Mark Reckless
Main Page: Mark Reckless (UK Independence Party - Rochester and Strood)Department Debates - View all Mark Reckless's debates with the Home Office
(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Mrs May
The point is that this is a two-stage process. It has been made clear to us by the European Commission that it will not start the discussions about certain aspects of our proposals—for example, looking at transitional arrangements—until it is clear that the UK intends to opt out. That is why it is necessary for the Government to exercise the opt-out. In a little while, I will explain the commitments that were made to Parliament, which we are indeed abiding by today, but there will be a second opportunity for Parliament to vote on the number and content of any measures that we seek to opt into. The Government have given their current indication of what we think those measures should be. As our motion says, we look forward to the scrutiny by the European Scrutiny Committee and the two other Select Committees, which will inform our judgment before we enter formal negotiations.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
Will the Home Secretary confirm that if the House votes tonight for her motion she will immediately notify the European Commission that this country has decided to use the block opt-out?
Mrs May
The right hon. Gentleman has put the point very well, and I am sure the whole House has listened to the example he provided. It is exactly such examples that make me think it right for us to ensure that we have a system that is better to operate. As he says, this is not only about relationships between Governments, but about the course of justice. That is why we want to ensure the more suitable, proper and swifter extradition arrangements that the EAW provides.
I said that our proposed list of measures for opting in was chosen because the measures would improve the practical fight against crime and the co-operation to achieve it. We of course await the views of the Scrutiny Committee and the Select Committees, but, for example, we want our law enforcement agencies to be able to establish joint investigation teams with colleagues in other European countries; we plan to rejoin the European supervision order, which allows British subjects to be bailed back to the UK rather than spend months and months abroad awaiting trial; and the second-generation Schengen information system—a new way of sharing law enforcement alerts throughout Europe—has the capacity to bring significant savings to our criminal justice system, as well as make it easier to identify foreign criminals. Again, this is just a question of practical co-operation, so the Government plan to join the database. I hope the House will see from the list of measures that the vast majority of what the Government propose to opt back into is uncontroversial, and based on the very sensible principle of “co-operation not control”.
I want to reiterate the Government’s position on Europol. As I mentioned earlier, the House will debate its future later tonight. The Government believe that Europol does excellent work under its British director, Rob Wainwright, which is why we propose to rejoin Europol in its existing form as part of the 2014 decision. There is a separate decision to be taken about Europol, and tonight’s debate will not be about the organisation in its current form but in its proposed future form. As things stand, the Commission proposes to change Europol’s governance and powers, potentially allowing it to direct national police forces and requiring us to share sensitive intelligence crucial to our national security. I believe that would be entirely unacceptable. These powers are unnecessary and would undermine our way of policing—and Europol has not even asked for them. The motive of the Commission appears to be nothing more than state-building. That is why we will not opt into the new Europol regulation and will never do so until those concerns have been put beyond doubt.
Some of my hon. Friends have been keen for me to address the question of the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. I have mentioned it already, but let me look at the issue once again. Between 1995 and the end of November 2009, 136 measures in the field of police and criminal justice were adopted in Brussels under the so-called third pillar. This meant that they were not the usual EU Acts and were not subject to either Commission enforcement powers or the full jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. As a result, we could not be told by others that we had not implemented things properly and we could not be fined millions of pounds as a result. There were no European Court rulings that bound us, and we had a veto in negotiations.
When the last Government signed the Lisbon treaty, they changed the constitutional basis of the European Union, giving more powers over police and criminal justice matters to European institutions, and removing our veto in police and criminal justice. Now, at the end of a five-year transitional period on 1 December 2014, these pre-Lisbon measures become subject to Commission enforcement powers and the full jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
In fact, the whole justice and home affairs structure since Lisbon takes too much control away from elected national Governments. The Commission or the Council propose a measure, and the UK has the right to decide not to opt in, but if we decide that the measure is in the national interest and we do opt in, we are subject not only to qualified majority voting in the Council but to co-legislation rules in which the European Parliament is considered to be an equal to the Council of Ministers. Elected national Governments are sidelined—and that is before we even consider the role of the European Court of Justice in interpreting the measure once it becomes binding.
Mark Reckless
Is the Home Secretary aware of the European Union Act 2011 in the context of what is required for a referendum? Section 4(1)(i) refers to
“the conferring on an EU institution or body of power to impose a requirement or obligation on the United Kingdom”;
while (j) refers to
“the conferring on an EU institution or body of new or extended power to impose sanctions on the United Kingdom”.
Surely an opt-in to the various 35 measures will do that and should trigger a referendum.
Mrs May
Let me give my hon. Friend the answer that I gave when the matter was last raised with me. I do not believe that opting back into these measures would trigger a referendum under the powers that the Government have. However, I think Members should welcome the Government’s statement that no future United Kingdom Government will sign a treaty unless a suitable vote is held among the British people.
The issues involving justice and home affairs to which I referred earlier are being considered in the Government’s “balance of competences” review. Undoubtedly the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice will need to be considered when, after the election, a future Conservative Government renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the European Union; but the choice that is before us now is binary. We are a coalition Government with no mandate to seek a renegotiation of our relationship with Europe. We must make a choice about whether, having exercised our right to opt out of these measures, we should seek to opt back into any of them—knowing that we would be subject to the junction of the European Court of Justice—if we think that they are in the national interest.
I acknowledge the risks involved in being subject to the European Court, but when it comes to the arrest warrant, I am also aware of the very significant risks of having no framework within which we can extradite criminals to and from Britain. Let me repeat that anyone who says that ECJ jurisdiction is too high a price must say how they would cope without that extradition framework.
