CEPOL Regulation: United Kingdom Opt-in

Lord Judd Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I thank—I am sure not only on my behalf but on behalf of other members of the committee—our chair for having led us through the discussions that produced this report. We have been fortunate in this committee in the calibre of our chairs. When the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, completed his service, there was too big a pair of shoes for anyone to fill. All that I can say is that he can rest assured that the shoes are very fully filled, but of course with a different emphasis. We all appreciate in the committee the extraordinary skills and chairmanship that our present chair exercises. There is a real feeling that we all belong and matter in the committee, and that is something very special.

I start with what the noble Baroness referred to in terms of late information. This is not the first time that this has occurred. We have had reassurances from the Government Front Bench that things would be put right and that in the Home Office this kind of behaviour would stop. There really is no point in having Select Committees unless Governments make it the highest priority to ensure that those Select Committees have all the information that they need to conduct their scrutiny appropriately. It is to make a mockery of the system to have information arriving late or too late to be properly considered. I am very glad that the noble Baroness emphasised this point. It is exasperating.

I belong to those who realise that the first reality of existence is that we live in a totally interdependent world. Very few significant issues that face us and our children can be resolved in the context of national policy alone. This is sometimes brought home more dramatically than at other times. It is true, of course, in strategic and defence terms. We are discovering in the anxiety about Ebola that it is certainly true of health. Here, we are seeing how important it is in the context of Home Office affairs.

The noble Lord, Lord Patten, said that he believed in cross-border co-operation. I am very glad to hear him say that; it is reassuring. As he said himself, it would be mad to take any other position. However, what I ask him to consider is that this cannot be just a matter of the interrelationships of institutions. The police are an institution working with other police forces. Essential to the success of operations of this kind is a culture of, to use the Government’s phrase, “We are all in this together”. We will be as strong only as our weakest link, and we have to think about this together. We must instinctively see the international dimension of what we are involved in and want to be working alongside people whom we increasingly know personally, professionally and the rest. It would be wantonly irresponsible to forgo the chance of strengthening that. The culture of mutual dependency for success is terribly important.

To substantiate that argument, it is interesting to listen to witnesses because, increasingly, those whom we charge with responsibility in this sphere are saying how important these institutions are to them. Certainly, on Europol, the evidence was extraordinary. The professionals to whom we listened were saying, one after the other—perhaps I will not use the colloquial term I was going to use; but perhaps I can say—that we really would have lost our marbles if we had pulled out of Europol because it was so indispensable for the reasons that I have been trying to outline.

We cannot separate this issue from our whole attitude towards the European Union. If we are to succeed in the EU, see the things that we regard as important being strengthened, and change successfully the things that we regard as having been overtaken in time, irrelevant or less significant than they originally were, surely this depends on our being seen to be committed, second to nobody, to the success of the mutual operation. That is how one influences people. If, all the time, one is stamping one’s foot on the margins and saying, “We won’t do this and can’t accept that”, one does not, in the end, have any influence at all.

Noble Lords will know that for most of my life I have been involved in international work. It would be completely to misrepresent what I encounter across not only Europe but the world, but people are beginning to be rather exasperated with Britain. They say, “Do you belong to the world and Europe, or don’t you? If you don’t, well, float off into the Atlantic and do things on your own”. However, how will we look in respect of the security of the British people if we take that sort of course? It matters that we are engaged and using our influence as strongly as possible. As the noble Baroness argued very well, on this issue, if we are going to shape the institution in the way we would like to see it shaped, and the rest, it is terribly important to be in before we have to react and accept what has been negotiated by others. Therefore, the urgency of what we are trying to achieve is tremendously important.

I was rather sad when CEPOL moved from this country because I thought, “This is an example of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face because if it is here in this country, we will, in a host of ways, have maximum influence on how it operates”. We took the course that we took and it went away. Let us not reinforce the mistake we made then. Let us be second to nobody in getting in there early, at a time when we can influence, and demonstrate that we want this thing to be not only effective but effective in the right way.