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

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Friday 11th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, for his introduction to this report. It is a comprehensive report, even though it is a year old. The introduction of his speech today was particularly appropriate, putting the details in the report into the wider context of the terrors and horrors that we are seeing in eastern Europe as we speak.

This area of concern was not necessarily one which received the most headlines when the Brexit deal was being negotiated and agreed, but as we have heard today, it is crucial, and stark warnings were given at the time about the challenges that it would create. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, described the TCA as a damage limitation exercise, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said that it was not as bad as it might have been.

Although this report and its subjects can appear to be quite technical, they are vital for front-line policing and for keeping people safe. Neil Basu, while head of counterterrorism policing, warned that none of the replacements for lost EU tools was as good as the security protocols that we had in place. I was struck by the quote in paragraph 65, from Assistant Chief Constable Ayling, who describes the arrangement for Interpol access to replace SIS II as one that

“falls a long way short of the benefits provided by SIS II. However, it is sufficient, in that it enables us to discharge our responsibilities effectively, and it delivers a mechanism whereby we can cooperate.”

It is a difficult reality if we have to accept what is sufficient rather than what is optimal.

I welcome the deal that was reached. The report outlines some of the strengths of the co-operations that it is has allowed us to replicate, in areas such as passenger name records data and criminal records data. The report was published this time last year, so this is an opportunity for the Minister to update the House on how the negotiations have proceeded since then. The simple headline concern is that the tools we have lost access to—namely, SIS II—have left law enforcement trying to work with slower, more cumbersome systems.

On Interpol, can the Minister give an update on the Government’s success in persuading European partners to double-key information, which means duplicating work, as the noble Lords, Lord Ricketts, Lord Paddick and Lord Davies of Gower? The Committee said:

“We did not receive any clear evidence from the Government on how it planned to secure such commitments from EU member states to do so.”


Also on Interpol, can the Minister give an update on the technical improvements which are under way to reduce the time of uploading Interpol notices on to the police national computer?

Last month, an update on the I-LEAP programme was published by the accounting officer for the Home Office. The update says that:

“The I-LEAP programme will provide new alerting digital platform capabilities to police and border officers in the UK, and to their equivalents in partner countries, enabling increased opportunities at the national border or within country to identify persons and objects of interest to law enforcement agencies … In the longer-term I-LEAP will also enable real-time bilateral alert exchange with key international partners who share the UK’s interest in further strengthening alert-sharing capabilities.”


The question for the Minister is: how long is “in the longer-term” in this context?

On feasibility, the I-LEAP update states that the Government’s proposal is

“to conclude one bilateral agreement with another State every year from 2023 at the earliest”.

It goes on to say that the

“I-LEAP programme is heavily dependent upon the UK securing bilateral agreements with other countries and that this may impact the realisation of the programme’s benefits.”

Does the Minister believe that the Government will reach that target? How is preparation going and have bilateral talks started yet?

Moving on to civil and family questions, I thank my noble friend Lady Goudie and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for setting them out in more detail than I can do now. Basically it is about the application to the Lugano Convention. I understand that we are remaining a member of the Hague convention. What is the position now? My noble friend Lady Goudie and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked about Denmark and the EU with regard to their reaction to our application. I shall just mention that, as I have said in other contexts, I sit as a family magistrate and one of the things I do is reciprocal enforcement of maintenance orders. This is specifically when we are trying to enforce maintenance orders within the EU and outside it. That work is continuing, but it is a bureaucratic process, and I look forward to the Minister’s reassurance. It certainly should not get any more complicated because it is very complicated at the moment to do procedural enforcement. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, for his report.