Yarl’s Wood Immigration Centre (Detainee Death)

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

Certainly, I would be pleased to have such a meeting to hear the concerns and see whether any specific issues can be applied more broadly to the immigration removal centre system in general. I underline the fact that the chief inspector’s summary report notes that there are daily “individual needs” meetings at Yarl’s Wood to help discuss detainees who are vulnerable or otherwise of cause for concern before removal and they facilitate information sharing about risk. So much of this is about managing risk and highlighting need. Clearly, I want to see further improvements. It is right that there have been changes and advancements at Yarl’s Wood, but more needs to be done and that is why we will continue to keep that in focus.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

The House will understand the Minister’s reluctance to comment on particular cases, but does he agree that the general record of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service in these matters shows that there is no culture of impunity in this country for those involved in immigration detention, whether they are in the private or public sector?

[James Brokenshire]

That is why I have underlined the need to focus attention on how removals are conducted. They must be done in the right and proper way, with a sense of respect for those involved. It would be inappropriate for me to comment further in respect of individual cases, but I expect the highest standards to be undertaken. That is why we are also strengthening the training and guidance for those involved, to make sure that the highest standards are met.

Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The hon. Gentleman is living in a dream world. Does he appreciate what these people are trying to do? Does he understand the level of danger they pose?

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Surely what is important is that those individuals are being deprived of those liberties without due process, a trial and conviction, on the basis solely of suspicion, albeit in many cases potentially justified suspicion.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

We know that there is some evidence, such as intercept evidence, that is difficult for the Home Secretary to bring to trial. Surely we must have some faith in our Home Secretary. Surely we respect her and the instruments of justice as having the public interest at heart. They are in no way inclined to restrict anybody’s civil liberties unless there is good reason.

Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hollobone]

That may well be right. I am sure my hon. Friend agrees that in a debate on a subject of such importance, some Liberal Democrat Members should have been present, not only to tell us their views but to listen to those of other Members of Parliament. Parliament is here to debate such issues, whether we agree with each other or not. By not turning up at all, Liberal Democrats are effectively refusing to engage with this important question.

Let me put my cards firmly on the table. I am not a supporter of our membership of the European Union. I believe that we should leave, and I support the Conservative party’s call for a referendum to give my constituents and others across the land their say about whether we should remain members. It represented a catastrophic loss of confidence in the nation’s future in the 1960s and 1970s that we decided to join the then Common Market, which mutated into the European Economic Community, the European Community and finally the European Union.

An individual would have to be in at least their mid-50s to have been able to take part in the referendum in 1975 on whether we should remain members, so a whole generation of the British public have never had their say on the matter. I am four-square behind the Conservative party manifesto promise to give the British people a say in 2017 on whether we should stay in or get out. I will vote to leave. I do not believe that renegotiation will work. I am not entirely convinced that Her Majesty’s Government will take the renegotiation as seriously as they should, but more or less nothing that could be achieved in the renegotiation would convince me that Britain was better off in the European Union. One reason for that is the cost; our annual membership fee is £10 billion and rising. Over the course of the coalition Government’s term, our total membership subscription will be almost twice what it was under the final term of the previous Labour Government. Our membership fee is simply too expensive. The other big reason why I will vote to leave is the reason we are here today.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Before my hon. Friend moves on to that point, he expressed a certain scepticism about the renegotiation. Is it his understanding that that renegotiation is happening now, or will it not even start until 2015?

[Mr Hollobone]

My understanding is that the renegotiation has not started. The Government are undertaking a balance of competences review—a ridiculous name that nobody understands the meaning of—and are coming up with a list of items on which we will apparently renegotiate the terms of our membership. As far as I can tell, no chief negotiator has been appointed and renegotiation is not a Government policy but a Conservative party ambition.

The Liberal Democrats and the Labour party are doing their best to frustrate the private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), which promotes an EU referendum. I am not entirely convinced, because no member of the Government has yet clarified this, whether if that Bill were to succeed in the other place and become an Act, it would form part of Government policy. We wait to hear from the Liberal Democrats on that.

[Mark Reckless]

Can my hon. Friend help me in a related area? Is the target of cutting immigration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands Government policy, or is it merely an aspiration of our party because the Lib Dems do not agree?

[Mr Hollobone]

I would welcome clarification from the Minister on that point, as would my hon. Friend. I welcome the Conservative party approach to cutting immigration, but I do not think it goes far enough. If I get to that part of my speech, I want to demonstrate why I do not think that aim can be achieved, not least because of our lifting of the restrictions on Romanian and Bulgarian immigration. I am as sceptical as my hon. Friend about the way in which Conservative members of the Government, or the Government as a whole, may or may not start to renegotiate the terms of our membership of the European Union. I welcome the opportunity that I hope my constituents will have in 2017, under a majority Conservative Government, to have a say in a referendum.

The previous Labour Government’s lifting of the restrictions on immigration from the A8 eastern European countries was a catastrophic mistake. I would welcome a clear and frank apology from the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), for that huge “spectacular mistake”—the words of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw). Under the leadership of the Labour party, the Home Office estimated a maximum net inflow from the A8 nations of 13,000 a year through to 2010. In the end, the total is one million and rising. Her Majesty’s Government under the coalition have declined to estimate the numbers at all, lest they make a similar error. That is not good enough. They should have at least tried to commission some research to have some feel of the number who might come to our shores, not least because local authorities, schools, hospitals and police services need to know the potential impact of immigration on their communities.

The only helpful estimate we have is provided by Migration Watch, which I think everyone agrees has a tremendous reputation on immigration matters.

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[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to work under your chairmanship today, Ms Dorries.

I am delighted to participate in this important debate. It has been very interesting so far and I very much look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in response to many of the points that have been made. However, a myth can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on, so I welcome the opportunity this debate gives to add some facts and figures, and indeed corrections, to some of the quite barmy assumptions that have been made in the wider debate—not necessarily here today—that then get repeated and seem to gain credence.

I wish to challenge a couple of the points that have been made already today. My hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell), who is no longer in his place, suggested that we should adopt Switzerland’s immigration policy, or that our relationship with the EU should be that of Switzerland. Well, read any of the Swiss newspapers or visit Switzerland, and guess what the key issue is for the Swiss? It is immigration, and the numbers of immigrants into that country are proportionally much higher than they are for the UK.

The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) is also no longer in his place; I do not know why people decided to depart just as I got to my feet. He made some interesting points about jobs. That issue needs to be clarified, because it is very much the case that Romanians and Bulgarians can work here. First, they have the right to travel here visa-free and, secondly, they can indeed work here, whether they are self-employed, have particular expertise—as doctors, nurses and so forth—or participate in agricultural work. There are restrictions in place, of course, for temporary work permits, and there are quota schemes, to allow low-skilled workers to come here too. I understand that the biggest group of foreign nationals who helped to build the Olympic stadium actually came from Romania. Apparently, there were more Romanians working on that stadium than people of any other nationality.

[Mr Joe Benton in the Chair]

I am not arguing that more or fewer Romanians and Bulgarians should come here. I am simply saying that this important aspect of the debate on immigration needs to be considered in a sensible and measured way. We need to have a policy that is not determined by fear. I genuinely worry that the debate around immigration—to mention this is to slip slightly into a bigger debate on whether we should be in or out of the EU—has become very binary. It is the little Englanders, if you like, versus the multicultural open-door approach, but I would argue that in many cases that does not apply, by any stretch of the imagination.

