Serious and Organised Crime: Prüm Convention

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

If, for example, the DNA profile is sent, the first response is about whether or not there is a hit on the database. There is then a separate process to determine whether the individual’s personal details will go forward. As I will come on to say, we intend for there to be scientific consideration of the match to ensure that it meets the requirements and thresholds that we set. We will be setting higher thresholds than other countries. It will be possible, if the other country wishes, to move to a European arrest warrant to arrest an individual if there is sufficient evidence. We have brought in extra safeguards in relation to the use of European arrest warrants. It will also be possible, through the EAW, for foreign criminals here to be extradited elsewhere and for criminals who have undertaken activity here in the UK but have then gone abroad to be brought back to the UK for justice.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

On that specific point, will the second check—the second set of scientific safeguards, as I believe the Home Secretary called them—be a manual check done by a human, or will the process be automated?

[Mrs May]

I think there will be an automated element to it. If my hon. Friend is concerned that the whole system will immediately undertake the check, there is a decision to make that check and we are setting a higher threshold. I am getting into scientific waters that I am perhaps not best qualified to refer to, but the issue is what are called the matches of loci on the DNA. Many countries will use six, or potentially eight, loci. We will actually use 10 loci, which is the threshold we normally set in the UK. If 10 loci are being matched, the chances of a false positive are less than one in a billion—an important safeguard that we have.

One reason I believe we should opt in to Prüm is the result of the small-scale pilot we conducted and to which I just referred. I was very clear that the exchange could only occur after we had put memorandums of understanding in place with the Netherlands, Spain, Germany and France, and that exchange would only take place under tight safeguards. Matching profiles found at crime scenes in the UK against the four overseas databases saw an impressive 118 hits. That is nearly double the number of profiles our police sent abroad for checking in the whole of 2014. We got hits from each of the four countries. We got hits to serious crimes. We got hits to people who were French, Dutch, Romanian and Albanian, and from various other countries. We did not get hits to Britons. Crucially for the police, this is leading to the arrests of foreign nationals that would not otherwise have taken place—foreign criminals whom we can then kick out of the country, making our streets safer.

A DNA crime scene profile recovered from an attempted rape was sent to all four Prüm pilot countries. The profile hit against a profile held in France, following an arrest there for a burglary. Following the verification of the hit, and after further co-operation with France, the National Crime Agency obtained demographic information on a Romanian national. This individual was stopped in London on 10 November 2015 on suspicion of a motoring offence, which would not have led to a DNA swab being taken or any search domestically of our DNA database. Owing to the Prüm hit, however, the warrant for his arrest was revealed. He was arrested and charged with the attempted rape and is currently on remand. In other cases of rape, we know the police have requested extradition papers. As the director general of the National Crime Agency, Keith Bristow, has said,

“these would not have been detected without the pilot”.

It is because of cases like this that Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, has said that Prüm will:

“reduce the number of unsolved crimes, such as murder and rape, committed by foreign nationals, and provide an improved service to the public, victims and their families”.

If the House votes to re-join Prüm, we will be setting in place a process that will catch foreign nationals who have committed crimes here. We will be setting in place a process by which these criminals can be deported. We will be setting in place a process by which foreign nationals who have committed crimes in the UK can be linked to crimes abroad and sent to those countries to stand trial. In short, it will be a vote to keep foreign criminals off our streets and make our communities safer.

The numbers here are stark. If, and I hope when, the UK connects with all other Prüm countries, the evidence suggests there could be up to 8,000 verifiable hits following the initial connection. That is up to 8,000 foreign criminals our police can track down for crimes they have committed in the UK. There will then be an ongoing daily process that will produce more hits. Such exchanges will become part of business as usual, with the reach of our law enforcement extended across Europe at the touch of a button. This is the sort of progress we must grasp. Experience from those already operating the system in other countries shows just how important it really is.

To those who say we do not need to be in Prüm to do this and that we can do it already, I just say look at the figures. The existing processes are so cumbersome and convoluted that last year police sent just 69 DNA profiles abroad. The ease of the processes we used in the pilot means we have already sent 14,000% more this year. Furthermore, changing the Interpol process would require the agreement of all Interpol members, which would be a near impossibility. It simply is not true to suggest, therefore, that we can go on with the current processes or can easily improve them.

For fingerprints, there is an additional benefit. Countries signed up to Prüm can also check the EU database containing the fingerprints of asylum seekers and others detained illegally crossing the EU’s borders. It was this ability to make checks with that database that allowed the Austrian authorities to identify eight of the 71 people so tragically found dead in the back of a lorry on 27 August. It was that same ability that allowed the Austrians to identify one of the suspects in that case. We also know that one of the individuals involved in the Paris attacks entered the EU via Greece. With the unprecedented flows of migrants at the moment, it is clear that the police would benefit from having this capability. By that, I mean police from across the whole of the United Kingdom.

During this process, we have engaged closely with the Scottish Government, Police Scotland, the Northern Irish Department of Justice and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, whose views the Government have given great weight in formulating policy. That is why the Scottish Government, Police Scotland, the Scottish Police Authority, the Northern Irish Department of Justice and the PSNI will have places on the oversight group. Their views will continue to be important to me personally and the Government more generally as we progress this matter, and we will of course consider the representations from the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) about other bodies. We will ensure that every corner of the United Kingdom has its voice heard. I am sure that is why I have received letters of support for linking us up to this capability from Police Scotland, the Scottish Government and the PSNI.