It would be remiss of me to participate in the debate without highlighting the absurdity of the position of Labour Members. They have attacked our decision to exercise the opt-out, but it was the last Government who negotiated the opt-out in the first place. Their amendment demands that we opt into various specific measures, but the former Home Secretary the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) admits that the reason for our having to opt out of all these measures en masse is the failure of Labour’s negotiating strategy.
Labour Members now admit that the arrest warrant is in need of reform, but they did not do a thing to change its operation when they were in office. They question our negotiating strategy, but it was they who did not just sign us up to the Lisbon treaty but wanted to sign the constitutional treaty that went before it. They imply that somehow the Government are not tough on crime, but our police reforms are working, and crime is falling. They have no policies, no ideas, and nothing to say. They are completely and utterly irrelevant.
Let me end as I began, by reminding the House what this debate is about. It is about the fact that, for the first time in 40 years, a British Government are bringing powers back from Brussels. Of course we should not stop there, and, like many members of my party, I am impatient for more. That is one reason why it is so important for us to have a Conservative majority Government at the next election. Even as a coalition, however, this Government have delivered the first ever cut in a European budget, have vetoed a European treaty, and have put into law a clear guarantee that no more powers will pass to Europe without a referendum of the British people; and now we are bringing powers back home.
A vote in favour of the Government’s motion will send a clear signal to the Commission and the other member states that Britain is serious about bringing powers back home, and it will strengthen our negotiating position in Brussels. The House will have an opportunity in future to vote on the final list of measures that we will seek to rejoin, but a vote in favour of the motion today is a vote in favour of exercising the opt-out. I therefore call on Members on both sides of the House to support the motion, and to vote with the Government.
Yvette Cooper
I am going to come on to the substance because our view is that we should not be opting out without proper guarantees and assurances in place about the key measures we think it is vital to be opted into.
Let me turn to the substance of the plan. Clearly, without time for scrutiny it is hard for the House to take a view on the mix of measures and the overall plan. I welcome the Home Secretary’s proposal to opt back into some of the measures, and I am glad she has ignored the Eurosceptic voices and has chosen to support the European arrest warrant. She is right about the seriousness of the cases in which it has been applied, and to support the arrest of Arunas Cervinskas, returned from Britain to Ireland after his attempted rape and serious assault of an 18-year-old girl, and the arrest only a few days ago of Mark Lilley, who was found hidden in a luxury Spanish villa after 13 years on the run for drug smuggling and dealing. He will soon be back in the UK to face his long prison sentence. Then there is the example that the Home Secretary used last week and again today of Hussain Osman, who was extradited back to the UK, after attempting to blow up a tube train, in less than two months. She is right to say that we cannot go back to the days when it took 10 years to extradite a terror suspect to France or when it took 11 years to get Ronnie Knight back from the costa del crime.
I am glad, too, that the Home Secretary has ignored the Eurosceptic voices and decided to support joint investigation teams; she has decided to support Operation Golf, in which 126 suspects from a Romanian crime gang were arrested for benefit fraud, money laundering and child neglect, and more than 270 trafficking victims were saved. We cannot go back to the days when foreign crime gangs were untouchable, allowed to damage our society or cause serious harm to victims. So I am glad that she has decided to ignore the Eurosceptic Back Benchers—to ignore the Fresh Start group—and instead to agree with the arguments made by Labour Members, by the police and by the Liberal Democrats.
I am glad, too, that the Home Secretary has accepted the exchange of criminal records, Eurojust, the co-operation to protect personal data, the co-operation to combat child pornography and measures on football hooliganism. She has come a long way since the Prime Minister described the European arrest warrant as “highly objectionable”. I am very pleased that the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister have done a U-turn on this; it is a shame that it has taken them so long.
Let me turn to some of the measures that the Home Secretary wants to opt out of—again, it is very hard to take a view without full scrutiny of the measures that the Government have set out.
Mark Reckless
Before the right hon. Lady goes through her list, will she give us some understanding of why the Labour Government left us with this block opt-out, binary choice rather than allowing us to pursue the measures on an intergovernmental basis, without the oversight of the European Court of Justice, in the way successfully negotiated by Denmark?
Yvette Cooper
I am not sure that Denmark and the opt-out negotiations is the best possible example to refer to, because Denmark’s experience of going through its opt-out and opt-in process was that it was turned down by the Commission on some of the measures it wanted to opt back into. I want to come on to deal with that point shortly.
We have said before that it is right to look at the proposals in the opt-out and we have no objection to the principle of opt-outs. Indeed, the Labour party negotiated the opt-out in the first place. However, it is also right to make sure that proper assurances and guarantees are in place for the key measures that we believe—and we now understand the Home Secretary believes—we should stay part of.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) on a subject about which he knows so much and speaks with such passion.
My primary interest in contributing to this debate is to talk about the process that has been adopted and speak in support of the amendment tabled in the name of the Chairs of the Liaison Committee, the European Scrutiny Committee, the Backbench Business Committee, myself and others. However, I should also say that it is pretty rare—I am trying to think of a single other such occasion—for many of the Chairs of the Select Committees to come together in this way to amend a Government motion.
Our amendment has had to change over the past 48 hours or so because the Government’s motion changed. I should thank the Home Secretary for engaging with the Select Committee Chairs following her statement to the House on Tuesday. The Government’s original motion did not allow for any scrutiny by Select Committees before a vote of the House. The new motion, which the right hon. Lady tabled on Friday, allows for scrutiny and permits the Select Committees to scrutinise the Government’s proposals so that the House can vote on the matter at the end of October.
I say “permits the Select Committees”, but throughout the process the Government have always said that scrutiny by the Select Committees was of paramount importance in dealing with this issue. In fact, in a letter to the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee on 15 October 2012, Lord Boswell said:
“This Government has done its utmost to ensure that Parliament has the time properly to scrutinise our decisions relating to the European Union and that its views are taken into account.”