[Mark Reckless]

First, little Englanders versus the multilateral open-door people—I do not know if the hon. Gentleman puts himself in the second category, but if he does I wonder if it more a sign of his own narcissism than anything else.

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[Mr Ellwood]

Again, I am invited to wander away from the debate about immigration, into the wider, albeit important, debate about the virtues of the EU. What would happen if we went down my hon. Friend’s route and left the EU? If he thinks for a second that the countries remaining in Europe would leave tariffs as they are or allow us to have similar tariffs to Switzerland, and so on, he is wrong. We would then be seen as the competition and France would be first to say, “Let’s make it tougher for Britain to participate or trade with us.” That is exactly what would happen.

There is a notion that we can somehow say no to the EU or park the matter to one side and look to the emerging markets. Let us take one huge example. We tried to sell the Eurofighter to India, a close Commonwealth country, but it went with the French Rafale aircraft instead. It is not so simple to say, “Let’s ignore the EU” and suddenly embrace the Commonwealth, which we anticipate would have closer relationships with us.

[Mark Reckless]

Of course, my hon. Friend’s example may reflect the wisdom or otherwise of naming products we are trying to export with the “Euro” prefix. More worryingly, it is preposterous to say that tariffs would go up, when Germany sells more to us than it does to any other country in the world, including France. The EU is treaty bound to negotiate a free trade agreement with any state that needs it.

[Mr Ellwood]

I do not think the name of the aircraft was the precursor of the deal falling through or the reason why it did so. I could have said “Typhoon”, as my hon. Friend is aware.

The majority would agree with the approach that I have spelled out, but fundamental flaws, out-of-date practices and British schoolboy errors have allowed a scale of migration into the UK over one decade that is incomparable with the spikes in migration on this island in all its history, as I mentioned earlier. That is what concerns my constituents and those of other hon. Members.

Let us look at some of those mistakes. Like other hon. Members, I am sorry that there are now no Labour Back Benchers—[Interruption.] I am sorry; apart from the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), who was not here at the beginning, there are none here to put the case. And there is not a single Lib Dem here, either.

Under Labour, in 2004, there was a deliberate policy of uncontrolled migration, resulting in more than 1 million people coming from central and eastern Europe, who now live here. Why? Because the UK completely opted out of the transitional controls on new EU member states. Britain was the only country to do so, ignoring the right to impose a seven-year ban before new citizens could come and work here. We were almost all alone in Europe.

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[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Aside from the administrative errors, pressures on housing, benefits and health services, and so on, as he implies, the scale of migration in the last decade has challenged the very Britishness of some communities—what defines us: our values; our culture; who we are. Of course, that is an evolving thing and measured migration can be absorbed into it, but when overloaded—when diasporas move here on such a large scale—there is such an impact that it can be unmanaged, in that sense, and have a negative impact on those who are already here.

Let us not slip away from what Labour did in the last decade that was so wrong. It introduced eight Acts of Parliament, but it had no control over immigration despite those and illegal immigrants were free to abuse our state services. Migration from non-EU member states also increased during that time. Indeed, twice as many came from non-EU countries as EU countries. I hope that the Minister will confirm that that is so.

In the five years leading up to the economic downturn—this is the real message—more than 90% of the increase in employment was accounted for by foreign nationals. We were creating jobs in this country and giving them to people from overseas. That cannot be right. To put that another way, one in 10 new jobs was given to a British person. I am pleased to say that that is not the case today with the 1.1 million new private sector jobs that have been created. To compound matters, employers targeted eastern European countries, to pay less than the minimum wage. In 2009, for example, 2,000 firms were fined for doing this. Thanks to stricter rules, that figure has now fallen.

Another area of abuse was student visas, and we felt the impact in Bournemouth too. Bogus students were attending bogus colleges, but, thankfully, that has also now stopped. International education is clearly important, with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills estimating that it is worth £8 billion. It is important to get our approach right, and given the importance of language schools to Bournemouth, people there expect us to.

Arguably, Labour’s biggest failure was failing to inspire a younger generation to work. Thanks to the something-for-nothing culture, a skills gap developed. If it does not pay to work, or if British people lack the necessary skills, that creates a huge space in our labour market for people from overseas to fill. We cannot blame people for wanting to come here and work hard, but the real answer lies in training our own people to fill these jobs. If we add to that the way in which the benefits system was abused, we can see why we ended up with the mess we inherited in 2010.

I am pleased to see the changes the Government have introduced. When passed into law, the Immigration Bill will upgrade the previously dysfunctional UK Border Agency, making it easier to send offenders back overseas. It will also cut the abuse of the appeals process, which originally had, I think, 17 different stages that could be put to appeal. In addition, it will oblige temporary immigrants seeking to stay longer than six months to pay a surcharge on their visa to cover NHS costs, should they use the health service. Finally, it will tackle sham marriages, to which more than 10,000 visa applications were linked every year.

As the Prime Minister announced last week, we are building a welfare system that encourages work and that is not so accessible to migrants, so no one can come to this country and expect to get out-of-work benefits immediately. We will not pay those benefits for the first three months. If, after those three months, an EU national needs benefits, we will no longer pay them indefinitely. Migrants will also be able to claim for only a maximum of six months unless they can prove they have a genuine prospect of employment. In addition, there will be a minimum earnings threshold, and if migrants do not pass the test, access to benefits such as income support will be cut. Finally, newly arrived EU jobseekers will not be able to claim housing benefit.

Those are welcome changes. If people are not here to work, or if they are begging or sleeping rough, they will be removed. They will be barred from re-entry for 12 months, unless they can prove there is a proper reason for them to be here, such as a job. Such steps have already been taken by other countries, such as Holland and Germany.

As we have seen, the Government’s policies are having an impact, with a drop in net migration of more than one third. Immigration from outside the EU is now at its lowest level for 14 years. With the new measures I have described, however, that drop will continue.

[Mark Reckless]

My hon. Friend refers to a drop in net immigration of more than a third. Is he sure his figures are up to date?

[Mr Ellwood]

The best person to clarify that will be the Minister, but those are the figures that I have been presented with. Indeed, they were put forward by the Home Secretary when the Immigration Bill was read for the Third time a couple of weeks ago.

To return to a point on which I think there will be more common ground, given what my hon. Friends have already said, the EU needs to change. It needs to recognise that its rules are out of date. There is a disparity between the income per head of joining members and that of other member states. It is so large that it is not surprising that some people will choose to abandon their own country and move to a richer one.

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[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) on securing the debate.

I was elected to this Parliament on the basis of a promise to cut immigration from hundreds of thousands a year to no more than tens of thousands a year. Many of my constituents voted for me on that basis. They had had enough of a Labour Government who oversaw uncontrolled immigration for year after year after year, and they wanted to see immigration cut. As a Member of this place and of the Select Committee on Home Affairs—I am delighted to have its Chair, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), next to me—I have found that whenever we hold an inquiry into immigration all manner of people want to come in to tell us why there should be more immigrants for their particular vested interest, but hardly anyone, except Migration Watch UK, which is a superb, independent and thoroughly respected think tank, will put the counter-argument—

[Mr Harper]

And the Minister.

[Mark Reckless]

And of course the Minister, and his predecessor from Kent, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), who also put forward that case.

Although the Government have taken a lot of action on immigration, much of which is in the detail of what has been done—I credit both Ministers for their work in that area—I am concerned that in several key areas we have relaxed what we should have done and perhaps originally intended to do. One such area was the number of people whom we allow in on inter-company transfers. When the Prime Minister went to India, he came under pressure, from Liberal Democrats and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, to put in place this loophole whereby people with incomes of down to the £24,000 or £30,000 level are allowed to come in for a certain period but then leave, and other people come in and also earn below the proper cap for inter-company transfers. That has put people in the IT industry in particular under intense pressure in terms of holding down wages in that sector and, I fear, has also increased the number of people in the country.

