The UK’s Justice and Home Affairs Opt-outs

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and Keith Vaz

Thursday 10th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), and as I have not done so previously, may I congratulate him on the knighthood that has been bestowed on him, which was very well deserved, and may I also say how pleased I am to see the right hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) here today, because I understand it is his birthday? What a glorious way to celebrate a birthday, talking about the European arrest warrant and the prisoner transfer agreements!

I welcome this debate. As the House has heard from the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), the Chairs of the three Select Committees wrote to the Justice Secretary and the Home Secretary asking for an early opportunity to debate these issues, and our letter was received very courteously and we now have a debate as a result of our representations. In the view of the Home Affairs Committee it would have been much better if this debate had taken place before the negotiations began. That was one of the recommendations we made after we took evidence from the Home Secretary and others about these important measures, because we felt strongly that if Parliament had made its views clear before the Home Secretary and Justice Secretary started their negotiations, that mandate would have bolstered them in their negotiations with their European partners. Unfortunately, such a debate did not take place before the negotiations began.

I agree with the Chairman of the ESC that there ought to be a vote on this issue. I am glad the Government have said they will have a vote. I would be surprised if there was not a debate before the vote. Even though we are probably only going to have the usual suspects here, I think it should be a long debate, rather than an hour-and-a-half debate, because these are very important measures. What we have asked for—I will come on to this later when we look at the European arrest warrant—is a separate vote specifically on the European arrest warrant. The Committee produced a unanimous report, and those who serve on the Home Affairs Committee have different views on the European Union, so getting a unanimous decision on something of this kind is quite difficult. The Committee unanimously decided, however, that we should be asking for this because of the representations we had received from so many people, including hon. and right hon. Members, about the way in which the European arrest warrant operated.

We have heard what the Home Secretary has done, and I welcome all the steps she has taken, and also the views of the Opposition Front Bench in Committee when it looked at the way in which the arrest warrant was operating. We heard specific evidence in the Committee from, among others, the hon. Members for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) and for South Dorset (Richard Drax) about individual constituency cases where the European arrest warrant had gone wrong. I and the Committee accept the principle of the European arrest warrant. We believe this was an important measure to enable countries that are members of the European Union—and, indeed, beyond, through bilateral agreements —to bring back into the country and offer up those who are wanted in respect of criminal matters. So the principle is fine. However, our concern was the practice, and the examples we received caused us enormous concern.

There was the Andrew Symeou case, which was told to us by the hon. Member for Enfield North, and the case of Michael Turner—a gentleman who was extradited to Hungary and incarcerated there and who never faced any charges and who is a constituent of South Dorset—and other examples that caused Members to say that the European arrest warrant was good in principle but not necessarily good in practice and had caused their constituents a great deal of concern.

As we have heard, the number of requests to our country far exceeds the number of requests that we make. The total cost of executing an incoming European arrest warrant in the United Kingdom is approximately £20,000. The 999 received by the United Kingdom in 2011 are estimated to have cost around £20 million. So this is not justice on the cheap. It costs a great deal of money to execute these warrants.

Our concern was the way in which they were being requested by certain European countries, and I have mentioned Poland but there were other examples. Indeed, if we look at the requests made of Germany and other countries where people are wanted, we see the figures are just as high. The Home Secretary has great negotiating skills, charm and powers of persuasion, which I saw for myself at the Police Federation conference earlier this year, so she is no pushover, and I am sure she went in there and negotiated strongly on behalf of our country, as Ministers have to do, especially knowing the views of Parliament. The fact is, however, she does not have control, and neither does the Justice Secretary with all his great skills and ability, of the Polish judiciary. They do not have control of the Latvian system of justice. They do not have control of the way in which these warrants are issued in the first place. They do have control over the execution, but not over the issuing.

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

There are some other issues around the European arrest warrant and trying to reform it. While we might want to have reforms that make it function better, is it not the case that the European Commission, in co-decision with the European Parliament, has to have the final say on these matters? So we might want to have this reform, but it might never come forward, and that is a fundamental problem about the opt-in, because we give these powers away completely once and for all.

[Keith Vaz]

I defer to the knowledge of the hon. Gentleman with all his vast experience of European affairs. Having served as an MEP for so long in the east midlands, he sought asylum here in the House of Commons and he has rightly raised one of the big issues. We can negotiate, but at the end of the day it is an issue that we need to confront. How are we going to persuade the European Commission on these very important matters?

