European Public Prosecutor’s Office

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

This is the first time that I have spoken while you have been in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I congratulate you on your appointment. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair this evening.

I start by thanking the Minister for setting out the Government’s approach to the draft regulation. There is considerable history to the idea of an EPPO. Back in 2002, the European Scrutiny Committee scrutinised the 2001 Green Paper in which the European Commission first proposed the idea of establishing the EPPO. It found that the EPPO was unnecessary, particularly given the existence of Eurojust. It also identified a number of concerns, such as the combination of prosecution and investigative functions; the power of the EPPO to commit a person for trial and determine the location of that trial; the creation of differing standards of criminal responsibility for fraud depending on whether it related to the Community’s financial interests; the lack of democratic accountability for the prosecution function; the breach of the subsidiarity principle; and the dilution of member states’ responsibility for the prosecution of fraud.

The prospect of a specialist EU prosecution authority has been raised again since then and was one of a range of initiatives that the Commission considered in 2011. Again, the European Scrutiny Committee investigated those initiatives. In 2011 the Committee echoed its 2002 concerns and cautioned against the “inappropriate and unacceptable” use of national criminal justice systems in acting against crimes against EU finances.

The Opposition believe that this proposal seeks to address a real problem. Chapter 1 of the 15th report of the European Scrutiny Committee, to which the motion refers, makes it clear that the levels of suspected fraud against the EU budget are estimated by the Commission to have been around €500 million, or £425 million, in each of the last three years. That is clearly unacceptable and should be condemned by all Members of the House. We should of course seek new ways to ensure that that fraud, which costs us all as British taxpayers, can be stopped and the perpetrators brought to justice.

However, as we repeatedly made clear when we were in government, we do not believe that an EPPO is the solution to these problems. We agree with the European Scrutiny Committee’s recommendation that the EPPO proposal breaches the subsidiarity principle and that a national-level approach, supported by existing EU mechanisms, would be more appropriate.

Although the Labour Government signed the Lisbon treaty, which enables the creation of an EPPO, we argued in government that we were consistently against the formation of the office and put in place measures to “double lock” against its creation. The double lock we secured ensured, first, that the UK would have to opt in; and, secondly, that even if a future Government were to opt in, they would still need unanimity, which is retained for any decision to establish a prosecutor or extend its powers. As the Lord President of the Council at the time, the noble Baroness Ashton of Upholland, made clear in a debate in 2008:

“We have secured legally watertight safeguards in the treaty against any move towards a European public prosecutor or subsequently, and just as important, towards extending that prosecutor’s role. It is what we would call a double lock.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 June 2008; Vol. 702, c. 454.]

Therefore, in government we put in place a system in which an opt-in procedure applies. Parliament could let its views be known and the Government could put forward their proposals. The Government would then, if they so chose—we always believed this to be very unlikely—have the discussions and determine by unanimity if they did not wish to participate.

We agreed with the Minister when he told the European Scrutiny Committee the following: that the creation of an EPPO is not the appropriate response to tackling EU fraud; that for participating member states the proposal will transfer responsibility for tackling fraud against the EU budget away from national-level decision making and towards a supranational authority whose European delegated prosecutors would have to prioritise EU fraud above other crime at a national level; that it is a flawed approach for member states not to be able to determine their national priorities, and the consequent use of resources, in tackling crime; that the EPPO would disrupt the current system for tackling fraud against the EU budget at a time where the Commission has reported two consecutive years of decrease in fraudulent and other irregularities affecting the EU budget and their estimated financial impact; that the proposed EPPO system would result in a duplication of established national-level efforts, including specific bodies, to protect member states and EU financial interests, including work against organised crime; that the best way to tackle fraud is through prevention, as reflected in the UK’s zero-tolerance approach to all fraud, which it takes “extremely seriously” and which has resulted in low levels of fraud, and by using robust management controls and payment systems and requiring all agencies with responsibility for distributing EU funds to have processes in place to monitor and report fraud; and that creation of the office would cause a shift from prevention to reaction after crimes have been committed, as it would make each member state less responsible for anti-fraud work at a national level

We agree with the Government on the principle that it would be wrong to proceed with an EPPO, and it is refreshing to see them for once getting something right on Europe. For far too long we have had the Government’s laboured decisions on whether they would be part of European co-operation on crime and justice, saying they want to opt out and then opt back in. That has led the Home Secretary to this untried strategy which risks harming effective police action in all our communities.

It has appeared for some time that the Government have been putting internal party management and coalition horse-trading ahead of crime fighting and the interests of victims. As the Leader of the Opposition made clear earlier this year, the Government’s strategy on Europe has not been to sort out the crisis of growth, it has not been to tackle youth unemployment, and it has had nothing to do with the national interest—it has all been about managing the divisions in the Conservative party. This type of party management as our European policy is not good for the country; nor will it keep the Minister’s party quiet. On Europe, the Government should be acting now to deal with the issues that really matter to people rather than navel-gazing to keep the coalition parties happy. The Government should be looking, for example, at how the UK in Europe can stop the exploitation of migrant workers and at reforms at the EU level so that family benefits such as child tax credit and child benefit are not sent abroad.

We agree with the Government on the motion. However, it is crucial that they start to take European issues seriously rather than simply shying away from anything with the word “Europe” in it. They must begin to come forward with genuine options for developing greater integration to stop EU fraud, and they must make it clear how they expect the UK to play its part as an EU member state in co-operating as closely as possible on cross-border crime, particularly drug trafficking, people trafficking and international fraud, rather than pursuing the Home Secretary’s untested and risky approach.