Another area is post-study work, which expanded under the Labour Government. As far as I can see, anyone can come here and do any course, and then stay on and work afterwards, or indeed while they are doing the course, with few if any questions asked. I was delighted when the Home Office said that it would get rid of that, but unfortunately it was then watered down under pressure from universities and, as ever, the Liberal Democrats. I would love to hear from the Minister whether they signed up to that policy, and whether it is a Government policy.

We then said that anyone who comes here and gets a degree from a university can stay on and work. We are subsidising our university sector through our immigration policy. The Government go on as though everyone else does it, but they do not. I studied in America, and it is difficult to stay on there afterwards. I think only Australia has a more obviously generous system than we do. Our universities should compete on the basis of their academic excellence, not on the basis of “If you come and study with us rather than with some other competitor, you’ll be able to stay on and work in the British labour market, and potentially stay on for ever thereafter.” The fact that we have allowed that loophole makes net migration higher than it otherwise would be, and we are further from hitting our target.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) said that we have cut net migration by more than a third. I am afraid that his figures are significantly out of date, if indeed they had a solid basis when produced. He referred to a couple of weeks ago, “on Third Reading of the Immigration Bill”, which he may be aware has not actually happened yet.

[Mr Ellwood]

I said Second Reading.

[Mark Reckless]

I believe you said Third Reading. We shall see what the record says.

However, Third Reading has been delayed. It will not happen till the new year, although we do not know when. Perhaps the Minister can tell us that as well. Many of us think that it would be sensible to have a debate, or indeed a vote, on the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley before the restrictions are lifted on 1 January rather than afterwards.

At the moment, the latest figures, up to June 2013, give 182,000 as the net migration figure, compared with the figure for 2009-10, the year before the election in which the coalition Government came to power, when it was 214,000. So net migration has been cut by just under 15%, which is barely one seventh, not more than one third, but I promised my constituents that if they elected me—if they had a Conservative or perhaps at least a Conservative-led Government—we would deliver on our promise to cut immigration from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands.

I was extremely concerned to read an interview apparently given by the Prime Minister to The Daily Telegraph in which he seems—perhaps I am wrong—to set aside that target. He seems to accept, or at least suggest, that the immigration target might not be hit, because we are taking in more people from the European Union. If we are not going to hit the target, as we promised our electors we would, we should change policy to ensure that we do hit it, either by getting rid of loopholes for Indian IT workers, post-study work or numerous others I could mention, or by taking some action on EU immigration.

I am pleased to say that at least some action is taking place. The change on benefits to three months is sensible, and I am pleased that it will be introduced before 1 January. It shows that Government can work on such things quickly when they want to. It is a shame that the same has not happened with regard to the Immigration Bill. We need the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley.

We have talked about estimates. To quote the Minister in The House magazine—I hope that this is accurate; I am sure it is—

“We consulted the Migration Advisory Committee on that question, and it advised us that making an estimate was not practical because of the number of variables, so we have not done so.”

The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee mentioned that point and asked Professor Sir David Metcalf:

“If Ministers had said to you, ‘Sir David, could you please give us some estimates about the number of people coming in after 31 December?’, you would have happily obliged?”

He answered:

“Yes, that is the role of the Migration Advisory Committee…if we were tasked by the Government to make such an estimate, it would be absolutely our job to do that, yes”.

But that estimate did not come.

I do not know what the numbers will be. I look forward to my trip to Luton on 1 January. Perhaps the Victoria coach station will also be another big point of entry. We can talk to some of those people and ask them whether they will be employed, or whether they purport to be self-employed, as they have had to do in most cases before. That will give us some interesting answers.

The big difference is that respectable, proper employment agencies can now go out and recruit proactively in Romania and Bulgaria. They can go to employers and offer them the service of bringing in people, often highly skilled people prepared to work hard, sometimes for much lower wages than people here, although we have a minimum wage in the formal sector. We do not know how large that sum will be; the Government have not given us an estimate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) made many strong points. I do not share his confidence or certainty that the numbers will be very large, but it is certainly possible, and we should have had a strategy to deal with that and prevent large numbers from coming here. It is good that we now have policemen from Scotland Yard out in particular villages in Romania to spread the message, but when the Select Committee went to Bucharest, I did not see any evidence of such a strategy.

Indeed, I said to Martin Harris, the excellent ambassador there, “What are you doing to reduce the numbers likely to come after 1 January?” He looked at me as though he had misheard or misunderstood what I had said and answered, “That’s not our job.” I said, “How do you mean? You work for the Government.” He said, “There’s free movement. Under EU law, they’re allowed to come. It’s not my role to reduce the numbers. I haven’t had any instructions to that effect.” He was managing the process and explaining things to both sides, but he did not see it as his role in any way, or think that it was Government policy, to try to hold down the numbers of people coming.

There has been more evidence over the last weeks, and possibly months, that that is the policy, and I hope it succeeds. If it does not succeed, and if the Migration Watch numbers are coming from Romania and Bulgaria, it is difficult to see how we will hit the net migration target, as I promised my constituents we would. I hope that we will hit it, and that we will see action to do so.

My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley tabled his amendment, and then the Minister came to the Select Committee and told us that the amendment was illegal. I found that comment extraordinary. It is an amendment to primary legislation. For a Minister to come to the House and say that an amendment to primary legislation is unlawful comes close to contempt of the House, although I do not accuse him of that. It is this House that sets the law, and the Government who are bound by the law as determined by this Parliament, yet he seems to think that some other law might be higher and bind him in a way that the law of this Parliament does not.

The Minister has a reason for thinking that. The ministerial code says:

“The Ministerial Code should be read alongside the coalition agreement and the background of the overarching duty on Ministers to comply with the law including international law and treaty obligations”,

but in this country, our constitution has always been dualist in its approach to international law. International law binds, and binds Ministers, only to the extent that it is also the law of the land as passed by Parliament. If the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley succeeds, that will be the law that binds Ministers, not any previous agreement they may have happened to enter into with their counterparts overseas, except to the extent that that is part of our domestic law.

On that issue, the Thoburn case of the metric martyrs, involving Lord Justice Laws, is often quoted, but in my view, my hon. Friend’s amendment is consistent with that principle. It suggests that there are some bits of legislation that we have passed that are not to be repealed by accident; we must be express and clear that we intend to do so. However, my hon. Friend’s amendment refers to the European Union accession treaties. It would make no sense for him to add “notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972”, because those European Union treaties flow from that Act.

If my hon. Friend, as the promoter of that amendment, says clearly that it is intended to have that effect, and if those Members who vote for it succeed, as I hope, in amending the legislation to include it and put it into law, that will be the law. The Minister, like anyone else, will be bound to apply that law, as will our judges. If Romanians and Bulgarians come to this country and take employment contrary to that law, we will look to the courts to enforce it. We made a promise to our constituents to cut immigration from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands per year. We must keep that promise.

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[Mr Hanson]

I am glad the Minister has done that, because I recently gave chapter and verse in the Immigration Bill Committee on a number of recruitment agencies that are recruiting to fill positions in the United Kingdom solely with people from abroad.