We have heard about the wheelbarrow case—the man accused of stealing a wheelbarrow who was the subject of a European arrest warrant—and those absconding from prisons on day release or those accused of minor drugs offences. There was a man who gave false details on a £200 bank loan that had already been paid off. A warrant was issued, it had to be executed and that cost £20,000. So the Home Secretary is right to give us the headline examples—as the shadow Immigration Minister also did—of people who commit terrible crimes in other parts of Europe and whom we feel obliged to give back as quickly as possible, but many, many examples go the other way and that shows there are still problems with the warrant. The Home Secretary has made big efforts to make these matters more effective by introducing the forum bar and giving more powers to the judges to look at such cases, but that is not enough when European partners are not prepared to reform their judicial systems, where so many warrants are being issued.

The Home Secretary is often reluctant to tell me about her travel plans after she has been to some of these countries but I am sure that, like me, she has been to Poland. I went there with members of the Committee and we talked to prosecutors there. The first question they asked was, “Are you coming to talk about the European arrest warrant?” We said, “Yes we are, because we are really concerned. Why are the Polish judges issuing so many warrants when, in our view, they are not merited?” These warrants undermine the principle of the EAW when they are issued for such trivial reasons as the theft of a wheelbarrow. Obviously, it is extremely important for the person who has lost the wheelbarrow, but in the whole history of the world, to coin a phrase of the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), it is not that important—it is certainly not worth £20,000. So more work needs to be done.

Even when that work is done, the Committee is very clear that we must have a separate vote on the EAW. We are happy to have the package as a whole put before the House. I am not sure how many of these 35 measures can go through the House within a parliamentary day, but we draw a line in the sand about the EAW: Parliament is concerned about it and we therefore need a vote.

Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and Keith Vaz

Monday 22nd April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I apologise to the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) and to other hon. Members present that I was not here at the beginning of the eloquent opening speech. I and other parliamentary colleagues were attending the 20th anniversary memorial service for Stephen Lawrence at St Martin-in-the-Fields, which was still going on when I left.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate, and the thousands of people who signed the e-petition. He put his case in his usual elegant and eloquent way, and very robustly. Although I do not think that we will get a solution in this Chamber today to the problems he has raised, I hope that by having the debate we can show the public and those who signed the e-petition that Parliament is prepared to discuss this very important issue openly and transparently, and not leave it to fringe parties that are not represented in Parliament to take control of the debate.

As the hon. Gentleman said, there are now eight months to go before the lifting of transitional arrangements, which, broken down, is 6,072 hours, 253 days or 36 weeks. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said that we are a Parliament that welcomes enlargement—the enlargement arrangements went through the House with no one voting against them. I declare my interest as Minister for Europe when the enlargement of the EU began in earnest, and I well remember visiting Bucharest and Sofia, and the other eastern European countries, and telling them that Government and Opposition were united in ensuring that Romania and Bulgaria, and indeed the other countries, should enter the EU, so that for the first time in many decades we would have a united Europe.

I welcome enlargement. It has provided enormous benefits for our country, and in a discussion of this kind we should recognise that it has been an essential part of the European policy of successive Governments. However, there is a clear national feeling, the depth and scale of which is shown by the number of people—some 145,462—who had signed the e-petition by 2 pm today, and unless we discuss the matter, and unless the Government are prepared to come up with some solutions to the issues that have been raised, I fear that this will become a dominant issue as we approach the next general election. It is therefore important that we have this debate.

Tomorrow, the Home Affairs Committee will take evidence from not only the Romanian and Bulgarian ambassadors—it is important that we hear their side in Parliament—but the Minister, and I will listen to his speech and those of other hon. Members so that I can prepare my notes for his session before us tomorrow.

The hon. Member for The Wrekin was absolutely right: at the heart of this debate is the issue of numbers—the estimates. Over many months, at Home Office questions and through written parliamentary questions, I have pressed the Home Secretary and the Minister on the need for estimates. On 21 October 2008, the then shadow Immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), said that one of the greatest failures of the last Government was the failure to predict the consequences of enlargement in 2004. That is why it is vital that we get proper estimates of how many people will come here on 1 January next year.

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

I do not say this in a tongue in cheek way, but the right hon. Gentleman was the Minister for Europe at the time the first accessions were happening, so what advice can he give the Government about getting the right estimates? The last Labour Government’s estimates were truly, wholly and completely inaccurate, and he would have been in receipt of them. Based on his experience, what questions should the Minister ask his officials?