I have also received support from Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who has said:

“The scale of the potential for individuals to commit crime across Europe is such that a solution such as Prüm, with all the necessary safeguards, is the only effective way to track down these highly mobile and potentially dangerous criminals.”

I agree wholeheartedly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

I personally see no objection to that, but let us start within Europe. Let us get a clear set of standards and arrangements within Europe first. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that one of the benefits of the European Union is that it sets a standard that the rest of the world then begins to follow. We are seeing that now with Norway and Iceland. In effect, they have to follow all the norms of the European Union if they want to be a full trading partner. So I would not see a problem with the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion. The Home Secretary has said that there will be many safeguards. I put it back to the hon. Gentleman: would he be happy with somebody who has committed a crime going back to Iceland and thus avoiding justice? I would not be happy with that and I would want measures in place to ensure that they could be brought to justice. Opting in will also lead to a much better use of police time and resources, as the Home Secretary has said, and will improve the intelligence picture that the crime and terrorism authorities have, so that they can better understand the patterns emerging across Europe.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that I have huge respect for him, but I want to tease something out a tiny bit further. He said that security trumps civil liberties. Does he believe that security trumps the protection of our common law system?

[Andy Burnham]

I reiterate that security comes first. The first responsibility of any Government is to secure the people who live here by taking reasonable measures to reduce the risks to them, because from that foundation of security come all our traditions, our laws and our liberties. That is why co-operation in this field is a good thing, given that the nature of crime now is international. If we fail to understand that, our own legal system will never be able to respond to the changing nature of crime that we face.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Tom Elliott). I rise in this debate just briefly because I am a great believer in co-operation between European member states and, indeed, between all countries on an international basis if the aim of that co-operation is to eliminate terrorism and fear and improve national security, but a couple of things need to be said. This is not necessarily about the detail of the database—how the data are held, what is on the database, how it is populated, how many databases there might be, whether they are a good thing or a bad thing. There is a tiny bit of principle that underlies all these points that I want to check that we have covered off.

When the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) made his opening remarks for the Opposition, he reminded us of the job he held in 2005. He had been given a job by Tony Blair at that time to bring in the European arrest warrant. At that time, I was a Member of the European Parliament and I participated in debates there about the extensions of powers this might bring. There was a genuine concern from the current major Opposition party here, the Labour party, about the direction of travel in the European criminal justice system, hence the big opt-out which came about. In fact, let me quote someone who does not get quoted much in this House any more—former Prime Minister Tony Blair. On 25 June 2007 he was talking about the opt-out from the criminal justice system and said:

“It is precisely the pick and choose policy often advocated. It gives us complete freedom to protect our common law system”.—[Official Report, 25 June 2007; Vol. 462, c. 21.]

That was why I asked the right hon. Member for Leigh whether security trumps common law. I will challenge him privately, maybe, over a pint later on his answer to that, because we have to understand that common law is the underpinning of our structure of law in general in this country and we must uphold that. Yes, security is super-important, but we must uphold our common law principles as well.

I was in the European Parliament at the same time as a great gentleman, Professor Neil MacCormick, who was an SNP Member of the European Parliament. He chastised me when I was flirting with the idea of how a European system of criminal justice might look going forward. He reminded me that actually a European system of criminal justice goes against corpus juris in many ways and could undermine our common law. He kept on reminding that Parliament that we must be very wary when we look forward at measures in the emerging European criminal justice system, as while they might be—as many of them are—sensible progressions of policy, we must make sure none of them undermines our system of common law.

A former Labour Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, probably put this as well as I will ever be able to:

“In negotiating the justice and home affairs chapter, the Government made clear their absolute determination to protect our common law system and police and judicial processes. We were clear that EU co-operation in this area should not affect fundamental aspects of our criminal justice system.”

She went on to make a point that we need to note today, bearing in mind that, having used our opt-out, this Government are now using a process of opting back in. She said:

“The extended opt-in arrangements that we have secured mean that we have a complete choice as to whether to participate in any JHA measure. We have also ensured that the jurisdiction of the ECJ cannot be imposed on the UK in this area—it will apply only to the extent that we have chosen to participate in a JHA measure.”—[Official Report, 29 January 2008; Vol. 471, c. 183.]

The Government are to be commended for certain aspects of the process that they have undertaken on this measure, instead of simply opting in without thought. The Home Secretary and the Minister for Immigration, my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), will understand that I have real reservations about how these measures work in conjunction with our system of common law, but at least we have had a sensible pilot and a sensible assessment, and we have put in extra safeguards to ensure that the data transfer is more on our terms.

I like it when we co-operate with our EU partners—and, indeed, our international partners—on these matters. My only concern is to ensure that the Government and this place, the House of Commons, have squared off opting into things like this against the continuing development of a European system of criminal justice based on a legal code that directly challenges corpus juris and our common law system. I hope that the Home Secretary will understand my concern, and I hope that the Minister will be able to cover off the points that I have made. In his assessment, will going deeper into ECJ jurisdiction be a price worth paying for these measures?

[Several hon. Members rose—]