We need to take greater action on the enforcement of housing regulations. Only yesterday, I was pleased to see the Prime Minister—again, I give credit when it is due—visiting a raid on a beds-in-sheds encampment in Southall. One aspect of immigration that greatly upsets my constituents in north Wales is when individuals share properties in squalid conditions and so are able to undercut wages locally, because the low standard of their accommodation means they do not have the outgoings that other people have. We also wish to look at extending legislation on gangmasters. It is perfectly reasonable to put controls in and extend gangmaster legislation to sectors to which it does not apply at the moment, such as catering and tourism.

There is action that we can take, but—and this is not intended to provoke a political fight—I genuinely do not think that the approach that some hon. Members are taking, of arguing that the transitional controls should be extended beyond 31 December, is the right one: we know, as do they, that that is a matter for treaty negotiation. Nor do I think, speaking with genuine humility, that the approach of withdrawal from the European Union is one that I can support. The European Union provides significant investments to constituencies such as mine. It also provides significant employment and a proper standard of working conditions across the board.

Furthermore, although this might not be a common thought at the moment, just under 100 years ago my grandfather was fighting Germans, Romanians and Bulgarians in the trenches and Turks in the middle east. But now, we have not had a world war for a generation and there is a stability that would surprise my grandfather if he were alive today. People from Germany, Romania, Bulgaria and Britain now sit in the same chamber to discuss issues of common economic and social interest whereas in his generation Europe was at war. That view of the European Union and the potential of a strong future Europe might not be a common one, but it is one that I hold passionately.

[Mark Reckless]

I am sorry to hear that the right hon. Gentleman’s grandfather was fighting the Romanians during the first world war, because I understand that Romania was on the allied side in that conflict.

[Mr Hanson]

My grandfather was fighting Germans and Bulgarians, but let us put that aside. He was in the trenches at Neuve Chappelle in 1915 and at the Somme in 1916, and in Sinai in 1917. He was fighting people who now sit in the same Parliament here and elsewhere in Europe. That is good for the stability of Europe. Perhaps I made a slip, but the point I am making is that the stability we have gained, through a wider economic union and through shared social conditions, is a good thing. Hon. Members have stated we should withdraw, but in my view that would be a bad thing.

We need to look at how we can put labour market conditions in place after 1 January to strengthen our position. I would also, if I may, stretch out a hand of friendship to the hon. Member for Bournemouth East, who made a strong case for looking at other areas of immigration, including student immigration, tourism and business investment. There may not actually be that many people coming from Bulgaria and Romania in January at all—whether to claim benefits or to work—but the danger is that today’s debate could send a signal that Britain is closed for business, when there is a positive case to be made for some aspects of immigration and for managed migration. However, we need to have controlled migration, to remove people who are here illegally and to ensure that we have strong borders. We also need to ensure that we deport foreign criminals, as the hon. Member for Kettering said; I have to tell him that since my time as Prisons Minister, the rate of removal of foreign national offenders has fallen by 13.5%.

There are things that we can and should do, but we should approach the matter in a calm and measured way on 1 January. I also look forward to a calm and measured debate on the remaining stages of the Immigration Bill.

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[Mr Harper]

Tempting though I find the invitation from my hon. Friend to say more, I will just observe this: we were not, as we have discovered, blessed by the presence of any Liberal Democrats in this debate, but I note that there were only two Labour Back Benchers here—sadly, neither is here now. Interestingly, both support a referendum on our membership of the EU, and both attended the House on a Friday to support the excellent European Union (Referendum) Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton). The right hon. Member for Delyn is a little isolated: the only Labour Members who were here today, aside from him, are in favour of a referendum on our EU membership, want us to renegotiate that membership, and were willing to vote for that excellent Bill. Perhaps he should reflect on that and think about whether it might be more sensible for the Labour party to change its official position to support the Prime Minister when he leads that renegotiation after we win the general election with a Conservative majority Government, and then support us when we put that new position to the people.

I will say a few words on our record. We have reduced net migration. I will act as referee between my hon. Friends the Members for Bournemouth East, and for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless): net migration is down by nearly a third since its peak. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood was right about the latest figures, but what my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East said was correct before those came out. The reduction is now nearly a third, rather than over a third. Non-European economic area migration is at its lowest level for 14 years, and is back to the level that it was at when we were last in power by ourselves. That is significant progress.

[Mark Reckless]

I was talking about the last year under the previous Government, rather than the peak. Is the Minister concerned by the increase in visa applications? They had gone down to 500,000 a quarter in the first half of the year, but are now up to about 530,00 for the third quarter.

[Mr Harper]

It depends on the sort of visa applications. Some people coming to Britain do not count as immigrants, because they are not here for a long enough period of time. I will have to check the information, but my understanding is that our visa numbers suggest that the downward trend on non-EU migration will continue, based on our reforms. It is right to say—this goes to the heart of the debate—that the reason for the increase in the last set of figures was an increase in migration from the European Union, but not from eastern Europe. Interestingly, it was from the more traditional countries—the western European countries, with which there is not a massive disparity in GDP, although our economy has been rather more successful than theirs in creating jobs.

My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley made a key point about employment. We might disagree about the solution, but his concern is well placed. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East made this point strongly, too. Between 2003 and 2008, when the economy was growing under the previous Government, more than 90% of employment growth was accounted for by foreign nationals. Yes, the economy was growing under Labour, but the benefit was largely going to people who were not UK citizens—not the people for whom we all work. We have made a difference. Since the Government came to power, our immigration and welfare reforms have made it more worth while for British citizens to be in work.

Our skills agenda, more rigorous education and more apprenticeships are helping to make a difference. Since the second quarter of 2010, there has been a 1.1 million net increase in employment, and more than three quarters of that rise in employment has been accounted for by UK nationals, so the employment growth that we have seen since we came to power has largely benefited UK citizens, which is a significant turnaround. It is exactly what we wanted to achieve, and it is being achieved not only by the Home Office, but by our policies on immigration, on welfare, and on apprenticeships, training and education, which are all aligned and delivering the same outcome. That is significant, and it means that hundreds of thousands of families in Britain today have somebody in employment; they would not have had somebody in employment if the policies followed by the Labour had continued. That is welcome, and it is something of which we can be proud.

We are still committed to bringing down net migration. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood referred to the Prime Minister’s remarks. Just to be clear, he was drawing attention to the difficulty of the task, particularly given the problems in some of our western and southern European neighbours’ economies. In the interview, he reasserted the importance of delivering on our policy; he was simply drawing attention to the fact that it is a little more difficult than we had first thought, because of the difficulty in the European economies, but we are absolutely still committed to the policy.

It is worth putting the numbers in context. It is still the case with our reforms that, even having driven down migration from outside the European Union, 48% of immigration to Britain is from outside the EU, compared to 36% from the EU; the remainder are British citizens who have been overseas for more than a year and are returning to the United Kingdom. We should remember that many British citizens go to other European countries. According to the 2010 figures, there were 2.2 million EU nationals in the UK and 1.4 million Brits in EU countries. Interestingly, only five European Union countries have more than 100,000 citizens in the United Kingdom, and it is not the ones people might think: France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Poland. In the case of Ireland, there are historical reasons not connected to the EU. Poland is the only non-traditional country that has a significant number, which is 500,000.

If we balance the figures with the countries in which our citizens live, there are only two European Union countries where the net number of EU citizens in the United Kingdom is more than 100,000. There are 145,000 more Germans living in Britain than vice versa, and Poland has a significant number—519,000 more. Of course, Spain is the opposite way round: there are 750,000 more Brits living in Spain. It is worth putting that in context, so that we can have the rational, sensible debate that the right hon. Member for Delyn talked about.