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman will have to wait for my memoirs to get all the information, but he is right that critical questions should have been asked. The headlong rush to try to enlarge the EU, which was supported by the Government and the Opposition, did not really take into consideration the numbers who would eventually come. The question was never really put properly and never really answered, which is why, with the benefit of hindsight, I hope Ministers will learn from the mistakes that were made, and mistakes were made, because research should have been commissioned. I hope he will learn from the mistakes made by myself and others, who did not ask the right questions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

That is absolutely right. In addition, of course, a number of other countries will also lift their restrictions on 31 December—a point the Home Secretary made to the Select Committee. Even given that, however, it is still important to have the information at hand so that we can have an informed debate and make an informed judgment. We need that information when we look at local services, which I think are at the kernel of local people’s criticisms when they sign this petition; indeed, the second part of it is all about benefits, housing shortages and, indeed, access to medical care. If we do not have the information, our services will be under enormous pressure.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

We need to learn the lessons of the past properly. Three members of the Public Accounts Committee are here today—my hon. Friends the Members for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) and for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) and myself—and we see only too regularly examples of Departments operating in silos and the inability of the best of our civil service to understand the reports they provide to Ministers. I therefore wonder whether there was much cross-departmental working on reports in the right hon. Gentleman’s time and the time of the shadow Minister. The right hon. Gentleman has just mentioned a number of Departments, and I wonder whether the Minister can talk about the cross-departmental working that is going on now to deal with these issues.

[Keith Vaz]

It is important that the matter should cross Departments. Yes, there was some work—I cannot remember all of it, because it was 13 years ago—but I am worried, knowing that there are three members of the Public Accounts Committee present, that it might call me to give evidence. I cannot remember anything very much, so it would be better to call my successors as Minister for Europe. They might be able to help.

On the point about benefits, it is worth noting that at the time of the A8 enlargement, the number of Poles claiming JSA was less than 7,000 out of the 500,000 who came here. However, I recall a parliamentary reply about the number of people from EU countries who claim benefits for children who are not resident here; I think that that came to £50 million a year. I think that it is not so much the right of people to claim benefits if they pay taxes and contribute to the economy, as the fact that some people claim benefits when their children are not even resident, that upsets the British people, who, as the hon. Member for The Wrekin has said, are a very tolerant and understanding lot. However, they will not stand for abuse of the system, and people taking advantage of a system to which they have not contributed.

I accept the point made by the hon. Member for The Wrekin, whom I have known for many years, that there are jobs that are difficult to fill, such as fruit-picking—I cannot quite imagine him picking strawberries in Shropshire, but am trying to fix that in my mind—but the Romanian and Bulgarian communities in this country are making a contribution to the economy and paying tax, even though the majority of them are self-employed. We have 6,000 students; we have doctors, nurses, professionals and people in all walks of life. The hon. Gentleman need only go to certain parts of north and west London to see the contribution that those people make. Of course there are certain jobs that cannot be filled, but those people already contribute to the operation of the country.

One way in which we can deal with the issue is by beginning an effective dialogue with the Governments of Romania and Bulgaria. For some reason known only to the Home Secretary, for six months she resisted telling me whether she had ever visited Romania. Eventually, when she gave evidence last Thursday to the Home Affairs Committee, she admitted that she had not; it is all right—we shall not ask the Minister the same question tomorrow. I can suggest a way of dealing with the issue, with a friendly EU country with which we do business every day, and with which we want to keep friendly relations, not least because we have begun our negotiation process with countries such as Romania and Bulgaria to try to put a package towards the British people for the referendum that is going to come—and as the hon. Member for The Wrekin and other hon. Members know, I fully support a referendum on whether we stay in the EU or come out. It would be helpful if the Home Secretary or the Minister for Immigration would go to Bucharest or Sophia and speak to their opposite numbers to see what can be done to make the transition as smooth as possible, and find out the root causes of migration from those countries—and not just rely on a BBC poll, helpful though that is—and I am sure that “Newsnight” will present a good programme tonight—it is such personal contacts that are important. I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to do that in the next few months.

The Home Affairs Committee is, as I have said, conducting an inquiry on the matter. We are also considering the effect of the European arrest warrant and the Government’s proposals. We tagged on a visit to Romania before our visit to Poland, and we shall produce a report, thanks to work done by the hon. Members for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) and for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who have driven the issue in the Committee. We hope that we can come up with a balanced report that will take into consideration the views that have been expressed in the debate today, but also the views of outside groups, including the embassies and, indeed, Migration Watch UK.

Let us not lose sight of one important fact: we have good relations with Romania and Bulgaria. I pay tribute to the Romanian ambassador, Ion Jinga, and to Ambassador Konstantin Dimitrov, who throughout the debate have been balanced in what they have said. I pay tribute also to Martin Harris, our ambassador in Bucharest, who recently won an award for excellence in communication in the relationship between our two countries. What I have to say is directed not at hon. Members, who are not those responsible, but at those in other political parties not represented in Parliament, who put out election leaflets that are simply not true. Let us have a debate about the issue, and a report based on facts. More than anything else, let us have the estimates and predictions. It will make our task, at the beginning of next year, much easier.