EU Criminal Policy

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Cash]

Certainly not. I am not conjuring up a spectre; I am talking about a tendency. In almost every area, the original proposals—from Maastricht, through to Nice, Amsterdam and Lisbon—have adopted a minimalist approach at the beginning, but then expanded, moving further and deeper into the areas of competence that have been acquired. I am not going to dispute what the right hon. Gentleman says about what he has heard; I am merely referring to what I have observed, which is also understood by many others, including the Government.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

The ambition of the European Commission is set out on page 18 of the documents. Its ambition is not a limited extension of criminal policy; it is to have

“an important tool to better fight crime”—

that is, any crime. It is not limited.

[Mr Cash]

I entirely agree. Furthermore, article 83.1 sets out the following areas of crime:

“terrorism, trafficking in human beings and sexual exploitation of women and children, illicit drug trafficking, illicit arms trafficking, money laundering, corruption, counterfeiting of means of payment, computer crime and organised crime.”

It continues:

“On the basis of developments in crime”—

the broader remit under which such an extension is proposed—

“the Council may adopt a decision identifying other areas of crime that meet the criteria specified in this paragraph.”

Although article 83.1 says that the Council

“shall act unanimously after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament,”

we are talking about a process of opening up and extending those areas of domestic control over criminal jurisdiction that are likely to be transferred to the European domain.

On a final note—and to reply to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), the Chairman of the Liaison Committee—the Committee noted that the third sentence of the communication states:

“An EU Criminal Policy should have an overall goal to foster citizens’ confidence in the fact that they live in a Europe of freedom, security and justice”.

I ask the Minister to say whether he agrees with that statement. For our part, we in the Committee think it an example of dangerously ideological thinking. We are concerned that such thinking may inform future proposals from the Commission. Citizens look to their Governments to provide freedom, security and justice in their own states. To expect freedom, security and justice to flow in 27 European states under the auspices of supranational institutions may sound laudable, but in reality it is both implausible and unwarranted. We think that the Commission would have done itself a service by cutting out such a statement from a policy paper of such importance and limiting its ambitions to more practical objectives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend helps me to move to my next point. The policy applies not just to market abuse. It also applies to

“terrorism, trafficking in human beings, sexual exploitation of women and children, illicit drug trafficking, illicit arms trafficking, money laundering, corruption, counterfeiting of means of payment, computer crime and organised crime.”

The list is packaged in the manner of “Do you like hospitals?” or “Do you eat food to live?”. It has been put together with breathtaking cynicism and in a way that would make even a push poller blush. We know what this is really about. It is about starting with something that everyone can accept so that they say, “Oh, yes, that’s a good idea,”. That puts the principle in place before things are moved forward. The document says, “We then want to move forward into other areas,” as my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton just said.

Let us look at the issue of market abuse. Why can we not have the market abuse rules in the criminal law of our own nation? Why do we need to have minimum standards across European law if we do not necessarily want to opt in? We are being told that there is no such thing as—

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Charlie Elphicke]

In a moment.

We are being told that it is a misdescription to talk about a Euro-crime, but on page 9 the document states, under the heading, “What is the possible content of EU minimum rules on criminal law?”:

“The definition of the offences…Regarding sanctions, EU criminal law can require Member States to take effective, proportionate…criminal sanctions for a specific conduct.”

So if we touch on the issue of definition of the offence, and add on criminal sanctions, there is a risk that what we are actually talking about is, in effect, or could be seen as, a form of Euro-crime. I hasten to add that I do not necessarily regard that as a bad idea.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

If we were to have this co-recognition of crimes and action, would it not make more sense to do it with New York rather than with Brussels, because there is much more international financial trading in New York and London than there is in Europe?