Turning to the specific points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley, and to his new clause to the Immigration Bill, it is worth remembering—I agree with the right hon. Member for Delyn on this point—that for that Bill to take effect, it has to go through our House and the other place. Whether we had debated the new clause this side of Christmas or the other side of Christmas, it would have made no difference, because the measure cannot become law until the Bill progresses through Parliament, and that is not likely to happen until towards the end of this Session. As the Leader of the House has said, the legislative agenda is quite packed. Only yesterday, five or six Acts of Parliament got Royal Assent, and—this is rather above my pay grade, so I have to be very careful, because the usual channels are in the room—the business will be scheduled in due course, but it will not make a difference to when the measure becomes law.

I fear that the right hon. Member for Delyn is right: the previous Government signed the accession treaties and we supported them. Of course I am not pretending that we did not support them. The treaty came into effect in 2007, and the seven-year transitional controls expire at the end of the year. It is worth being careful about language. We are not lifting them; they expire. They cease to have any legal effect, because of the terms of the accession treaties. I am not doing anything to lift them; they simply become legally ineffective at the end of the year, because of the provisions.

Eurojust and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson]

I shall come later in my remarks to what I think the Government should have been doing leading up to this point—making sure that the aspects that they were concerned about were discussed. I shall put a series of questions to the Minister about how many conversations and dialogues took place with the EU to try to get the regulation in a form that was more acceptable to the Government.

As Eurojust is based on co-operation, it places obligations on members to co-operate with joint investigations, and these obligations are set to increase. I shall come back to that. If the Government are serious about tackling human trafficking, terrorism or financial crime, for example, they need to be serious about working with European partners, but I am concerned that the Government seem to be sitting on the sidelines. Their current position appears to be that they would like the UK to stay in Eurojust as it is now, but they are content to let everyone else get on with a new Eurojust, which they are not part of, but which they hope they might get back into in the future. What we should do is work with our European partners to get a Eurojust system that works for us.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I find it difficult to take the hon. Lady’s point in respect of what the Government are doing. Is she implying that we should opt in now, without knowing what will be in the regulation, in order to seek to influence it?

[Diana Johnson]

I shall come on to some of the issues that the Government should have been considering in the lead-up to the motion today, but we will not oppose the motion. However, we have questions about how we got to this point and whether there could have been a proper negotiation with Eurojust that we might have supported. We have never supported the EPPO. That was very clear in the debate that we had last week.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Raab]

I thank the Minister for setting out the Government’s position with admirable clarity.

Given that we are discussing the substance of Eurojust and its evolution, I want to take this opportunity to ask more broadly what strategic thinking has been done on our wider future justice and home affairs relationship. What consultations has the UK had with the Commission and other member states on renegotiating Britain’s wider relationship with the EU in that critical area? It is right to assess each regulation or measure case by case, on its individual merits and substance, in a sober and pragmatic way—the Minister has done that cogently this evening—but, at the same time, we need to look to the bigger picture and the longer-term horizon.

I worry that we will drift into a disjointed, albeit bespoke, relationship with Eurojust and the wider JHA framework almost by default, annoying our European partners without satisfying our national interest, risking the worst of all worlds. Would it not be better to grasp the nettle and spell out proactively, on the front foot, what strategic JHA relationship we want, and why that will serve the EU’s interest as well as the British national interest? In my view, that means a British commitment to be a good operational partner, with all the resources, know-how and expertise we bring to the game, but without sacrificing democratic control over such a sensitive area of national policy. It means saying to our European friends that our co-operation within Eurojust will improve operationally as trust and confidence develop, but that we cannot accept any further transfers of authority or control to the supranational level.

[Mark Reckless]

When my hon. Friend was a witness in the Home Affairs Committee, he recommended that, in respect of Europol, we might want to adopt the Frontex model. Does he believe that that could be an appropriate model for Eurojust?

[Mr Raab]

My hon. Friend is, as ever, spot on. Each area is fundamentally functionally different, but Frontex shows that countries do not have to be formal members that have signed up in a formal way to be active operational partners. We have heard that from the head of Frontex. It is at least a starting point for evolving our relationship with Eurojust and Europol. If, as I suspect, others within the Commission and member states want to go down the federalising route, that option should be clearly discussed now. We should be on the front foot, and not ashamed or beguiled from talking about it.

We need to make it clear that we cannot accept any further transfers of authority, or the salami-slicing of national democratic authority—that is what we are seeing in the attempts to upgrade Eurojust and Europol. Will there ever be a better moment to have that candid but constructive conversation with our EU partners? I doubt it. Government Members have a commitment to renegotiate our relationship with the EU and to put the renegotiated deal to the British people in a referendum. We know that the British people care. According to a ComRes poll for Open Europe last year, repatriating UK control over crime and policing ranks fourth on the public’s list of priorities for renegotiation. That is very high compared with the other priorities surveyed. We also know that there is significant scepticism among the wider public at large on whether any politicians keep their promises on Europe.

The Labour party is responsible for that haemorrhaging of trust. The Government have a genuine chance to rebuild public trust. That ought to start with the decisions we are taking now and over the next six months on crime and policing, underscored by a two-pronged strategic approach to our future JHA relationship with the EU—one that pledges the full operational co-operation of a strategic ally but defends the return of full democratic control, which the British people want and expect.

Immigration Bill

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary and the Prime Minister have made a series of claims about immigration and the Bill, many of which do not stack up. They said that there would be action against illegal working, but there is nothing about that in the Bill. The Prime Minister promised action against those who

“deny work opportunities to UK workers.”

Again, there is nothing about that in the Bill. They promised to reduce the “pull factor” for people from the EU. Again, there is nothing in the Bill about that. They promised to

“reclaim our borders and send illegal immigrants home”,

but border control has got worse and fewer people are being returned than ever. They promised—the Prime Minister said “no ifs, no buts”—that net migration would be down to the tens of thousands by the election. It is currently at 176,000 and recent figures show that it has gone up. There has been a lot of rhetoric and a lot of confusion, and people are concerned about immigration.

We know that over many generations, people have come and contributed to this country: they have built our biggest companies, worked in our public services, and become great scientists, Nobel prize winners and even Olympic medal winners. We also know that in a global economy, in which people travel and trade more than ever, pulling up the drawbridge on all migration is not good for Britain.

Stronger controls are needed. Migration needs to be managed and, yes, we should have a proper debate about measures to control immigration, deal with its impact and tackle illegal immigration. Unfortunately, that is not what we have heard from the Home Secretary today.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Does the shadow Home Secretary realise that we have already gone a little over half the distance from the very high levels of net migration that we saw under the last Labour Government to our target of tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands? Will she congratulate the Home Secretary on that progress?

[Yvette Cooper]

The most recent figures for net migration show that it has increased. The hon. Gentleman has chosen to support a target that ignores illegal migration altogether and that includes university students who contribute to the economy. Furthermore, he can claim that progress has been made in meeting the target if the number of British citizens who leave the country or who fail to return to the country increases. That is the target that he is pursuing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I am proud to speak in today’s debate. The speeches of my hon. Friends the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) and for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) were quite magnificent. They dealt with this issue from their own experience, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, who always speaks so eloquently on these matters. I would even say—those who know me will know how much it costs me to do so—that the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) also made a very good speech.

