a number of years and, indeed, there was a previous report from the EU Committee on this. The Minister says that “good progress” is being made. I hope so. We were very concerned that the e-Borders programme was cut so significantly in 2010. A lot of money—more than £150 million—has been written off by the Home Office. As serious as these matters are, I do not want to go into whose fault it is; what I need to know from the Minister is what is happening, when is it going to happen and whether he can give a progress report on this, because it is crucial if we are to tackle terrorism and serious and organised crime.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and to my noble friend Lord Judd, who is also a member of the committee, for the work they do, and I hope that the Minister will address some of my questions.