EU: Eurojust (EUC Report)

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rowlands (Lab)]

My Lords, if only I could improve upon the powerful and compelling case that the noble Baronesses, Lady O’Loan and Lady Corston, and the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, have made on our committee’s report. This time last week, we had a consensus on our report on the EPPO. As I understand it, we have a consensus of a rather different kind tonight: a consensus of two Front Benches opposing our report. I find that all the more puzzling given the events of the past week or two.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said, since we wrote this report, the context has changed. We have seen a very significant and “important”—in inverted commas—rebellion across a number of European Parliaments to the draft proposal on the EPPO. It was our case that if the Government joined in the debate and discussion on Eurojust, they would find enough allies to change and alter that report effectively. Surely the evidence of the past week or two has been that there are such allies and that if one engaged in an active and proactive way on this measure, one would find enough allies to change or transform the report itself. Our case has been strengthened by the events of the past week or two, and therefore I am puzzled if both Front Benches for some reason oppose the conclusions of our report.

We all accept the value of Eurojust. The Government accept the value of Eurojust. They want to opt back in to Eurojust under the opt-in proposals. We all support that opt-in to the system. I certainly share the Government’s concerns about the existing draft proposal. Almost all those concerns are about the interrelationship between it and the proposed draft for the EPPO. If those fall—if, in fact, the Commission is going to have to withdraw or revise its proposal—surely there will be a consequential fallout in the draft Eurojust proposal. Will the Minister bring us up to date on what has happened since last Monday, when there were enough reasoned opinions across Europe to mean that the Commission will have to review it? What has the Commission intimated? It has suggested that it is going to do so, and it accepts and understands the voices of concern. If it does that, does it not also have to review and almost withdraw this proposal because they are totally interlinked? A portion of the Eurojust draft is related to the proposed public prosecutor’s office. Will the Minister tell us whether, if the Commission has to review the EPPO, it will also probably have to undertake some kind of review of this draft?

In this case, we have a compelling case for joining in the negotiation because we now have a good clear view that we could affect those negotiations in a very positive way. As other members of the committee have said, one of the things that swung me in favour of our report—and I was sceptical at the beginning because I understood and appreciated the Government’s concerns—was that we could influence this because we sensed there would be a lot of other supporters. The other reason why I supported it was that I looked down the road and thought that a bizarre situation could happen in which the Government opt in to the existing measure and then find that this measure has been revised and it belongs to an existing measure which down the road may well be of a different kind, and they have opted out of that. I think that would cause a very puzzling and bizarre situation in the relationship between the United Kingdom and the Eurojust system.

There is one thing on which we surely have consensus: we are in favour of Eurojust and we are in favour of the United Kingdom’s participation in it. Therefore, I beg the Minister to tell us what has happened since last Monday and whether the impact of what happened in the past week or two means that the Government should rethink their position on this issue and should at least keep an open mind on the question of opting in, negotiating and influencing what I think is a very important organisation.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)]

My Lords, the matter before the House concerns only Eurojust, but it is clear that Eurojust and the EPPO have a very close nexus one to another. There are two ways of looking at that nexus: one is positive and the other is negative. It seems to me that the Government, and the Opposition for that matter—one is in the luxurious position on the Cross Benches of being able to say, “A mild plague on both your houses”—are approaching the matter from an utterly negative point of view. The Government have asked the question: is Eurojust in any way tainted by association with the EPPO? They answered yes; ergo, it must be rejected.

I argue that there is a forceful and utterly convincing case to the contrary. I am proud to say that I, too, am a member of Sub-Committee E. We have heard a great deal of evidence over the months with regard to European fraud. The official figure for fraud was €440 million or something of that nature. I do not think that anybody applied their minds to it properly, as the evidence was very different, appearing to range somewhere between €3 billion and €5 billion, possibly even in excess of that latter figure. Nobody was charged with overarching responsibility. That is where the case for the EPPO comes in. There is a saying in Welsh: “Everybody’s concern is nobody’s responsibility”. That is the situation here. Unless there is a body that is charged with the particular commission of looking at European fraud in a serious way, as has never happened before, I think that the whole system will be jeopardised to its very roots.

If one accepts that there should be an EPPO—and the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, has pointed out that the objections are sere thin, casuistic and have no merit whatever—it seems to be the case that the Eurojust situation very much fits into that picture. It seems to me that the whole situation is tainted by the prejudices that have become so prevalent in the last few months in relation to Third Pillar matters. We have heard abundant evidence to show that it does not matter a row of beans what we do about 90 to 95 of those 130 measures, as most of them have virtually no effect upon our situation. One or two are of peripheral significance. Yet somehow or other the Government have managed to taint the whole situation by pretending that this is a massive battle for British sovereignty. In doing so, they are jeopardising something like 30 to 35 matters that are of crucial significance in so many different fields, and doing so cynically in order to pretend that we are somehow winning a great victory in relation to the 95 matters that never mattered at all.

I therefore very respectfully ask the Minister, whom I believe to be one of the most reasonable Ministers in government, to consider yet again whether he may be wrong in this particular matter.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps it is appropriate that someone who was not a member of this sub-committee should say a word or two about this issue. I come to this against the background of having been chairman of Sub-Committee E more than a decade ago, when Eurojust was just appearing on the horizon.

It is fair to say that initially there was a certain amount of suspicion as to whether it would be right for the United Kingdom to have any part to play at all, for reasons that are easy to understand: we have our own system for the administration of justice, our own prosecutors and prosecution system, which is so very different from that in the countries on the continent. However, I have kept an eye on this from a distance, and everything that has happened since then has supported the points that have just been made: Eurojust is beneficial and indeed essential to the battle against cross-border crime that we all must face up to. The only way to deal effectively with cross-border crime is cross-border co-ordination. The report says that pan-European co-ordination is required. Indeed, it is global co-ordination that is required.

From my position, based in Scotland, I would attach considerable importance to the evidence that was given by the Lord Advocate. I know that the Lord Advocate and his team have been closely involved in matters that lie at the heart of the Eurojust project. I will not mention names, but various issues have arisen where they have been hands-on in dealing with cross-border matters and the co-operation that is available through Eurojust has been absolutely crucial to the way in which they have been able to carry out their work. I do not think that anyone in the justice system in this country would have any doubt that Eurojust is beneficial and something that we should continue to support and be part of.