On 20 January last year, the Minister for Europe said this in a written statement: “I hope that today I have conveyed to the House not only the Government’s full commitment to holding a vote on the 2014 decision in this House and the other place, but the importance that we will accord to Parliament in the process leading up to that vote.” I was therefore very surprised, when I heard the Home Secretary’s statement on Tuesday, to find that the Select Committees had, in a sense, been shunted to one side and not been given the opportunity to scrutinise the Government’s decision.
I accept that this is a long and difficult process. Anyone who has served as Minister for Europe—I see quite a few former Ministers for Europe dotted around the Chamber—will know that dealing with the European Union is not a piece of cake. It takes a huge amount of time and effort to get one’s negotiating stance together, especially when one is putting forward a view that will not be accepted by our European colleagues. However, if the Government have had a long discussion about these matters, the Home Secretary can expect the Select Committees to want to scrutinise them. The Justice, Home Affairs and European Scrutiny Committees all have right hon. and hon. Members—I see here the hon. Members for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) and for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe)—who are seeking to ensure that their views are put forward.
As a result of the Government’s decision last Tuesday, of which we had absolutely no notice, we have had to change the business that the Committee had agreed in order to pursue this when we come back in September. There will be only two sitting weeks in September to scrutinise every one of these proposals. Then there is the natural break for the party conferences, and the House will also come back for two weeks in October. By and large, Select Committees, sit once a week. Their members are very reluctant to sit more than once a week because they are all assiduous Members of this House who have other things to do, usually serving on other Committees. That means that if we devote all our time to this cause, we will have just four sittings in which we can scrutinise the proposals.
As the Home Secretary knows, a lot of business is going on in the Home Office. I do not have to tell her that, because she is one of the most active Home Secretaries making structural changes to how policing, immigration and counter-terrorism are dealt with. She has set the Select Committee on Home Affairs a huge amount of work over the past three years. We will have to put that to one side in order to spend our time scrutinising these proposals. I am sure that that will also apply to members of the other Committees.
Today’s motion still does not give us enough time. There is not enough time before 31 October to be able to do justice to the kinds of things that the right hon. Member for Wokingham talked about—not just individual matters but fundamental issues of principle. However, we will do our best. As I promised the Home Secretary last week when I met her, the Home Affairs Committee, subject of course to the views of its members, will have a report for her by the end of October, but to do so by then will be extremely tough.
My question to the Home Secretary is this: why should we have a vote tonight, given that we got these proposals only on Tuesday last week? What is the point of asking the House to deliberate on these matters before the Committees have had the opportunity to discuss and to scrutinise them? She says that she needs a mandate in order to be able to show the Commission that the House is prepared to opt out.
Mark Reckless
Is not the motion somewhat confused between two distinct issues: first, whether we should exercise the block opt-out; and secondly, what we may or may not then want to opt back into? Would not the right thing to do tonight be just to vote on the block opt-out, as per the amendment that I believe the right hon. Gentleman has tabled with the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith)?
Keith Vaz
The best course of action would have been to take note of what the Government have done without making a decision as that would have given the whole House an opportunity to come to a view that these matters need to be scrutinised.
Of course, we need to opt out of some of the measures, for the reasons given by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), the shadow Home Secretary my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and others. Some of the measures are obsolete and, to be frank, I did not know that until I heard about it today. I have not had the chance to look through the measures and I am not sure that every other Member has, either.
I would have preferred a take-note motion and not a Division over something that I think the House as a whole supports: the need for us to look again at European legislation and to decide very carefully whether or not we want to opt into some of the measures again. The Home Secretary has missed that opportunity so, sadly, we will divide, which I think will send mixed messages to the European Union about what this House really intends.
I have a point of substance about the European arrest warrant. I have heard what my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary has said, but I am concerned about the way in which the warrant operates. I am particularly concerned about those cases mentioned by right hon. and hon. Members that highlight the disproportionate way in which other countries deal with it compared with what we do. We have more surrenders than arrests and it is better for our European partners than it is for us, according to Home Office statistics.
I accept all the cases that have been mentioned by my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary and the Home Secretary; I think the Front Benchers agree on them. On the very serious cases, we need co-operation with our European partners. It would not be practicable to negotiate with each one.
The problem, however, rests with the judiciary in some of these countries, including Poland. So many of the cases in this country relate to Poland and are very minor. I read of someone who had the European arrest warrant issued against him because he had stolen a wheelbarrow. Another person who gave false information when obtaining a loan of only £200 from a Polish bank has also been subject to the European arrest warrant. Our courts are being clogged up because of judicial decisions. I had hoped that our Committee could have gone to Poland to meet its chief justice to try to understand exactly why this is happening, but we will not have the time to do that now, because this House goes into recess in four days’ time and we will not be back until September.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
This has been a classic example of scrutiny going wrong, not from the point of view of the European Scrutiny Committee, the Home Affairs Committee or the Justice Committee, but from the point of view of the way in which the Government have handled it. We have been through these matters over the past week, and they are being given a great deal of consideration. I am glad to say that we have had the opportunity to meet the Home Secretary, as the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) described. She has listened, and made changes to the original motion, which would have severely prejudiced the scrutiny by this House that takes place in line with the principles that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) set out. Those principles are fundamental to the running of our affairs in this House that relate to the European Union. There was a danger that the scrutiny process set up under the requirements of our Standing Orders was going to be completely bypassed, but the Home Secretary has listened and we have made some progress.
There is another amendment, to which the right hon. Member for Leicester East referred, and I urge the Government to accept it. If they do not do so, I strongly urge Members on both sides of the House to vote for it. It would be unfortunate if the Government were obdurate and said that they were not prepared to accept it, in opposition to the views not only of three Select Committee Chairmen but of many others who form part of the Liaison Committee, who I have reason to believe would want to support the amendment.
