EU Criminal Policy

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

I beg to move,

That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 14613/11, relating to a Commission Communication, Towards an EU Criminal Policy: Ensuring the effective implementation of EU policies through criminal law; agrees that the primary focus of EU criminal law should be tackling serious crime with a cross-border dimension; and further agrees that the general principles of subsidiarity, proportionality and necessity based on clear evidence must be respected when deciding whether to propose criminal sanctions to ensure the effective enforcement of EU policies.

I am glad of the opportunity to restate that the Government agree with the European Scrutiny Committee that the focus of European Union criminal law should be combating the most serious cross-border crimes. We also agree that in determining whether criminal law is required across the member states, it is critical that the general principles of subsidiarity, proportionality and necessity are respected.

The consequence of the Lisbon treaty coming into effect on 1 December 2009 is that the use of criminal law provisions is likely to increase, as they will be used to support the implementation of European Union policy in areas in which they have not been used before. However, the limits to that are not set in the communication that we are discussing, which is non-binding. Rather, they have a legal basis in the treaty, namely article 83. Paragraph 2 of that article limits the EU’s power, because it sets out that member states cannot be required to criminalise breaches of EU law unless the strict conditions in article 83 are met, and the United Kingdom opt-in will always apply. We have recently seen the first such proposal, on criminal sanctions for insider dealing and market manipulation.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The fact that we now have a specific example of where there can be co-operation means that we can extend it to other areas such as human trafficking. Does the Minister agree that in the case of specific crimes that cross borders and on which there is agreement, such as human trafficking and terrorism, we need to co-operate better with our European partners?

[Mr Blunt]

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, and of course the answer is yes. Our position on human trafficking and child sex crimes has been to have opt-in, so I can confirm his point.

It appears that in anticipation of the developments under the Lisbon treaty that I have described, the European Commission is seeking to develop some principles to be taken into consideration when the criminal law is used. The Government’s position is that we will approach legislative proposals on justice and home affairs on a case-by-case basis, with a view to maximising the country’s security and protecting civil liberties and the integrity of the criminal justice system. There is nothing in the document that we are debating, which is only a communication, that changes or challenges that fundamental position.

As the House may recall, some time before the Commission communication, in 2009, the European Council agreed conclusions on model provisions to guide its criminal law deliberations. The conclusions were adopted to prevent incoherent and inconsistent criminal provisions in EU legislation, and in anticipation of the changes that the Lisbon treaty would bring.

A number of the Council’s conclusions relating to the assessment of need for criminal law are satisfactorily reflected in the Commission’s communication, most notably the principle that the criminal law be used as a last resort. The adoption of legislation in accordance with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality is referenced, as is the need to establish necessity.

There are some things that we welcome in the detail of the communication. For example, it acknowledges the UK’s opt-in rights and clearly states that the diversity of member states’ criminal law must be respected. The use of criminal law only when it is a necessary and proportionate response to combating particular conduct is an approach that we apply in our domestic criminal legislation. We are therefore glad that the Commission’s and the Council’s statements reflect those principles.

However, there are potential concerns. The Government believe that it is essential that the Commission propose only European criminal legislation that is necessary and proportionate. Ineffective implementation of a European Union policy should not, in itself, trigger consideration of the use of criminal law.

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[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash). He and the other members of his Committee are quite right to have brought this matter before the House. Although I start from a different position on the European Union from him, I think it is vital that the House has every opportunity to discuss issues concerning Europe. I commend him on working hard to ensure that on Thursday afternoon there will be a debate before the European Council meets.

I thought that the hon. Gentleman was a little harsh on my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) when he accused him of being complacent. I have known my hon. Friend since he was 11-years-old —we were at school together. There are many ways to describe him, but “complacent” is not one of them. However, if I may digress for just one second, Mr Speaker, I used to try to avoid being in class with him, because our names were adjacent on the register, and when they were read out in quick succession—“Slaughter”, “Vaz”—it was usually my hon. Friend leading the cheers.

Anyway, back to the European Union and away from our school days. I was heartened by what the Minister said about this measure. It is important that we deal with such measures on a case-by-case basis, for the very reasons cited by my hon. Friend. The European arrest warrant, which began as a good idea, is now out of control, with hundreds of requests being made by certain EU countries—I am sure that when he gets to speak, the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) will make reference to that fact. That is something that we need to guard against, so a cautious approach to the extension of criminal policy is extremely important. We have our own criminal law, and that is how it must remain, but we need co-operation with our European partners in a number of areas. I do not accept that the list read out by the hon. Member for Stone is definitive. It is a good list for us to work on in regard to co-operation on those issues with our European partners, although not necessarily in regard to legislation. The Government should bear that in mind when they approach those issues.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

As my right hon. Friend will have heard, there is a difference of view between the Chair of the Justice Committee and the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee on whether this constitutes a degree of legislative creep towards an objective of unifying the legal systems in Europe. If one of them is right, we can be happy that there is no creep, but the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee seems to think there is a degree of legislative creep involved. Which one does my right hon. Friend agree with?

