Beyond Brexit: Policing, Law Enforcement and Security (EUC Report)

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Friday 11th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by congratulating the committee on producing such a detailed and operationally relevant report that highlights the essential areas of operational policing, particularly where this concerns international cross-border working. I realise that we have moved on, but I make no apology for returning to the issue of the Schengen Information System, which concerned me greatly during the months leading up to the trade and co-operation agreement in December 2020.

There can be no doubt that, in adopting the Interpol database in lieu, the UK reduced itself to accepting a far less efficient and effective real-time system. As the report points out, the effectiveness of the Interpol system relies heavily on the willingness of EU states to additionally upload the same information on to it that they circulate on the SIS. Indeed, one senior police officer remarked to the committee that this was a significant loss of capability in terms of access to data.

It was also interesting to note the need to make technical improvements to the UK system so that the Interpol system is available to front-line law enforcement in minutes, as opposed to hours. I am therefore very keen to hear from the Minister what action has been taken to improve those technical issues and what information, if any, is available to identify any loss of effectiveness which may have been encountered by the surrendering of the SIS.

It was encouraging to note the warm remarks from law enforcement on the agreement on Prüm, allowing the exchange of information in relation to DNA, fingerprints and other essential data. However, future alignment in relation to Prüm is less clear.

As someone who worked in organised policing for many years in eastern Europe, I was saddened to note the remarks on the UK’s future role in Europol. Professor Mitsilegas remarked that he did

“not think it will be the same, which it is a great shame, because Europol is a great example of the UK’s influence in justice and home affairs”,

a

“model of intelligence-led policing that has largely been exported from the UK to the EU, and now, sadly, you are a third country.”

Another witness also

“regretted the diminished influence the UK would have as a third country in Europol”,

saying:

“This is a clear demonstration of that operational downgrade, and it is particularly unfortunate in the context of Europol, because the UK has played such a significant role in the future direction and intelligence-led policing focus of Europol.”


Mr Rodhouse of the NCA highlighted in particular that the UK would not

“be part of the Europol management board in the future”—

something that I bitterly regret, and I support all those comments.

Can the Minister give me and, indeed, the House an assurance that while we still have the UK Liaison Bureau, our relationship with Europol will be even further improved as we head into uncharted territory with issues on our borders with organised criminality as a result of the implications of the war in Europe and refugees fleeing hostilities?

This is an excellent report and gets to the nub of the matter in relation to problems raised as a result of our exiting the European Union. I am pleased to have been able to highlight just a couple of them and look forward to what the Minister has to say in reply.