[Charlie Elphicke]

That is a very fair point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I am very glad that the European Scrutiny Committee recommended this European Commission document for debate because it shows, once again, the ambition of the European Union. We have heard before—it is in the treaty of Rome—the line about ever-closer union. We often hear from the great and the good in this country that we do not need to worry about what the document says because it is not happening yet; it is not so important; these good and great people are not necessarily talking about it yet. And then it creeps in and it happens.

The ambition of the Commission’s document is exceedingly great, and the policies that it has already adopted are important. We notice, in the package of papers before us, that in 2009 the European Commission announced, under the Swedish presidency, that it would have more broad provisions guiding the Council’s criminal law deliberations. So, for three years already, the Commission, the presidency and the Council of Ministers have been looking at what they should be doing with the criminal law provisions and how they should affect us. We in this country are indeed protected by our opt-ins, but we have to bear in mind that once we have opted in, we are subject to qualified majority vote. So it is a once-and-for-all decision—we say, “Yes, we are going into that,” but then the people of this country, as hon. Friends have said, have no further ability to change that law; it becomes a matter bound in to European Union competence.

Let us look, as some of my hon. Friends already have, at the ambition of the European Commission in this area, at what it thinks more common criminal law will do, and how broad it is in its definition of the criminal law. We hear from the Front-Bench spokesmen that common criminal law will be used in rare cases, for important crimes. That is not actually what the European Commission seems to say. Page 11 of the package of documents says:

“EU criminal law fosters the confidence of citizens in using their right to free movement and to buy goods or services from providers from other Member States through a more effective fight against crime and the adoption of minimum standards for procedural rights in criminal proceedings as well as for victims of crime.”

That sentence—that bullet point—from the European Commission covers an incredibly wide set of crimes. They could be anything to do with the free movement of people, or the provision of services throughout the European Union. It then provides for minimum standards of procedure. That affects all sorts of basic points of the criminal law in this country. Will the procedure allow for trial by jury? It does not establish that. Does the procedure outlaw double jeopardy, which we basically still protect our citizens—our subjects—against? It does not say that. It says that it is aiming for these

“minimum standards for procedural rights”

and the rights “for victims of crime.”

The European Commission goes on to say:

“Common rules strengthen mutual trust among the judiciaries and law enforcement authorities of the Member States. This facilitates the mutual recognition of judicial measures as national authorities feel more comfortable recognising decisions taken in another Member State if the definitions of the underlying criminal offences are compatible.”

That means that we have to align our laws with other member states in the European Union. There may not be an immediate proposal to do that, but it is what the European Commission has in its documentation, it is what it wishes to do, and we know from experience that what the European Commission starts out with often comes to be the case.

Who can forget that wonderful moment when Lady Thatcher stood at the Dispatch Box and there were three proposals from Mr Delors, and Margaret Thatcher said “No! No! No!”? Each one of those three has now become an established part of the European family that we know and love.

What is the time scale? That again is set out by the European Commission in its package of documents. Page 18 says that it has a

“vision for a coherent and consistent EU Criminal Policy”

by 2020. So the European Commission wants us, in eight years, to have established that uniformity.

As we have discussed, the proposal includes things that are open to wide interpretation, such as computer crimes. Even an alarm clock is now computer-controlled, so even if you were to steal an alarm clock—[Interruption.] Of course, you would not steal an alarm clock, Madam Deputy Speaker, but if some brigand were to do so, that might be deemed to be a computer crime. The description is therefore set wide, as it is for

“serious infringements of road transport rules”.

If someone were to park on a red route, at what point would it be a matter for the European Union?

The Commission has set out an extremely ambitious communication, which I am glad that the House is debating. It knows clearly its route of travel and where it wants to end up, which is, ultimately, a single European state. No British Government have ever been in favour of that, yet every British Government since 1972 have ceded more powers to the European Union to create a superstate. It is important to debate the proposal at an early stage of its formation so that the Government can be robust and aware of the problem, and so that they can refuse opt-ins that, step by step, lead to the ever-closer union that has been the EU’s policy since it was founded.