The quality of the speeches comes from the nature of Members’ constituencies. It was instructive that the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) should say that when the Bill was published he received correspondence from his constituents who, of course, are the landlords, while the constituents who wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East and to me are the tenants. Each of us in this place is properly reflecting the views of our constituents, but, on behalf of those against whom the Bill will be so penal, I hope that hon. Members who do not share the same constituency issues and problems might take note of some of the speeches that have been given already.

I want to focus on the heart of the Bill, which is that the Home Office argues that the immigration appeals framework is flawed. To whom will it give the work? An internal Home Office review estimated that approximately 60% of the volume of allowed appeals are due to casework errors. The Home Office believes that the appeals framework is flawed, but part of the problem with that framework is the poor quality of its initial decisions, which then clog up the appeals process. How can the Home Office believe that an administrative review process will properly go to the heart of the problem? It will not.

As the Bill stands, refused applicants will be required to apply for administrative review within 10 days of receiving the decision. All of us who have extensive correspondence with the Home Office know that most of the decisions come back to lawyers. So lawyers will be required to make that administrative review application within 10 days, but the Home Office must know full well that that simply will not happen. It is not happening at the moment. Many of our constituents do not receive notification from their lawyers until several weeks after even a positive response has been received from the Home Office. The very idea that such a review could be made within 10 days is quite simply incredible. Those officials who have told, written to and persuaded Ministers that this can be done know only too well that that is false.

Under clause 11, where there is right of appeal to the first tier tribunal, refusal decisions made on erroneous grounds or without reference to highly relevant information simply cannot be challenged. The option to raise challenges to unlawful decision making before the High Court in judicial review proceedings will remain, but that means that the time of the High Court judges will be used in pointing out basic errors in Home Office decision making. The Home Office states that the immigration appeals framework is overtly complex, slow and expensive, but reducing the number of appeals will cause the number of applications for judicial review to soar. That will be more expensive, slower and less effective, but it will be the only lawful option left for many cases. The High Court is likely to become the first port of call for those opposing deportation decisions. Again, immigration officials in the Home Office know that. They know that they are taking a bottleneck from one part of the system and putting it in another part where it will be more costly to the public purse.

In the light of the proposed reforms to judicial review funding and challenges to legal aid, including the proposed adoption of a residence test, judicial review will not be practically accessible for a number of cases, leaving individuals without any form of redress and the Home Office with no imperative to improve its processes.

[Mark Reckless]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I listened to the remarks from the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) about an apartheid society and South African pass laws, and was disappointed that he did not give the Minister the opportunity to intervene on that point. He also said that his grandfather was Irish, and I think the past three speeches from Opposition Members have had that theme, and I would like to reply.

The hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) referred to anti-immigrant and anti-Irish policy, and the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) said that any Member of the House who had an Irish background would understand and have experience of the points he made. My mother is Irish. She came to this country in the early 1960s, just like the mother of the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, to help in the NHS. She became a nurse, trained here, developed a career and raised her family. I do not believe that she has ever had the experience of feeling discriminated against, or felt the prejudice that has been described. Many Irish people over many generations have come to this country and had nothing but welcome.

[Ms Abbott]

I was talking initially about the very common attitudes, cartoons, rhetoric and political attacks that were applied to the Irish in the 19th century. That was my point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Reckless]

The hon. Lady says that such things were very common. I cannot comment on the 19th century, although she did mention cases that were more up to date. Whether during the depths of the worst of the de Valera regime in the ‘30s, or after what we have seen in the past five years with the move to switch away from a link to sterling and experiment on the Irish people through the imposition of the euro, which has destroyed so much of the Irish economy, I feel that this country—England, the United Kingdom—has stood ready to welcome people who have come from Ireland, often in large numbers. It has welcomed them and they have found work here that they were not able to find in Ireland.

Other Members have referred to their experiences, history, or what some of their constituents have said, but I do not believe that my mother experienced that prejudice or discrimination as an Irish citizen and passport holder. She has felt welcome in this country.

I was astonished by what the hon. Lady said. As if a large number of people who are prepared to work harder for less money coming here would have no impact on wages! Other things being equal, it will have a significant impact. The debate has changed in that the most recent large-scale immigration—from central and eastern Europe since 2004—has not been of black, Asian or foreign-looking people, as she described them, but of the white Caucasians. She is so insistent that the immigration debate must be about race but, in a way, that immigration has de-linked race from the debate. It is clear that the debate is not, or largely not, about race.

Whatever the overall costs and benefits of immigration, the fact is that the impacts are different. People who are well off often buy goods and services produced by people who have come to this country. The people who have come here have, at least initially, competed for some of the less-skilled jobs. If wages are lower than they otherwise would be in those categories, that allows better-off people to get a better or cheaper service—they understandably welcome the people providing it. However, it is less understandable and not right for better-off people who benefit from immigration to look down on those who do not have the same view of those coming here and think that it is because they have antediluvian or even racist attitudes.

The reality is that less well-off people are competing with those coming in and it affects their wages or how hard they have to work for their wages. Their situation is less good because they are subjected to a large amount of competition from significant numbers of people who have recently come into the country. Sometimes the competition will be between people with skills, but it is often at the lower-skilled end. They will compete with those who might otherwise have those lower-skilled jobs or receive better pay in those jobs. It is not surprising that people are unhappy with the scale of immigration. It is quite wrong for those who benefit from immigration to look down on those people and suggest that their attitudes are racist when what we are seeing is the economic effect.

One other important context of the Bill is this country’s system of eligibility for benefits, which is different from that in most other EU countries. The UK, Ireland, Estonia, Finland and, importantly, Germany, do not require a significant contributory period prior to eligibility for unemployment benefit. That leads to the possibility of people who do not have a long-term connection with this country benefiting without having paid in. I am not suggesting that that is the most significant part of the immigration pull into this country, but it causes concern among my constituents.

The more significant pull within the benefits system is the possibility of family benefits. The payment of child benefit to children who are resident overseas, be that in Poland or, in greater numbers, in Romania or Bulgaria, is wrong and should be stopped. I believe it could be stopped, even under current EU law, but I am not sure whether Ministers agree. Another pull is child tax credits. Our system of in-work benefits for people in some of the not-so-well-paid jobs is very generous compared with the system prevailing in, for example, Poland, particularly if they have children. That is a significant draw and my constituents are not terribly happy with it. They have paid into a system for a long time and see people who do not have that link with the system immediately taking significant benefits from it.

Those two problems are the basis and context of the debate. The recent large-flow immigration de-links race from the immigration debate, although some people would like to preserve the link. In addition, when more recent immigrants compete for jobs with people from a previous migration, the latter understandably object. We will either have to change our benefit system, or leave the European Union.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Some of the hon. Gentleman’s points make sense. There is a case for ensuring fair competition on wages and that benefits are not paid to children who have never seen the UK and never intend to, but none of those points will be addressed by the Bill. Why is he speaking about them?

[Mark Reckless]

One area within the broad range the hon. Lady describes is the charge for the use of NHS services. If someone comes to this country for a considerable period, say as an overseas student, it is right that they should make a contribution. She is right to say that in many of these areas we are not able to make the changes that I would like within our domestic legal system, because of the European Union. It is right, therefore, that my party has said that it will give the people an in/out referendum so that they can decide whether they want us to be an independent country or whether they want to continue to have these rules set by the European Union.

One impact of the scale of the immigration we have seen to this country is the linking of those issues in a way that people understand. If people want to control immigration and reduce the numbers coming from the European Union, we once again need to be an independent country. Over the next year as people from Romania and Bulgaria gain the ability to come here for employment, rather than self-employment—or purported self-employment—or other reasons, I hope that we do not see a huge influx of people from those two countries, which might get in the way of the very good progress that the Government have made towards our target of cutting immigration from the hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. Were that to happen and to reflect on the Government—perhaps unfairly, given that it was the previous Government who signed up to that treaty of accession—it would be unfortunate if in any way that were to prevent the referendum that we have promised coming to pass in 2017.

