European Council

Emma Reynolds Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I promise to “bang on” for the next four months, but I hope to “bang on” considerably less about this subject after that.

My hon. Friend has made an important point. Obviously we have the advantage of being outside Schengen, so foreign nationals coming to other European countries do not have automatic access to the UK. We can stop them coming in, as indeed we can stop European citizens who we think may be a risk to our country. The factual answer to my hon. Friend’s question, however, is that, after 10 years, only about 2.2% of the refugees and others who have arrived in Germany have German citizenship, so the evidence to date is that there is not a huge risk of very early grants of citizenship to these people. Nevertheless, I agree that we need to act, and if we are involved, we are more likely to act to try and stem the flow of migrants in the first place. What is happening now in the NATO-led operation between Greece and Italy is happening partly because of a UK intervention in this debate, taken with the French, the Germans and the Italians. When we are around that table, we can get things done.

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that the claim that staying in the European Union would make an attack on our shores more likely is deeply irresponsible and factually wrong?

[The Prime Minister]

I am struggling to find the right page in my notes, on which there is a quotation. Ah, here we are.

I think that this is important, because we should be clear about the advantages and the disadvantages of the organisation. I have become convinced of this: when we are fighting terrorism and crime, we rely on the police, the security and intelligence services and the “Five Eyes” partnership, and I have seen at first hand that our partnership with America is incredibly powerful when it comes to keeping us safe, but I have also seen in recent years just how much this European co-operation matters. I am thinking of, for instance, the Schengen Information System and the European Criminal Records Information System, and the passage of information between our organisations. Hugh Orde, former president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, was very clear yesterday. He said that staying in Europe and co-operating with our European allies is essential to keeping British people safe:

“The European arrest warrant lets us deport terrorist suspects back to their country of origin, Europol helps our police co-operate with their European counterparts, and EU data-sharing measures allow our security services to access information on threats from anywhere in Europe within minutes.”

That is a very powerful statement from someone who clearly knows what they are talking about.

Of course, outside the EU we could try to negotiate bilateral agreements either with every country or with every system and every organisation, but I do think people will ask: “Why give up a system that is working to keep us safe when it could take so long to try and replicate it?” And then, even when we have replicated it, as Norway has tried to do with Europol, Europol is very clear: the Norwegians do not get the access or the personnel or the extra safety we get by being a full member.