Lord Harris of Haringey
Main Page: Lord Harris of Haringey (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Harris of Haringey's debates with the Home Office
(10 years ago)
Lords Chamber
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the United Kingdom is able to opt back into the European Arrest Warrant.
My Lords, the Government are close to agreeing a package of 35 measures with the European Commission and other member states that the UK will seek to join in the national interest. That package includes the reformed arrest warrant, with increased domestic powers to block arrest warrants where the offence is disproportionately minor or where the relevant conduct that occurred in the UK is not a crime. The discussions continue in Brussels.
Given that nearly 100 foreign criminals are removed from this country under the European arrest warrant every month, can the Minister give us a guarantee that we will have opted back in by 1 December? When will this be put to the House of Commons? When it is, because of the level of opposition to the European arrest warrant by the Taliban majority of the Eurosceptics in the Conservative Party, will the Government be relying on Labour votes for us to opt in, in the national interest?
My Lords, the noble Lord is right to point to the importance of this; 5,000 foreign criminals have been deported since it came into effect in 2009. Of course the desire is to opt back in by 1 December, but this needs to be negotiated and there need to be agreements. Those negotiations are continuing. Her Majesty’s Government’s position is that we want to be there by 1 December. In terms of when the House will have the opportunity to discuss this, discussions are ongoing between the business managers to make time for that to happen before 20 November.