Leaving the EU: Security, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice

Ben Howlett Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. As I clearly outlined in the Committee, the decision to opt in was made in the context of our being a member of the European Union, and at the moment, and over the next couple of years, we are still a full member of the European Union. It is important to make sure that we take the opportunity to play a full and strong part in that. We want to continue to play a very strong role as a partner for our colleagues across Europe, and indeed globally, particularly in law enforcement.

The prime objective of Europol is to strengthen and facilitate co-operation in preventing and combating serious organised crime and terrorism, in which we have a clear interest in playing an important part. I have yet to meet a senior police officer across our country who does not value our membership of Europol. By providing a platform for members to share intelligence and information, and through a strong analysis function, it offers unparalleled opportunities to prevent serious crime and to protect EU citizens, including those here in the UK. Concretely, this means that 86,629 suspected criminals were identified on the Europol information system in 2015 alone—up by 40% on the year before. There were 1,800-plus decisions for referrals of terrorist and extremist online content between July and December 2016 alone, with 1,600-plus removals, and numerous ongoing large-scale organised crime and trafficking cases. Indeed, the UK staffs one of the largest national desks in the organisation and is one of the biggest contributors of information to Europol systems.

Another mechanism that we have at the moment is Eurojust, which supports the fight against transnational, serious organised crime by co-ordinating multinational investigations and prosecutions. It works through a co-located network of national liaison desks staffed with prosecutors and investigators from across the EU. Later this year, we will start operating the EU’s Prüm system for the exchange of DNA, fingerprints and vehicle registration data, following this House’s overwhelming vote in December 2015 to join it. In 2015, we conducted a pilot of Prüm, exchanging DNA profiles with four other member states. This gave us an impressive number of hits, many against suspects who would not have been identified otherwise, and enabled the police to arrest people for a number of serious offences, including burglary and attempted rape.

Since 2015, we have taken part in the second-generation Schengen information system, which circulates law enforcement alerts around the EU in real time. This ensures that vital intelligence is shared internationally to help prevent threats from across the world. Joining has seen us arrest and extradite wanted people including drug traffickers, murderers and paedophiles whom we would not otherwise even have known about.

[Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)]

The National Crime Agency has said that joint investigation teams are incredibly important to the UK. Will my right hon. Friend join the National Police Chiefs Council and the Met police in agreeing that Eurojust is hugely valuable and that co-operation agreements must be guaranteed as soon as we leave the EU?

[Brandon Lewis]

When I talk to the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners and the National Police Chiefs Council, they are clearly uniform in their desire to make sure that we keep as many toolkits as we can actively working for the benefit of our residents. The work that we have to do in the years ahead must reflect the fact that we have been very clear that, as the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister have said, when people voted on 23 June last year they did not vote to be any less safe.

The European arrest warrant, which has already been mentioned, facilitates the extradition of individuals between participating countries to face prosecution for a crime they are accused of or to serve a prison sentence for an existing conviction. We have managed to extradite some 7,000 people as a result of that. The European criminal records information system provides a secure electronic system for the exchange of information on criminal convictions between authorities of participating countries. It ensures that UK authorities are made aware when our own nationals are convicted in any EU country. That means that we can secure criminal records information on EU nationals so that when UK courts are making sentencing decisions they can take into account previous offending behaviour abroad.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), and may I commend him on his work, the early start his Committee has made and its first report? I read that report with interest on Saturday, and it certainly showed that the Committee has hit the ground running. I hope it made some impact in relation to yesterday’s speech, too.

I am going to keep my remarks short, as I am not an expert on security issues—ask me about the NHS and I would be absolutely fine. However, this is a big issue of great importance to my constituency. There have been a number of instances where intelligence reports have been put out in the newspapers and this has caused a lot of concern to my constituents, so it is important that I speak in today’s debate.

I shall focus on two particular issues. I could, of course, discuss many others, some of which have already been mentioned—for example, Eurodac, Europol, the European arrest warrant, the Schengen information system and the European criminal records information system—but I shall just pick up on a couple that relate to cross-border security and the sharing of intelligence, subjects that have been covered by several hon. Friends and other Members so far.

As my right hon. Friend the Minister outlined earlier, the maintenance of the UK’s current strong security co-operation with the EU will obviously feature heavily in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations, as was outlined yesterday. Nevertheless, there should be absolutely no doubt that many of the tools and institutions that currently underpin security and police co-operation are vital for the safety of our nation. That is ever more true, given the current security concerns.

I welcomed the Prime Minister’s commitment in her speech yesterday that the Government will continue to co-operate with our European partners in important areas such as crime and terrorism. I particularly welcomed her saying:

“With the threats to our common security becoming more serious, our response cannot be to co-operate with one another less, but to work together more.”