The Bill will bear down on several channels for immigration, and some of the issues it addresses are quite technical. The Home Office has looked at all the issues and made progress in many different areas to reduce the overall scale of immigration. Part 2, on restricting the right to appeal, strikes a good balance. I have referred to the NHS charge in part 3, but it also addresses the need to ensure that people have the right to be here before giving them a driving licence. That is clearly a good thing. In the United States, that is a massive political issue, and states have very different policies on it. In this country, it seems to have gone by default, but at last we have a Government who are waking up and ensuring that people get a driving licence only if they have a right to do so by virtue of their eligibility to live in this country.

I welcome the Bill’s approach on article 8. We have heard some excellent proposals recently from my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab). I thought that they were very sound and it was a shame that they did not make it into the Crime and Courts Bill, and his approach may have further benefits over and above those in the Bill. Nevertheless, the provisions in the Bill are very sound. For example, and crucially, clause 14 would insert into the 2002 Act a new section 117B(4) that states:

“Little weight should be given to…a private life, or…a relationship formed with a qualifying partner, that is established by a person at a time when the person is in the United Kingdom unlawfully.”

That is overdue. It continues:

“Little weight should be given to a private life established by a person at a time when the person’s immigration status is precarious.”

The fact that that will be in primary legislation will at last give us a real opportunity to rein in the courts and their overly expansive interpretation of article 8. In this instance, it is not so much the European Court in Strasbourg, but our own domestic courts that have had an excessively loose approach to the definition of article 8.

I add one caution. The provisions on article 8, which are good, will act as a restraint—although I look forward to reading them in more detail—but there remains an issue with how section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 has been used. As a general principle of family law, it is right that the interests of the child be paramount—for instance, in a divorce case—but I am much less convinced that it is useful in considering the deportation, following a long prison sentence, of a foreign national, not least because it is not easy for immigration judges to come to a fair and proper assessment of the interests of that child. I suspect that very often the individual concerned will not be a good parental influence on the child, but even where it might have a small impact—if it might become more difficult for that child to see a parent—I am not convinced that it should always be the trump card, which is what section 55 has become. However bad the crime committed, so long as a foreign national can find a UK partner and have a UK nationality child, a reference to section 55 has come close to trumping all other considerations in the eyes of the courts. The article 8 stuff is good, but I am worried that section 55 will still be applied, even when the overall balance, including the public interest, would have individuals deported to their home country.

I congratulate the Home Secretary, the current and former Immigration Ministers and officials in the Home Office, because one thing about the Home Office is that it does respond to a lead. As we saw under the noble Lord Howard, when Ministers have a clear set of objectives and direction of travel, more often than not officials respond, and in many areas the Home Office has done good work that has not been properly sung. For instance, appeals are going a different way because of operating criminal nexus and because judges can now consider information from police short of a conviction. That has largely been upheld as proper and judges have allowed it, and some seriously bad people have left the country who would otherwise have stayed because of the excellent work by Ministers.

I think also of the work on the electoral roll. Previously, Commonwealth citizens would apply to be on the roll even though they had no immigration leave to be here, but now Ministers are insisting on immigration leave and the guidance to electoral registration officers has changed. Rather than people being able to refer to their being on the electoral roll as evidence of their legitimacy, we now have the proper checks and linkages. Those are just two examples, but an awful lot of unsung work goes on in the Home Office. I welcome that, as well as the Bill, which will assist us, at least, in bearing down on immigration, and I give credit to Ministers for their work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Reckless]

I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for his comment. I wonder if I might distinguish the remarks by the right hon. Member for Tottenham to the extent that he referred to a bricklayer he had met. He told a story that I thought at least showed that he began to understand that what was leading to the loss of votes for Labour was economic competition, which the bricklayer faced, rather than race.

[Stephen Phillips]

I am grateful for that intervention, and I am sure that when the right hon. Member for Tottenham has finished his private conversation, he will read it in Hansard in due course.

The hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington referred to the 1905 royal commission on alien immigration. During the course of that commission, as she will know, one of the larger pieces of evidence was given by the then Member for Stepney, Major Evans Gordon. He had written a book two years before the royal commission, and in the preface he wrote:

“The Alien Immigrant has been the subject of prolonged and bitter controversy, in which both sides have been guilty of some exaggeration. On the one hand, there are those who uphold the newcomers as an unmixed advantage in this country; on the other, there are many who denounce their advent as an unmitigated evil.”

I have to say to Opposition Members that that is a debate from which we have moved on. There is no doubt, in 2013, that we have welcomed those who have come to this country to benefit the United Kingdom, and that we have always welcomed those who have had to come here as a result of threats to their health and safety because of events in their home countries.

It is impossible to be a constituency MP in 2013 without those we represent, on whichever side of the House we sit, talking extensively about immigration. They do so because of the damning record of the previous Government, who effectively had open borders and let 3 million people into this country. Three times as many people entered this country between 1997 and 2010 as came here between the Conquest and 1950. [Interruption.] If Opposition Members would stop shouting and actually listen to me and their constituents, they would learn why this is such an important issue. It is so important because of the pressure it has put on public services and because of the way the people of this country have reacted to that open border immigration policy, which has resulted in much of the tolerance for which this country is famed going out of the window. [Interruption.]

Border Force

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am very pleased, on this occasion, to agree 100% with that sentiment, Mr. Speaker. I think I speak for most Members when I say that.

Let me respond to the serious point made by the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick). I do not think I said in my response that everything was rosy. I said that we had inherited an organisation with problems, that we were tackling the problems and that there was more to do. I also said that in response to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), and I pointed out that we had a new director-general.

My experience in the Home Office is that there is always more to do. We have to keep on top of the task of dealing with people who try to come into the country and should not be doing so—while welcoming those who should—and we have to deal with the ever-changing security threats. That is a challenge that I think we are meeting, and meeting every day. I should add that our front-line officers do an excellent job in keeping the United Kingdom safe.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Should not the Border Force, like any organisation that has to deal with pronounced peaks in customer demand, be allowed the flexibility that would enable it to transfer staff from other activities to assist when there are such peaks in demand? Obviously, if we are given intelligence that drugs are coming through, we shall not want to transfer the staff who will deal with that, but is not transferring people who are carrying out fewer random checks than others an example of sensible management?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend has made a sensible point about intelligence. Obviously, as I said in my response, we use it to guide the efforts that we put into freight checking. My hon. Friend has also made the sensible point that there are peaks and troughs in the number of passengers crossing the border. As well as our permanent work force, we have staff on whom we can call at those peak times to ensure that we continue to deliver a secure border, but we are also mindful, of the need to deliver value for money, which the National Audit Office mentions in its report. Of course, all Departments have to deal with the appalling financial legacy that we were left by the Labour party.

2014 JHA Opt-out Decision

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[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?

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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 Huppert]

rose—

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[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.

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[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?

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[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Treaty on the Functioning of the EU

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), has spoken with the Minister for Justice in Northern Ireland and we have started discussions on the implications for Northern Ireland.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

The Home Secretary hopes to change how the European arrest warrant operates by amending our domestic law, but will she confirm that under her policy it is ultimately the European Court of Justice that will decide?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is right in that rejoining measures means that they will come under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, which is why we have given such careful thought and consideration to the list of measures we are seeking to rejoin, but it is possible for this Parliament to make decisions in UK law that change the way the European arrest warrant operates and give us some of the safeguards that many Members of this House feel other EU member states have had, for example in relation to proportionality. As I said in my statement, I am only sorry that the previous Labour Government did not do that when they had the opportunity.