The Government’s motion states that they would
“seek to rejoin measures where it is in the national interest to do so”.
As it happens, at this juncture nobody is in a position to form a judgment about what is or is not in the national interest because the scrutiny process has not taken place. If we are to have a scrutiny process that means anything, combining the three views of the respective Select Committees, it is simply not possible or practical for a decision to be taken until those matters have been properly considered.
Mark Reckless
I am not sure whether my hon. Friend has noticed some consternation among Liberal Democrat Members who think it is always and everywhere in the national interest to opt into anything that the European Union is doing.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate, and to congratulate the Home Secretary. I welcomed the announcement that she made last Tuesday, which has given us a chance to work out how to get the details right. I see today as the first step in that process, to be followed by scrutiny by the Select Committees. I look forward particularly to working with the Home Affairs Committee. I think that it will be possible for us to be both pragmatic and well-informed, and to get everything done in time.
Although, as I have said, I supported the Home Secretary’s statement, I did not observe complete support from her own side, although I am pleased to say that a few Members have supported her very sensible position.
Mark Reckless
There may have been less than full support for the statement from Conservative Members because, at the time, we thought that we were dealing with a Command Paper and a decision to opt back into the European arrest warrant. Now that we have heard from the Secretary of State for Justice that that is no longer the case, many of us are rather happier.
Dr Huppert
I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman is happy, although on occasion he may not be entirely accurate.
We have discussed a number of measures that the Liberal Democrats, for example, would not opt into, and I shall say more about some of them later. However, I still believe that the European arrest warrant is absolutely right, and I was pleased to hear the Home Secretary extol its virtues. I hope that she will continue to do so, and that the Select Committee will continue to support a reformed arrest warrant.
What we just heard from the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), and what we heard earlier from the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) and the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), illustrated the tendency of some Members to do exactly what we were urged not to do by the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David): the tendency to be so obsessed with Europe that crime, justice and all the other issues that we ought to care about—and about which our constituents actually care—fall by the wayside.
Dr Huppert
I agree that the European arrest warrant needs to be reformed. I have said so in many debates in this place. When I was on the Joint Committee on Human Rights, we produced a list of some of the reforms there should be. The European arrest warrant should be fixed and reformed. That is a different question, however, from the one about whether we should exercise this opt-out and go through the complex, tortuous process of opting back in again. I would prefer not to do that. I would prefer to stay as we are. I do not see any measure that actively causes us harm which we plan to get out of, but I accept that that decision has been taken, that the Home Secretary and the Conservatives are keen to exercise that opt-out, and that many of the things we will end up leaving are not very significant measures. I completely accept that and am committed to making sure that we keep the ones that are most essential for the continued protection of British citizens. That is my focus.
Mark Reckless
What about the provision on the exchange of DNA? This country has a vast database, relative to the rather limited ones in most EU countries. Is that not one issue, at least, where the hon. Gentleman’s commitment to civil liberties outshines his Europhilia?
Dr Huppert
That is indeed an issue I have more concern about. As I have said to the hon. Gentleman twice now, I do not think we should do everything that Europe wants; one example is on the rather ridiculous idea about olive oil not being able to be stored properly. That was a quickly shot down, silly story; it was certainly nothing that any of us would want to see. I hope that he will share some Europhilia with us at some point in future debates. I am pleased that this Government are reducing the amount of DNA that is kept—we had a hard fight on that.
I am pleased that in the set of things published in that Command Paper, which I hope will be the basis of the set—I would perhaps like to see even more in it—are the key measures that Liberal Democrats negotiated. In a previous Opposition day debate on this, I set out some red lines that I would want to see. I am pleased that every one of them has been met by these new approaches and that the preliminary decision includes all the list of the key EU crime-fighting measures recommended to us by the Association of Chief Police Officers. Before the hon. Gentleman rises, may I say that he knows we share a belief that ACPO, as a private limited company, is not the arbiter of what should and should not be done? We will debate that later, but it is useful to hear expert advice from the police, in whatever form they happen to put it.
We have seen many cases showing how important the European arrest warrant is. Mark Lilley, one of Britain’s most wanted men, was captured on 8 July at his villa in Spain, and he is the 51st fugitive to have been arrested of the 65 identified under Operation Captura, an initiative launched by the Serious Organised Crime Agency in 2006 to work with Spanish law enforcement to capture UK suspects thought to be hiding in Spain. That was not, and could not be, done before. Roger Critchell, director of operations at Crimestoppers, said:
“We are extremely relieved that this dangerous drug-dealer has been arrested and will be made to face justice.”
Why would anybody want to make it harder to bring somebody like that back to face justice?
The EAW also means that criminals hiding out in this country do not stay here. It will be easier to get foreign criminals off our streets and back to their states for the crimes that they have committed there. Since 2009, 4,005 criminal suspects have been deported from the UK to other EU countries, and it was good to hear the Home Secretary refer to that. Fifty-seven deportations were for child sex offences, 414 for drug trafficking, 86 for rape and 105 for murder. Does any right hon. or hon. Member really think we should be making it harder for these people to face the justice they deserve?
Naomi Long
If the hon. Gentleman is patient, I shall come on to the specific problems that will occur if the EAW does not operate continuously. There are indeed challenges to that co-operation which are not about will but about means and process.
From a Northern Ireland perspective, this is of particular importance. Since the EAW came into force in January 2004, the PSNI has received about 265 EAWs for action in Northern Ireland, and 50 EAWs have been issued for action outside the UK. Of those 50, about 31, or 60%, have been sent to the Republic of Ireland. The PSNI believes that there are some areas in the process that could benefit from review, but overall it has said that it
“has proven to be an effective mechanism for ensuring the administration of justice across the EU jurisdiction.”
