Serious and Organised Crime: Prüm Convention

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir William Cash]

The scale has to be weighed against the extension into the realm of the European Court of Justice. That is the key issue. The European jurisdiction has been conceded by the Government, although they refused to do so before. In addition, this entire exercise represents the most massive U-turn in Government policy since 2013.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

There has been a focus on the scale of the pilot scheme. Has the hon. Gentleman had a chance to consider page 23 of the Command Paper, which helpfully outlines the delays associated with the Interpol system? Indeed, the very first example is of someone who, after four or five months of an Interpol application, having committed more offences from London to Essex, was detected in relation to another crime? With Prüm, he could have been detected much earlier.

[Sir William Cash]

There is no doubt that there are a number of cases where improvements can be made. With respect to the difference between what we are doing in the European Union as it affects the United Kingdom and what is happening in the European Union regarding other countries, we still have those problems in other countries. Extending the jurisdiction to the European Court of Justice will simply not deal with the problem.

Furthermore, in reaching a decision Parliament is entitled to know which measures the United Kingdom would opt back into by rejoining Prüm; the relevant factors that prompted the Government’s change of policy on UK participation in Prüm; and how concerns expressed by the coalition Government in July 2013 have been resolved, as we have heard almost nothing about that today. The Government motion is far from clear about the measures that the UK will rejoin if Parliament votes for it today. It refers only to Prüm decisions, but there are three measures. Two Council decisions were adopted in 2008, and the third Council decision was adopted in 2009 on the accreditation of forensic service providers. The Government should explain why the framework decision is not expressly referred to in the motion and whether they accept that it is an integral part of the Prüm package.

In July 2013, the previous Government told Parliament that Prüm would be too costly to implement. The estimate, I understand, was £31 million. The Government expressed concern that Prüm’s technical requirements were out of date and that it would be better to see whether there was a more modern solution that allowed better exchange of information, for example, producing fewer false positives or requiring less human intervention. The Government now suggest that implementing Prüm would be significantly cheaper—about £13 million, not £31 million. Can they account for such a significant reduction in such a short space of time, and how credible is the cost assessment on which the revised estimate is based?

Furthermore, the Government do not explain what efforts have been made to craft a more modern solution based on up-to-date technical requirements which would substantially reduce the risk of false positives, not just in the UK but in the EU. The Government say that they will apply higher technical standards than required by Prüm—of course—for the UK’s DNA and fingerprint databases, but we should recall that DNA profiles and fingerprints of British citizens may be held on foreign databases, which may be subject to less rigorous standards than those proposed by the Government.

All in all, this is not a motion that should be passed, for the reasons that I have given: it interferes with parliamentary sovereignty, it extends the range of the European Court, and the Prime Minister himself has made it clear that he does not want an extension of EU jurisdiction. Indeed, I think the Home Secretary has said as much. The motion therefore does not stand up. We should not opt into these proposals. For many of us, this is a step too far.

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[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

Thank you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker. There was not much choice left on this side of the Chamber. You have a distinct advantage over many Members here, in that when you entered the Chamber about 10 minutes ago, you at least knew what the subject matter was. I have sat through the debate for almost two hours, and some of the contributions would lead people to think that this was a dangerous proposition that posed a fundamental threat to our country. I do not believe that that is the case.

I am incredibly grateful to the Home Secretary and, in particular, to the Minister for Immigration for our conversations over the past few weeks, for their thoughtfulness and their willingness to assuage our concerns, and for preparing and publishing the Command Paper. If Prüm was about the United Kingdom Government sending shedloads of data to 27 other EU member states, I would be voting against it. If it was about asking 27 other EU member states to come over to the United Kingdom and have full, unfettered access to our data, I would also vote against it. However, that is not what is being proposed. The indications from the Home Secretary and from the Command Paper that the cost has been significantly reduced, from £31 million to £13 million, are to be welcomed.

I would be grateful if the Minister or the Home Secretary could help me with a little confusion arising from the contribution of the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). He suggested that we needed to put certain information on a database. My understanding was that we had three databases—one for vehicle registration, one for DNA and one for fingerprints—and that it was through those existing databases that the information would be handled.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful for this opportunity to confirm what the hon. Gentleman has just said. There is a DNA database—we will restrict the information that is available for the Prüm checks—a vehicle registration database and a fingerprint database. The Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), mentioned a whole variety of databases. There are some issues within the European Union about the connectivity of certain databases to help us to catch terrorists and so forth, but in regard to the Prüm decisions, the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) is absolutely right to say that it is those three databases that we are talking about.