[Keith Vaz]

I agree with both of them, because they were each making different points. We must be fair to the Chair of the Justice Committee, who is also the Chair of the Liaison Committee, because he was disputing a point of debate, not a point of fact, as to whether he had met any chair of a justice committee in any other European country who agreed with the view of the hon. Member for Stone view that one criminal law was being sought for the whole of the European Union. I have attended quite a few meetings in the European Union, and I have certainly never heard anyone say that they wanted one criminal law for the whole EU.

[Mr Cash]

I acknowledge the role of Solomon that the Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee is adopting, but I must point out that I was quoting from the Commission’s own document, which I think makes my case.

[Keith Vaz]

That clarification is helpful, but as the commissioners are not here to defend themselves, I shall try to move the debate on.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned certain crimes that are of course not Euro-crimes: terrorism, trafficking in human beings, illicit drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption and computer crime. They go beyond the borders of the European Union, but it is important that we work with our European partners to try to combat those problems. There are times when we need to act quickly—in relation to the trafficking of human beings, for example. Our last report pointed out that at least 100,000 people were being trafficked around the European Union each year, including 5,000 in the United Kingdom, and that there did not appear to be a common European Union strategy to deal with that. We do not need a new criminal law that covers all the EU countries to deal with it; we need to ensure that our structures—Europol, Interpol and others—are able to service the needs of our criminal law. We should be able to prosecute those involved in human trafficking quite happily, without having regard to what is being said in other countries. Similarly, when Turkey eventually joins the European Union, it will have to deal with the problem of illegal drug trafficking. Almost 80% of the heroin that comes into Europe comes from Afghanistan via Turkey.

We can talk about co-operation, but we need to be very careful when we talk about extending criminal law. Our systems are completely different, and I do not think that anyone in the House would accept a proposition to harmonise our criminal justice systems. We should, however, proceed in the direction of co-operation.

I hope that the Minister will also examine the question of data. People can arrive in this country and undergo checks that do not reveal that they have committed criminal offences elsewhere in the EU. Dealing with that does not require legislation; it requires ministerial co-operation and co-operation between EU countries. So if someone who had committed a criminal offence in Poland, for example, came here and was involved in activities that required that information to be made available, that disclosure should be possible. Equally, that should also apply if someone who had committed an offence here went to another part of the EU.

I welcome the Government’s approach, but I urge the Minister to be cautious, because any extension would cause us great problems. However, it is important to push forward the co-operation that exists at EU level on the entire justice and home affairs agenda.

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[Sir Alan Beith]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman and with the action he has taken on this matter, and I very much welcome the fact that the debate is taking place. It is certainly the view of the Liaison Committee that more attention needs to be given to developing European proposals that will, if we are not careful, only come to the House at too late a stage for us to have any significant influence on them. The work of the European Scrutiny Committee in all that is extremely valuable, but there are limits to what it can do.

In conclusion, let me remind Ministers of two things. First, we want to secure as much help as we can get for Select Committees from the UKRep staff in Brussels, who are extremely good when we go as visiting Committees in giving us advice on what is happening, what is being proposed and which of the Commission’s brainwaves is getting somewhere and which does not look likely to do so.

[Keith Vaz]

I fully support what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. I do not know about his Committee, but we find we are so busy that we simply do not have the time to cover European issues, and we rely heavily on the European Scrutiny Committee to alert us if anything is going wrong. One way in which we could be more involved would be if UKRep was more responsive to our work.

[Sir Alan Beith]

It is not so much about being responsive, because when we have asked representatives for help, they have given it. I am looking for a proactive approach. It would be very helpful if the Foreign Office gave the team in Brussels a clear indication that it would be helpful to alert Select Committees to proposals that looked like gaining traction, and would have important implications for the United Kingdom.

Secondly, of course, it is important that Ministers come to Select Committees before important Council meetings and afterwards, if it is necessary to secure a report back. The House too often finds that a set of complex documents that are extremely difficult to decipher comes before us in the General European Committees at a stage far beyond that at which it would be possible to influence or change it. We have relied unfairly on the members of the European Scrutiny Committee, whose work I again recognise as extremely important, and Select Committees have a job to do that is difficult to incorporate in a crowded work programme, so the more help we can get from Ministers and our officials to alert Select Committees to important issues that are coming up, the more effective we can be.