Leaving the EU: Security, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice

Kelly Tolhurst Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies]

My hon. Friend makes an important point.

I have listened with great interest to what has been said in this debate. I was of course a supporter of Brexit, but that in no way means I oppose the EAW or the principles behind it.

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the EAW has benefited some of our constituents? Four days before Christmas a father in my constituency was reunited with his son who had been abducted and taken to Poland. He was recovered on the issuing of an EAW.

[David T. C. Davies]

I do not deny that for one moment; the EAW has led to some very important results for us, where we have had terrorists and other serious criminals either extradited out of or back to the UK. As my hon. Friend knows, I served as a special constable for eight or nine years, so there is no question but that I will always support any Government in wanting to bring about stricter measures against criminality. But the issue here is that there is a price to be paid, and we pay it in the human rights of citizens in our own country. If we are prepared to allow countries which apply a lower standard of justice, of fairness in court, or of access to bail to extradite our citizens or residents of this country in order to keep the bureaucracy running smoothly, everyone who is living in this country is paying a price in terms of their human rights in order to reduce bureaucracy and improve an extradition procedure. We need to think very carefully about that price.

Brexit offers us an opportunity. I have no problem with the countries my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst mentioned—Germany or France—or indeed many other European countries, but if it becomes the case that some countries are not giving people bail, are holding them in pre-trial detention for an unacceptable length of time, or are using the EAW as a means to silence criticism of them through the press, it is absolutely right that we use Brexit as an opportunity to renegotiate the whole system, and to work with countries that apply our systems of justice but to state with the utmost respect that we are unwilling to sacrifice the human rights of people such as Alexander Adamescu in order to maintain membership of the EAW. I hope that a Justice Minister will meet me to discuss this case on a subsequent occasion.