Student Visas

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Indeed, that is an important point. If we look at the number of people from Latin American militaries—air force, navy or army—who have historically had the Prussian tradition of military and then come to the UK to train in a British environment and completely changed their attitude towards democracy and the way in which the military operate in a democratic society, we see another positive aspect of people coming from other parts of the world to study here.

Many hon. Members have rightly referred to the economic benefit of international students coming to study in this country. The Government estimate in 2009, produced by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, was that this country’s higher education exports came to a value of some £8 billion and could rise to £16.9 billion by 2025. That is one of the most significant areas of growth potential in the economy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) said, the University of Sheffield has produced an important report on the economic benefits that can arise from international students coming here. My hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) referred to the importance to the north-east of not only people studying and paying for their courses—many British people do not understand that international students pay fully for their course and, indeed, pay over the odds compared with British people, doing so in advance—but all the other benefits that come to the local economy. According to the University of Sheffield’s study, the relevant figure for Sheffield is £120 million a year.

In addition, we need to consider the wide range of subjects studied. Some people want to say, “It is just about the brightest and the best coming to the United Kingdom.” I wholly agree with those who have said that it was absolutely right for the Government to deal with issue of bogus colleges, but it is not just university degrees at Oxford and Cambridge that we should be concerned with; this is also about postgraduate studies at many different universities and the English language. I would prefer people who are learning English around the world to learn about taps, not faucets, and about pavements, not sidewalks, because I would prefer them to have a British understanding of the English language and get it from the horse’s mouth.

Many schools and universities have valued enormously exchange students coming to the United Kingdom, and they are important in relation to the shorter-term student visitor visa. There is not only an economic advantage to consider, but a social advantage, in terms of, the quality of the education students are able to get. If they are studying international politics or history and people come with completely different experiences from elsewhere in the world, that enlivens, informs and improves the quality of the education of British students in universities and colleges. Also, this is about ensuring that we provide the strongest possible opportunity for overseas students to develop their understanding of what it is like to be in Britain and to do business in Britain. We hope that they will then do greater business with us further in the future.

I would also point out that, as many hon. Members have said, this is an area of migration—if we want to term it as such—that is warmly welcomed and accepted by the British public. Leaving aside the matter of bogus colleges, where foreigners were exploited and not given a proper education, and British taxpayers were exploited because proper controls were not in place, it is warmly accepted in this country that international students are important for our economy. If we are to prosper in the future as a country that is in “a global race”, to use the Prime Minister’s term, we have to be able to compete for international students—for that market around the world.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that not only have we had bogus colleges, but quite a lot of colleges have provided relatively low-value courses, be they in business, accounting or IT, where the incentive of being able to work part-time, stay on to work afterwards, bring dependants and potentially stay on has been much of the reason why international students have stayed, and that the Government have been right to crack down on that?

[Chris Bryant]

I want to see more evidence of precisely what the hon. Gentleman mentions. I believe he has been in his Committee all afternoon, so I understand why he has not been able to take part in the whole of this debate, which is a shame. I merely wish to cite the Government’s own Home Office paper from this year, “The Migrant Journey”, which showed that just 1% of students who came here in 2006 were permanently residing here five years later. So those myths that have sometimes grown up of—[Interruption.] There are others who are still studying and who have gone on to study other courses, but according to the Home Office’s own report only 1% are permanently residing. Some of the myths that have been mentioned in previous debates about 20% or 30% of students staying on afterwards are misguided.

I wish briefly to discuss the Government’s record. The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) referred to the Higher Education Statistics Agency. Its figures showed, contrary to the figures often provided by the Government, that the number of first-year, non-EU, new-entrant students at universities was down by 0.4% in 2011-12. In particular, the number of postgraduate new entrants has gone down from 105,195 to 103,150, which is potentially a worrying trend that we need to examine for the future because it is the first time there has been a fall in those figures for a decade—in effect, for all the time that similar statistics have been available.

As several hon. Members said, the number of students coming from India has fallen by some 8,000. That number may have been made up for by the number coming from China, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) said, it was a sign of the Government’s “forked-tonguedness” or two-facedness that the Prime Minister actually had to go to India to say that there is no cap on international students coming to the United Kingdom. There may not be a legal cap, but it certainly feels as if there is a cap, and the Government have to address that. As the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon said, if this is a growing market, we need to be holding our market share, and that means advancing and not stepping backwards. I would like us to increase our market share, because we have a unique and very valuable offer, and this would be good for the British economy. I worry that the way the Government’s immigration target is crafted has made that more difficult for us to achieve.

All the estimates show a significant fall in Britain’s attractiveness as a place for study, while Australia and Canada have seen dramatic improvements in their attractiveness. One Australian who works in this business told me recently, “I am delighted at what your Government are doing, because you are giving us lots of business.” That should really worry the Government.

I wish to raise one other minor point, which a number of hon. Members have mentioned and which relates to the number of overseas students who come to study degrees in science, technology, engineering and maths. That is the area in which we saw the most significant drop—8%—in 2011-12 in the number of non-EU new-entrant students coming to the UK. That must worry us, because it will affect our future competitiveness and productivity.

I now want to ask the Minister about London Metropolitan university. On 3 September 2012, while responding to an urgent question from my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green)— the Minister’s predecessor—said that more than 60% of students at London Met were involved in the “problems” of dubious education and were not proper students. He added:

“It was not a small, isolated number of students; the sampling showed significant systemic problems throughout.”—[Official Report, 3 September 2012; Vol. 549, c. 26.]

I should have thought that if that had been the case, a significant number of people would have been removed from the country.

That one bovver-booted intervention, made at a time of the year—the autumn—when many people were coming to study in the United Kingdom, sent a message around the world that Britain was not open for business. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us precisely how many students from London Metropolitan university were deemed to be “not proper students” and have been removed from the country. If he cannot do so now, perhaps he will write to me.

In his report on tier 4 visas, John Vine said:

“We found a potential risk of non-genuine students opting to apply for Student (Visitor) visas”,

which, he said,

“are not subject to the same stringent rules that are applied to Tier 4… The Agency needs to be alert to this to ensure that this route is not exploited in the future.”

The dramatic increase in the number of people applying to study shorter courses is almost in direct proportion to the fall in the number applying for tier 4 visas. I fear that a displacement activity may be taking place, and I think there is a danger that unless we impose far more significant controls on shorter-term visas, they will be open to abuse.

Abu Qatada

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The European convention was signed for a particular purpose. Over the years, the European Court has itself interpreted the convention in particular ways, and I believe that when it raised the issue of Abu Qatada and article 6, it moved the goalposts.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned torture in connection with Jordan and the agreement that has been signed. I remind him that the Jordanian Government themselves changed their constitution to outlaw torture. The case of Abu Qatada went before SIAC, and SIAC reached the judgment that it did, because the case law had not been tested at that stage. The Jordanian Government themselves took the step of outlawing torture, and I think that we should congratulate them on the changes that they have already made in their legal system.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

The Home Secretary has to convince the Supreme Court that her case raises an arguable point of law of general public importance. Should she not therefore put the key constitutional question: is Strasbourg entitled to move the goalposts, or does our Supreme Court have the last word?