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[Gavin Robinson]

I am grateful for that explanation. It satisfies my confusion, as opposed to there being any error on the part of the Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee.

[Mrs May]

Perish the thought!

[Keith Vaz]

He’s a nice man!

[Gavin Robinson]

I am a Eurosceptic, but pragmatically so. [Laughter.] I hear some laughter coming from across the Chamber, but it is important that when we agree on certain constitutional issues and the future of this country, we coalesce and unite around those issues. I do have a difference of opinion with those who have signed the amendment and it is important to outline—

[Sir William Cash]

I am so glad to hear that the hon. Gentleman is a Eurosceptic, and I take it from what he said that he would be inclined to leave the European Union. Does he accept that if he were to—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We are definitely not going on to that debate at this stage.

[Gavin Robinson]

You do not need to save me, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I will decline to answer. I can talk to the hon. Gentleman about that issue outside the Chamber.

As a pragmatic Eurosceptic, I have to look at the Command Paper and assess the details. The important details that are published there recognise that the PSNI was a part of the pilot and that there were two instances of a successful hit that involved a rape case and a German national. When I read statistics for 2013-14 in the Command Paper saying that a third of all crimes in London were carried out by foreign national offenders and that a third of them—33,500 individuals—were EU nationals, I think we need to look at ways in which we can speed up the investigative process, without hamstringing our investigative authorities in this country. That is why when I intervened on the hon. Member for Stone I made reference to page 23 of the Command Paper and the inherent delays associated with Interpol. Although Interpol will continue to be the system for dealing with those 34,500 foreign national offenders who are not from the EU, we have the opportunity to protect citizens in this city and in this country by taking this important decision today.

Reference was made earlier to the Republic of Ireland. It has not yet taken this decision, but I hope it does so. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee this afternoon, and she will know that there have been 16 terrorist attacks carried out in Northern Ireland this year that are of national security concern. Many of those involved in dissident republican circles will be operating across the UK-Republic of Ireland border.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we send a strong message of support for Prüm, we will send the message to the Parliament in the Republic that it is time for the Republic to join this and thus make it easier to tackle things such as the cross-border fuel crimes that we have been talking about in other contexts of Northern Ireland security?

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[Gavin Robinson]

I agree entirely and I am grateful for that intervention. We have engaged, through the PSNI, and it is crucial that our colleagues and friends in the Republic do so, too. I would be grateful if the Minister would indicate that discussions are ongoing with the Republic of Ireland, so that we can share our information, data and experience obtained during the pilot with the Republic of Ireland and it can similarly benefit from the directive.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The facts and figures show that there were 1,109 detections of marked fuel oil and oil laundries in Northern Ireland by the PSNI, with 50,340 litres of oil seized; and that there were 5,852 seizures of cigarettes, with 53 million cigarettes seized to a value of €25.5 million. That is what the PSNI can do. If it had help from the Garda Siochana and other countries, it could do even more.

[Gavin Robinson]

I do not disagree with my hon. Friend —I never could. That is probably the 10th time he has contributed to proceedings in this Chamber today and there will be many more such contributions.

I will not labour the point. We support this proposal from a pragmatic perspective. I wish to conclude with two gentle points for the shadow Home Secretary. First, I agree with the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) and others in this Chamber who have taken issue with the suggestion that if we look after national security, civil liberties will look after themselves. There are countless examples of draconian societies in this world where national security is very much at the expense of civil liberties. The considered point about a balance between the two is much more appropriate.

Although it is not my role to stand up for, defend or come to the rescue of the Home Secretary, I have to say that I see no U-turn from her. What was said by the shadow Home Secretary, and indeed by the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, who had a smile on his face, misses the point. In July 2014, the Home Secretary was quite clear about the reason for delay, which was a wish to avoid infraction proceedings from the European Union. I will go one step further, as there is one point in this paper that has been missed by many.

At that time, Northern Ireland representatives, including my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), were standing against the decision to close the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Coleraine. A key component of Prüm was that this country had to have centralised collection of data for vehicle registration. The Government could not proceed until they had closed the facility in Coleraine. They may not be honest about this, but because a centralised service in Swansea was only offered up on 21 June 2014, the decision had to be made to delay Prüm.

Although I take no enjoyment in highlighting that fact, it does serve to illustrate that the Home Secretary could not proceed when the key component was a centralised data centre. She did not have that centre until our vehicle licensing centre in Coleraine was closed. With that point, and perhaps a nod to those who are unhappy today, I wish to indicate our pragmatic support for the proposal that will reinforce the security efforts and the safety of citizens not only in this country but throughout the European Union.