The Crown Solicitor’s Office believes that the EAW system
“works very successfully. When operated properly it can be speedy, effective and fair.”
Neither the PSNI nor the CSO believe that the UK should withdraw in any way from the current arrangement, and the pressures on the PSNI, the Public Prosecution Service and CSO manpower and costs would increase if we did so. The PSNI and the CSO are concerned about the likely alternatives to the EAW. If the UK withdrew from that system, under the designation by which member states that operate the system are regarded, we would become a category 2 state, as opposed to category 1. Extradition would then have to operate by way of formal requests from the UK Government to other countries through bilateral treaties or under the European convention on extradition. Such requests are more time-consuming to prepare and may involve the sending of witnesses to foreign jurisdictions to give evidence, possibly at significant cost.
With respect to the impact on north-south relations and north-south co-operation, which was raised by the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), before the introduction of the EAW, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland followed the system known as the “backing of warrants”, which allowed an arrest warrant issued in one jurisdiction to be passed to police and endorsed or backed by a judge or magistrate in the area where the subject of the warrant lived. The Backing of Warrants (Republic of Ireland) Act 1965 was repealed by section 218(a) and schedule 3 of the Extradition Act 2003. There is no reason to assume that the Irish authorities would be willing to return to such a system. The land border between the two jurisdictions necessitates speedy arrangements that may no longer be available if the European convention or a bilateral treaty were the basis of the extradition relationship. I hope that that answers the hon. Gentleman’s question, because it is a significant issue. Indeed, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence in the Republic of Ireland, in discussions with the Minister of Justice for Northern Ireland, has expressed concern about its impact, given the repeal of legislation that facilitated north-south extradition arrangements.
Crucially, however, Alan Shatter TD has just given up the chair of the EU Council on Justice and Home Affairs, and is therefore exceptionally well placed to gauge the Commission’s appetite for negotiating terms with the UK to opt back in. His clear and continuing concern about the opt-out should sound a note of caution for those who believe that an opt-in will be simple and straightforward. I understand that this is a reserved matter, but even when matters are reserved decisions made by the UK Government can impact on the criminal justice system in devolved settings, and nowhere more so than Northern Ireland, given that we have a land border with the Republic of Ireland and thus a vested interest in close co-operation.
The cross-border dimension is unique in the UK, and important to us. Cross-border co-operation is essential in tackling security threats and organised crime, not only in Northern Ireland but across the whole of the United Kingdom. Of the third pillar measures, the possible opt-out from the EAW is the one that causes most alarm among all stakeholders in the Government, but it creates real uncertainty if we opt out without knowing that we can opt back in or that that will be a seamless process.
I put a question to the Secretary of State after her statement last week, and she said that the matter had been discussed with the Minister of Justice for Northern Ireland. However, she did not respond directly to my invitation to confirm that the Minister remained extremely concerned about any interruption to the operation of the EAW, and the impact that that would have on the justice system in Northern Ireland. It is important to talk to the Minister of Justice, and I hope that Home Office Ministers will recognise that listening and responding to what they hear in those conversations is of equal importance.
In response to my intervention today, the Home Secretary suggested that concerns arose only from the point where the Government indicated that they were going to opt out, but had not stated clearly that they intended to opt back in. That is not the case, however, and I put that on the record. Northern Irish Ministers remain concerned even though the opt-in is the Government’s stated intention. That has not allayed concerns, and there is serious uncertainty about the ability to opt in and about any delay in the opt-in process.
Mark Reckless
The hon. Lady says that the intention to opt back in to the EAW has been stated by the Government, but does she accept that with the acceptance of the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), that will no longer be something stated by this Parliament?
Naomi Long
I accept that that is the case, which causes me concern and, indeed, it will cause my colleagues in Northern Ireland even more concern. It would therefore be helpful if the Government could provide reassurance on that matter at the end of the debate. Any suggestion that we may choose not to opt back in would have significant consequences for north-south co-operation on justice matters in Northern Ireland.
The EAW has helped to bring offenders to justice, including those charged with serious and organised crime. The best way to effect the required improvements is to do so from within, not from outside. More than 60% of EAWs issued in Northern Ireland are for extradition from the Republic of Ireland so, in closing, I would simply ask what plans Her Majesty’s Government have to renegotiate an opt-in. How confident are the Government of success in that regard, given the reservations that have been expressed today and, indeed, given the concerns, I believe, of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence and of the Minister of Justice in Northern Ireland? Do the Government have the necessary support from other member states to be able to do this, and what happens if they do not succeed? What is the fall-back position? Will they try to negotiate individual arrangements with 28 states, and what appetite do those states have for entering into that negotiation?
Those are unanswered questions and points of risk in the process, and I simply ask that the Minister take the opportunity, first, to allay our concerns about the amendment that has been accepted, which will obliterate Parliament’s commitment to opt back in, and, secondly, to provide answers to those specific questions so that we understand what plan B is if the opt-in does not work out as intended.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Like a number of other Members, I am not clear exactly what the Home Secretary thinks she is trying to achieve today. She says the vote will be a signal to our European partners, but where in the opt-out arrangements is there any requirement to have such a vote at this stage? Unless she intends to ignore the reports of the various Select Committees and the calls from Back Benchers to let us, item by item, decide on the measures that we want to opt back into, all we can possibly be signalling today is our intention to exercise the block opt-out and an intention to try to opt back into some unspecified measures. So I am not clear about the reason for the vote now. The Minister suggested that it was for political reasons. I wonder whether it is more to do with the proximity of the Conservative party conference.
Will the Minister clarify the exact date for notifying plans to opt out? The Government say it is 31 May, but I have seen other calculations that challenge that date. I am conscious that Home Office officials have had trouble with European dates and deadlines in the past, so may we be clear about the exact date?
