European Investigation Order

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I must tell my hon. Friend that decisions on when the ESC meets are rather more a matter for him—as I understand it, he is the Chair of that Committee—than for me. However, I share some of his concern. As he and other Members of the House will know, I have written a pamphlet and proposed a 10-point plan on how Parliament can have more of an opportunity to have a say on, and to debate, decisions on European matters.

The instrument came before the Government on 29 April with a three-month deadline for decision. Of course, that period was partly taken up by the election, and the ESC was formed only last night, as my hon. Friend said. In the normal course of events in Parliament, the ESC could suggest the matter for debate. On that point, it is certainly my hope that when the Government propose to opt in on a major JHA issue, Parliament can consider it. However, I hesitate to give more of a guarantee than that, because what happens in Parliament is a matter for the business managers rather than for me. On the powers that my hon. Friend claims the EIO gives to foreign police forces and others, I must tell him that I think he is wrong.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I welcome the new-found affection between the Front Benchers, and take that one stage further by agreeing with the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) for the first time on a European issue? It is really important for Parliament to have the opportunity to scrutinise this decision. We have just had a meeting of the Home Affairs Committee. The Police Minister gave evidence about police resources, but we could not question him on the EIO, because the Home Secretary was due to make this statement. This is a serious matter that requires scrutiny by the ESC or the Home Affairs Committee.

The Home Secretary made a statement to the House that the EIO will not have an effect on police resources, and the Police Minister, in his excellent evidence to the Committee, talked about the need to preserve police resources, but a request from one of our European partners will result in more police time being spent. That must be the case, because they would not make such a request otherwise.

[Mrs May]

I agree that it would be of benefit for Parliament to scrutinise and debate many such European matters more than has happened in the past. However, given that we are up against a deadline and going into recess, it would have been very easy for me simply to have made a written ministerial statement. Instead, I chose to come to make an oral statement so that I could answer questions on the EIO.

On police resources, I remind the right hon. Gentleman that we intend and hope to introduce a proportionality test in the negotiations, which is important. However, the EIO is not some new arrangement that will suddenly require extra police resources. Rather, it codifies and simplifies processes that already exist. To the extent that it reduces bureaucracy and simplifies those processes, I hope that it will be of extra benefit to our police.