I agree that there is a good opportunity for us not only to maintain the current co-operation but to extend it. We should not give up on the opportunities provided by this significant debate—one that we have not necessarily had for a long time.

We all face the challenges of cross-border crime and deadly terrorist threats, which certainly do not respect borders. As the Prime Minister outlined so clearly yesterday, with the threats to our common security becoming more serious, our response needs to be enhanced. The political arrangements on matters of law enforcement and the sharing of intelligence materials with our EU allies has never been more important, as my right hon. Friend the Minister said earlier.

Before Members ask why on earth I am mentioning the European convention on human rights and the protection it gives to individuals in our criminal justice system, I should say that I raise it because I still think that while we are having these debates a lot of people in the country either confuse the convention and the European Union and think one is interchangeable with the other, or worry that the debates we are having about the ECJ and our exit from the EU will at some point have an impact on the convention.

If Madam Deputy Speaker will indulge me for a second, I still think that our leaving the EU will make it much easier for us to bring ourselves out of the European convention on human rights. Although it is a topic for another day, I have no doubt that it will be debated for a serious amount of time, in both this place and the other place. I am concerned that our potential withdrawal will limit the rights on which those in the criminal justice system could rely, so such debates are crucial. When he responds to the debate, will the Minister assure me that the Government will put the protection of human rights at the forefront of their agenda, when governing both inside and outside the EU?

There is considerable consensus among UK law enforcement agencies on the tools and capabilities that we must retain if we are to keep the British people safe. One of those tools is the European arrest warrant, which was mentioned earlier. The EAW facilitates the extradition of individuals between EU member states to face prosecution for a crime of which they are accused or to serve a prison sentence for an existing conviction. Since 2004, through the EAW the UK has extradited more than 7,000 individuals accused or convicted of a criminal offence to other member states, and brought 675 suspected, convicted or wanted individuals to Britain to face justice—that is no small number. Ultimately, we need to think about that number and how many different individuals in society have been affected over the years.

The European arrest warrant has been used to get terror suspects out of the country and to bring terrorists back here to face justice. An important example is when in 2005 Hussain Osman, who tried to blow up the London underground on 21/7, was extradited from Italy in just 56 days. Before the warrant existed, it took 10 long years to extradite Rachid Ramda, another terrorist, from Britain to France. It is crucial that we replicate it or ensure that something similar continues in its place, because I do not want to see us return to the days when it took years to extradite citizens.

[Sir William Cash]

On the issue of the European arrest warrant, which was debated extensively in previous Parliaments, may I mention that there are a number of instances in which British citizens have been subjected to complete failures of justice under that system? I will leave it at that, but that is a point that my hon. Friend needs to take on board.

[Ben Howlett]

I thank my hon. Friend for intervening. The Prime Minister said yesterday in her speech that this is about not just maintaining our current system, but enhancing the system that we have. If that means having debates on the European arrest warrant to ensure that the system works to stop exactly what he mentions, then that is what we should do, and this is the prime opportunity to do so.

I turn now to cross-border intelligence sharing, which has been instrumental to the safety of our nation. In particular, I am talking about the mechanisms, data gathering and analysis executed by Europol—the agency that supports the law enforcement agencies of the EU member states by providing a forum within which member states can co-operate and share information. Will the Minister assure me that we will continue to have access to Europol after our departure from the European Union? There is no doubt that every hon. Member will be saying that over the next few hours.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that UK intelligence agencies, including individuals working in my constituency in Cheltenham, protect not just British lives, but European lives as well? As part of any future arrangement, we want to ensure that they continue to do the vital work both within our shores and beyond.

[Ben Howlett]

My hon. Friend is a great champion of the security services, particularly those that are in his constituency, and of his constituents who work at places such as GCHQ. Those agencies protect people not just in the European Union, but in the wider world with associate members. That must be at the fore of the Government’s thinking. This is about not just British domestic interest, but international interest at the same time.

There is no doubt that the UK’s participation in criminal and policing capabilities and intelligence sharing, such as the European arrest warrant and Europol, have resulted in a safer United Kingdom. The UK has always taken a lead in European security matters, managing the relationship between the European Union and the United States and taking the lead in producing EU policies on counter-radicalisations. The EU action plan on terrorism was drafted during a UK presidency. May I press on the Minister the importance of this continued co-operation long after we exit the European Union?

Like other hon. Members, I must highlight the need for as much clarity as possible on this issue. My constituents and the British public put security and law enforcement very high up the agenda, so I am very pleased that the Government have enabled this debate to take place today. People are rightly concerned that we should be giving them more confidence that, whatever relationship we have with the European Union in the future, we maintain the highest level of security.