Mark Reckless
I intervened on the Home Secretary and asked her if she would be notifying immediately, to which she said yes. It was then suggested that there is to be a House of Lords vote on Monday, so it would be immediately after that. Surely that gives enough margin of error.
Steve McCabe
I was talking about the date the Government were specifying, but that does leave a bit of time, I concede that.
One of the things that I would like to know before we conclude the debate is what estimate the Government have made of the possible costs of cessation of participation under article 10(4). Throughout the now discarded Command Paper the Government merely repeat the view that they consider the economic impacts to be negligible, but unless we have some idea of how they arrive at those figures, we could be asked to vote for a blank cheque today. I am not quite as comfortable with that as others might be.
I am also worried about the implications for security and organised crime. Article 40 of the Schengen convention of June 1985 covers surveillance and assistance across borders, but the Government’s own Command Paper acknowledges that opting out of article 40 will leave us reliant on international letters of request. It goes on to point out that there would be no way to compel other states to respond to international letters of request.
Any transitional arrangements made following the opt-out are made by the Commission and the Council without the UK, so what will happen if the transitional arrangements are not acceptable? As I understand it, we are talking about 30 measures on issues decided by the Council and the Commission, and they are subject to qualified majority voting. The measures that apply to the Schengen agreement are subject to unanimity with a veto, and we have all seen that the veto can be exercised in Europe. It would be helpful if we could have some further explanation on what consideration has been given to these factors.
Mr Clappison
The hon. Gentleman is being less than fair, as I made it clear that I was referring to another European Court. My point is about supranational jurisdiction conferred on courts outside this country. That applies in this case because we are signing up to the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction, just as we are signed up to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. That means that British courts and the will of the British people as expressed through this Parliament can be overridden.
One can add to the case of Abu Qatada the frustration that voters have felt over whole-life sentences no longer being allowed as a result of the European Court of Human Rights. There are multifarious other cases as well.
Mark Reckless
I felt I should intervene on my hon. Friend following the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood). I do not think the European Court of Human Rights can dictate to our courts. In the Abu Hamza case, it said that the nine injunctions were not binding on our courts. They are certainly not binding on this Parliament. If the Government choose to act on them because of the ministerial code, that is for the Government, but the injunctions are not binding on our courts or Parliament.
Mr Clappison
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He will reflect, as I do, on the position taken by the Government in light of that fact. However, the European Court of Justice will have authority over this country in the case of the measures under discussion. Its decisions will be final and beyond appeal, and we will have to abide by them if they go against us. We are voluntarily subjecting ourselves to that jurisdiction.
Those who want us to be part of the European area of freedom, security and justice should be under no illusions as to the extent of the European Union’s ambition to take away sovereignty from this Parliament in that field. That is, after all, one of the specific objectives spelled out in the EU treaty:
“The Union shall offer its citizens an area of freedom, security and justice without internal frontiers”.
There are those who say that instead of signing up to the EU area of freedom, security and justice, we can pick and choose which individual measures we should adhere to and suggest that they stand on their own merits rather than being part of the EU system as a whole. In a way, that is choosing to dine à la carte from the EU menu. However, the problem with dining à la carte is that if someone keeps on doing it, they end up trying everything on the menu.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
I am grateful to be able to follow my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland). I do not know whether I agree with much of what he concludes on this issue, but he has spoken at short notice so I clear him of the charge of tedious repetition.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) was in the Chamber at the beginning of the debate and his name was on the list.
Mark Reckless
So his remarks were also very well prepared, for which I give him credit.
Earlier, the Home Secretary responded to me on the issue of whether the opt-ins under the justice and home affairs provisions—if indeed we have opt-ins now—would trigger a referendum. She shared her view that they would not, but she did not give reasons and I do not believe she spoke to the specifics of the point. The European Union Act 2011 was ably taken through the House by the Minister for Europe, whom I am delighted to see in his place—he may be able to correct or assist me, or perhaps share some of the Government’s legal insight, which has eluded me to date on this issue. Section 4(1) deals with triggers for a referendum, and paragraph (i) refers to
“the conferring on an EU institution or body of power to impose a requirement or obligation on the United Kingdom”.
An even clearer trigger is section 4(1)(j), which refers to
“the conferring on an EU institution or body of new or extended power to impose sanctions on the United Kingdom”.
It strikes me that with those opt-ins, the Commission would have the right to enforcement action, and the European Court of Justice potentially to deliver fines.
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
My hon. Friend was right to read out those paragraphs of section 4(1) of the 2011 Act, but as its title makes clear, that section refers to “Cases where treaty or Article 48(6) decision attracts a referendum”. The decision we are debating this evening, which stems from specific provisions to the Lisbon treaty, is neither a treaty change nor an article 48(6) decision, and it therefore falls outwith the scope of section 4 of the 2011 Act.
Mark Reckless
I am not sure whether I have understood the Minister, but section 4(1) is of course subject to subsection (4), which states:
“A treaty or Article 48(6) decision does not fall within this section merely because it involves one or more of the following: the codification of practice…; the making of any provision that applies only to member States other than the United Kingdom; in the case of a treaty, the accession of a new member State.”
Subsection 4(4) does not appear to be triggered in this case.
Mr Lidington
I am sorry to intervene again on my hon. Friend, but the point I was seeking to make—I apologise if I was not sufficiently clear—was that this decision on the justice and home affairs 2014 measures is not the product of an initiative brought forward under article 48(6) of the European treaties. Article 48(6) provides for the simplified revision procedure of the European Union treaties; this is not a revision of the Lisbon treaty.
Mark Reckless
It seems the Minister is saying that in substance it would be something to trigger a referendum, but there is some technicality that means it will not in this instance.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend because this is a most interesting point. Is it arguable to say that Lisbon is itself a treaty change, and that what is happening is consequent to a treaty change and therefore triggers the referendum mechanism, in spite of what our right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has said? Might that not be worth testing at judicial review?
