Business of the House
Debate between Crispin Blunt and Jacob Rees-Mogg(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Rees-Mogg
It is always exciting to discover what the position of the Liberal Democrats is, because it changes like a weather vane.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the President of France stands firm and declines us the extension, there is still plenty of time next week to get the withdrawal Bill passed in this House and the other place, given the position taken by all on the Opposition Benches on the unacceptability of no deal? Then the general election itself can decide who is negotiating the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union.
Mr Rees-Mogg
If there were a will to get the Bill through, it could of course be done. Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it would satisfy the European Union. It would get the deal done; we would have left; and we could do it by 31 October, and that is what we should aim to do.
Business of the House
Debate between Crispin Blunt and Jacob Rees-Mogg(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman’s appetite for debate is touching, but we have been debating these matters for three years. We have had endless debates; we have had endless statements by both this Prime Minister and his predecessor; we have had endless reports from the Brexit Select Committee. It is hard to think of any matter that has been more carefully looked at—and, rather splendidly, not just by this House but by the country at large who have engaged with politics. One of the great virtues of Brexit has been the way it has encouraged our constituents to be interested in our activities.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
Having noted the careful crafting of your statement today, Mr Speaker, and your response to my point of order about change of circumstances, will my right hon. Friend tell the House when the Government think there will be a potential case for change of circumstances in order that we can actually get what the country needs: a straightforward vote on the withdrawal agreement?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Mr Speaker, earlier you were kind enough to quote what I said on 18 March, but not, I fear, in full. I went on to make another sentence, which was:
“Dare I say that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repented than over the 99 who are not in need of repentance”,
because, I, like my hon. Friend, am greatly in favour of continuing to follow precedents and using them as a guide. And they are a guide, and the guide in this case may be what you yourself, Mr Speaker, said on that day:
“It depends on the particular circumstance. For example, it depends whether one is facilitating the House and allowing the expression of an opinion that might otherwise be denied”.—[Official Report, 18 March 2019; Vol. 656, c. 778-79.]
I think this has been a very important guide to the decisions that you have made both recently and historically in your term as Speaker, so no doubt these things will be in your mind as you deliberate and consider further what my hon Friend has said.
Data Protection in the Areas of Police and Criminal Justice (EU Directive)
Debate between Crispin Blunt and Jacob Rees-Mogg(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Blunt
I am grateful to the Chair of the Scrutiny Committee for that point, but I will have to take advice on what was received and when before replying to him. I am trying to explain that, in this area, there is considerable confusion between opt-ins and opt-outs, so if he will forgive me, I shall try to explain this complicated matter and its consequences in as simple terms as I can, as much for my own benefit as for anyone else’s.
To address specifically the subject of debate this evening, we support the transfer of data across borders and between organisations where it improves our ability to prevent crime, increase security and keep our citizens safe. We must therefore protect the arrangements that have allowed EU member states to share information about suspected criminal activity in a regulated and proportionate manner. The challenge of the directive is that, although parts of it are welcome and will help in the fight against crime, some of the provisions are excessively bureaucratic and unwieldy. As it is drafted, we have concerns about the costs it would impose on UK law enforcement agencies. We are particularly concerned about the fact that it has been drafted so as to apply to internal processing of data—that is, information being shared by police forces or other criminal justice authorities within the borders of one country.
The Government's approach to the directive has been to establish the best way of securing the benefits of continued data sharing with EU member states, while minimising any resultant costs. Having gone through this analysis, our judgment is that, despite concerns about the current text, we should not opt out of the directive. There are three main reasons for this. First, the directive is at a very early stage of negotiation. There is substantial room for improvement, and it is clear that the UK has significant allies within the Council of Ministers who share our concerns. We believe that we can secure a more effective deal by working with our partners than by going it alone.
Mr Blunt
No. Secondly, the legal base of the measure gives the UK an effective exemption on the issue about which we are most concerned: internal processing of data. The directive is based on article 16 of the TFEU—the new data protection competence created under the Lisbon treaty. Under article 6a of protocol 21, which gives the UK and Ireland particular provisions and protections in the areas of freedoms, security and justice, the UK has what we believe to be a firm protection that provisions on internal processing will not apply to us.
Mr Blunt
No. My intention was to respond to the intervention made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), but he is no longer in his place, so I shall come back to it later.
Thirdly, and most important, exercising the opt-out would endanger our continued ability to share information across borders without necessarily freeing us from the bureaucratic and unwelcome obligations potentially created by the new directive. That is because in the absence of the directive, the UK would have to negotiate new data-sharing arrangements bilaterally with each of the other member states in the European economic area. Notwithstanding the significant time and cost of those separate negotiations, the fact is that each of the member states with which we would be negotiating would be bound by the terms of the new directive, and of course would press the UK to adopt similar requirements to their own. The effect would be that we would end up taking on similar obligations to those of a directive that we had not participated in negotiating, and whose content we had not had the opportunity to influence.
The Schengen instruments contain their own specific and extensive data protection provisions, which will not be affected by the directive and will continue to operate, so in effect we would be opting out of very little, with little potential benefit for the United Kingdom, but potentially to our detriment. Furthermore, there are broader consequences to an opt-out.
Mr Blunt
If we were outside the directive, our ability to negotiate essential data-sharing agreements, such as we are in the process of doing on the passenger name records directive and the European Union third-country passenger name records agreements, could be significantly undermined. Equally fundamental, exercising our opt-out on this measure could throw our participation in other, broader Schengen measures into question and the Council could take the decision not allow us to continue to participate in valuable data-sharing arrangements under the police co-operation provisions of Schengen. This would be a serious problem for our law enforcement agencies, which benefit from the sharing of criminal data under Schengen.
It is therefore our careful collective judgment, based on the most pessimistic view of costs and benefits, shared with the European Scrutiny Committee, that our national interests are best served by participating in this directive so that we are party to the framework governing data-sharing for policing and criminal justice across the European Union.