Mark Reckless
My hon. Friend is right to say that these matters could lead to significant delays in the courts, and a test of judicial review. Some of those procedures can go on for some time, and there would be the prospect of a number of appeals. I wonder whether the Government have taken the sequencing of these issues into account in their timing.
Michael Ellis
Would my hon. Friend accept that this concerns the potential retention of more powers from Europe, not more powers going to Europe for the first time? The provision to which he refers therefore does not apply.
Mark Reckless
No, I would not accept that for a minute. I was prepared for a repetitious intervention later, but my hon. Friend got in early. I must make some progress, and I will deal with his point.
The situation is the complete opposite of what my hon. Friend says. Under Maastricht—that great success hailed from the rooftops by an ex-Prime Minister who called it game, set and match to Britain—we had intergovernmental procedures and pillared structures, meaning that the Commission and the European Court of Justice would not be involved in foreign and justice and home affairs matters; they would be dealt with solely on an intergovernmental basis. Unfortunately, those pillars have been chipped away at, and with the Lisbon treaty, they were knocked over, hence today’s motion. The previous Labour Government could not say that the constitution was exactly the same as the Lisbon treaty—I am informed by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) that making out the two were different was one of the few face-saving fig leaves they picked on—and now these areas are being folded into the treaty structure originally envisaged under the Maastricht treaty. Rather than an opt-out from 130-odd measures, as the idea is styled, the proposal was—until the acceptance earlier of amendment (b), which was very significant—to opt into Commission enforcement of ECJ jurisdiction in 35 measures, including almost all of the most important.
Mr Cash
I would like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend. I can well remember how some years ago at Oxford, at the time of the Maastricht treaty, he was able to participate in debates and discussions on these very issues. We were in complete agreement then, and have remained so ever since.
Mark Reckless
Yes, but that was partly because I and others benefited greatly from the instruction of my hon. Friend, and I now very much enjoy working with him on these issues.
There has been a sea change in how these issues are seen in this country. We talk about a zone of
“freedom, security and justice without internal borders”,
but many of the problems that the European arrest warrant and other provisions are meant to tackle are problems only because of the free movement within the EU that has led to many people from particular EU countries coming to these shores. I welcome enormously our apparent bilateral co-operation with the Romanian police. Apparently, there is an encampment of Romanians around Hyde Park corner and Marble Arch, and we are getting assistance from the Romanian police to deal with that, but were it not for the treaty rights and freedom of movement, we could deport these people.
The Immigration Minister said earlier that he did not want to criminalise being an illegal immigrant, because the objective was to get them back to their home countries. Similarly here, rather than give up our system of justice and have it administered at a supranational level, we ought to be able to deal with these extradition requests—my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) informs us that 95% of them are for nationals of other countries—simply by deporting them to their countries. We do not need an extradition arrangement. If a national of a third country is creating problems in this country or if we have evidence from another state that they would like them back to deal with one of these issues, we should be able to deport them. We do not need something administered and overseen by the ECJ with enforcement powers, via the Commission, to deal with these issues.
We have heard about the protections under the EAW. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) is no longer here, so I guess I will not be taking an intervention from him on this issue. We have read, however, about what these protections are. On pre-trial detention, the Home Secretary told us:
“Other hon. Members have expressed concerns about lengthy and avoidable pre-trial detention. I will amend our Extradition Act 2003 to ensure that people in the UK can be extradited under the European arrest warrant only when the requesting state has already made a decision to charge and a decision to try”.
That sounds good, but she then continued:
“unless that person’s presence is required in that jurisdiction for those decisions to be made.”—[Official Report, 9 July 2013; Vol. 566, c. 178.]
Even that protection, therefore, is inoperable in some member states—and, I fear, some of the member states that might give rise to some of the greatest problems in this regard. Even if we have that protection, however, the whole thing is susceptible to the ECJ. The ECJ will decide what it means, not us.
Ever since, under the Single European Act, we have had majority voting on health and safety matters, and we saw employment law suddenly become a matter of health and safety, meaning that European institutions, rather than Parliament, can determine what happens in this country, I have been sceptical about the ECJ. My hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), who is probably more knowledgeable about these issues than any other Member, rightly drew our attention to the Metock judgment and what that meant for Ireland and, by implication, other member states in terms of our powers—or now our absence of powers—over matters of immigration. Were we to opt back in and were we not to vote to leave the EU, we would be putting these 35 areas irrevocably under the control of the Commission and the ECJ. I simply cannot believe that that is right.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said:
“we will negotiate for a return of powers in criminal justice. We must be sure that the measures included in the Lisbon Treaty will not bring creeping control over our criminal justice system by EU judges.”
The point, though, is that we cannot do that when something is susceptible to the final judgment of the ECJ. The Prime Minister also said:
“our legal system is here to protect our citizens, and that protection should be given up only if we can really trust the legal systems of other states.”—[Official Report, 25 March 2003; Vol. 402, c. 196.]
My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South said that the arrest warrants built such trust, but I think the opposite is often the case. There are several member states in whose criminal justice systems I and many colleagues do not have that trust, and without it we should not be putting the rights and liberties of British citizens in their hands.
In his first full year in the House, the Prime Minister, talking about the EAW, said that
“the Home Secretary would have to say, ‘I am sorry. You may spend time rotting in a Greek or Spanish jail. Weeks may pass before you are even charged with an offence that is not a crime in this country. But there is nothing I can do about it.’”—[Official Report, 9 December 2002; Vol. 396, c. 109.]
Thankfully, there is now something he can do about it. I was reading a comment by the noble Lord Hannay, who serves on the House of Lords EU Select Committee, which people quote with great authority. He said that the planned opt-outs were
“defunct, dross or things that have no impact”,
whereas staying in the arrest warrant was a “huge prize”. That was why I was initially so concerned about the motion: it referenced both Command Paper 8671 and those 35 measures, including the EAW, and would have given the imprimatur of this House to opting back into the EAW. I am delighted that that is no longer the case. I pay great tribute to my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary, who is in his place, and the Government as a whole for accepting the amendment tabled by the three aforementioned Select Committee Chairs. In particular, I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), because he has placed principle before party.
The sequencing is important. Tonight, we have a clean motion to exercise the block opt-out. Anything further will be for the future; there might be a second blip and consideration of what we want to opt back into. The Government have set out, in a document, a preliminary view, but it is no more than that. The House has not taken note of it, let alone approved it.
A week ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) came into the Home Affairs Select Committee beaming after the Home Secretary’s statement to the House, but earlier he referred merely to his “hope” that we might opt back into the EAW.
Mr Cash
Does my hon. Friend accept that the driving force that lay behind the necessity for the Chairmen of the three Select Committees, including the European Scrutiny Committee, to ensure that this took place, was driven by the very thing he and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) were talking about earlier? Those of us who believe in the parliamentary sovereignty of this place know that this is more about the United Kingdom than it is about Europe. We have to stick to the fourth Bloomberg principle, which is that national Parliaments are the root of our democracy.
Mark Reckless
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The constitutional principles to which he draws attention are far more important than any temporary coalition deal that may or may not have been stitched up. If it was stitched up, it has become unstitched. Instead of a motion to have a block opt-out tied to a motion on what we would opt back into, including the European arrest warrant, we now have one decision followed by another. I trust that the decision we have now on the block opt-out will be the same as the decision on an alternative vote referendum. I hope we will have learnt our lessons and that any decision on what, if anything, is in the national interest to opt back into is delayed, rather as our Liberal Democrat colleagues reconsidered what had been stated with respect to boundary changes.
I look forward to the debates in this House, the reports of the Select Committees, the legal issues, or the potential for judicial review that we discussed, and, I hope, consideration by the Prime Minister of where we have come to. Today we have an opinion poll that shows my party level with the Labour party. We have a party that is strongly united behind the Prime Minister’s agenda, as set out in his Bloomberg speech. With this block opt-out, we can keep that as long as we do not opt in to what I consider to be the most damaging to and undermining of the traditional liberties of the people of this country. I took great heart from what my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton said: he said that he was going to consider carefully the merits of an opt-in to the European arrest warrant, and that he has strict and high hurdles for what assurances would be required even to consider that that could be in the national interest. I know that his views will be persuasive to many colleagues. Instead of making the decision today, we should decide just to opt out on a block basis and leave for some time after tomorrow—perhaps many months from now—the decision on what, if anything, to opt back into. I congratulate the Government on their revised approach.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The education at Stonyhurst of my hon. Friend is exquisitely fine. His quotations are better than mine, and I pay tribute to his ability to quote such fine words.
The elastic last Tuesday was firmly broken. Instead of having proper time for parliamentary scrutiny, and instead of having time when the Select Committees could do their work thoroughly and consider this matter of the greatest importance, we were told that what was going to happen was a vote today to agree to the Government’s position, with very little opportunity for any scrutiny at all. It is therefore hugely to be welcomed that the Government decided that that was not the right way to proceed, and that the views of Parliament, representing our constituents, were important in this matter to be able to see what was happening, to deliberate, to report, to take evidence and to decide what, if anything, it might be in the national interest to opt back into. While I am grateful that the opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny has improved, it was really quite extraordinary that last Tuesday we were in such a situation as to have been denied parliamentary scrutiny almost altogether. There is some praise now, but it came from a position of dispraise before.
We have heard the most wonderful, glorious line repeated by a number of speakers that this is a most noble repatriation of powers: that never before in the history of the European Union have powers been repatriated to a nation state and that previously it has been a one-way street. The power has gone out: it has left the United Kingdom and gone to our friends in Brussels, but on this occasion there was a noble fight. Horatius was on the bridge standing there fending off the massed hoards coming from Europe to impose their will on brave little Blighty, and happily 98 powers have been restored to this great country. And the ones that are being given back? Well, they have them anyway, so why are we worrying about that at all? [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Stone is saying that I am leading up to a quotation. No, I am not; I am leading up to the detail.
This may be rather boring, and one might think speeches in this House unaccustomed to delving into such matters as detail. I hope that under, I think, Standing Order No. 42, this will be neither repetitious nor tedious—well, it may be tedious, but it will not be repetitious, because nobody else has mentioned the detail—but I should like to go through some of the items that we are opting out off, the repatriation of powers that we are getting.
Mark Reckless
My hon. Friend says that he is going to tackle a matter of detail. Before he proceeds on his new list, perhaps I can tell him that the detail we were discussing before related to when a referendum is triggered. The actual text of the European Union Act 2011 is:
“Subject to subsection (4), a treaty or an article 48(6) decision falls within this section”.
There is no comma separating
“a treaty or an article 48(6) decision”.
This can surely be described as a treaty decision, in which case it would be caught.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am very sympathetic to the view that my hon. Friend is expressing. The view of the Government is otherwise, but when the 2011 Act was being debated it was made clear that these matters can be settled by judicial review. If there is a continuing uncertainty, that is a sensible route to go down once we know what issues will be opted into.
Mark Reckless
The Secretary of State says he is happy to go along with this agreement. Will he explain what agreement he is talking about?
Chris Grayling
What we have agreed to do across the Government is table amendments to the Bill before the House at the moment that introduce things like a proportionality test, which is much needed and mirrors the situation in Germany. That is the kind of reform to the arrest warrant that is very much needed.