Proposed Europol Regulation

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment (a), in line 4, leave out from ‘2005/681/JHA;’ to end and add—

‘and calls on the Government to consider the views of the Association of Chief Police Officers in deciding when to adopt the measure.’.

I am pleased that there is consensus across the House that Europol does a good job for the citizens of the United Kingdom, and that it is beneficial to this country. A quick scan of the Europol website will show that, just in the past few months, it has taken action on false domains for websites, worked with the UK on Italian organised crime, looked into issues relating to counterfeit euros and targeted the enforcement of drug laws, to name but a few. The Minister also mentioned other areas of its work.

The agency is led by a Briton, Rob Wainwright, and it uses its information capabilities and expertise to identify and track the most dangerous criminals and terrorist networks in Europe. It engages in about 13,000 investigations each year. This year, recent successes in the fight against crime have included tackling match fixing in football. In March 2013, Europol broke up a criminal syndicate that was involved in match fixing in 380 top international FIFA and UEFA games, including one Champions League tie in this country.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a very good case for Europol, which makes me curious as to why his amendment seeks to take out the commitment to opt into Europol subject to the red lines mentioned by the Minister, and to replace it with a provision that is much more ambiguous than the one put forward by the Government in the first place.

[Mr Hanson]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we wish to opt into Europol. I will explain our amendment in a moment. This is a take-note motion, and I want to put on record the Labour party’s view on these matters.

Europol has also dealt with investigations into credit card fraud, making 44 arrests this year in its investigation into a massive credit card fraud network, much of which was located in the United Kingdom. In answer to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), yes, Europol is a good thing, and we wish to remain in it, but we also wish to discuss with the Association of Chief Police Officers the question of how we can remain in it in a way that is effective for the coalition Government and for the United Kingdom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

This has been a short but confusing debate. The right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) made what sounded like a pro-European speech, but, despite his protestations, he proposed an amendment that would remove the Government’s commitment to Europol. The contributions from the Conservative Back Benches have lacked the usual recitations from places like Stone and North East Somerset, and we instead had a constructive and positive contribution from my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), and a merely mildly Eurosceptic contribution from the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis). The Minister made what was supposed to sound like a Eurosceptic speech but he was none the less moving a motion that undoubtedly commits us to opt into the regulation post-adoption, subject only to red lines which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) said, are perfectly reasonable conditions to set on the negotiations. Perhaps unlike the Minister, and like the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), I would have rather had us at the table throughout those negotiations. I slightly regret that we are trying to influence the negotiations but not be part of them; we might be accused of wanting to have our gateau and eat it at the same time. Nevertheless, the Minister is proposing a bit of reasonable, coalition pragmatic compromise, which I think delivers the goods. It will commit us, in the end, to opt into Europol and that is absolutely the right thing to do.

Hon. Members have made many mentions of the positive aspects of Europol’s work, including Operation Golf, which led to the arrest of 126 individuals, seven in the UK, for trafficking children and the release of 181 children across Europe. It also probably saved the UK £400,000 by stopping related benefit fraud. Mention has also been made of Operation VETO, which has been led by Europol across 13 European countries and has uncovered an extensive criminal match-fixing network. A total of 425 match officials, club officials, players and serious criminals from more than 15 countries are suspected of being involved in attempts to fix more than 380 professional football matches.

However, one of the best examples of Europol’s work is outlined in the document we were debating earlier today—the Government’s decision document on the mass opt-out. It provides a description of Operation APAR, which tackled drugs, firearms and money laundering. It said that Europol co-ordinated an operation that included

“a series of coordinated arrests and searches…carried out resulting in the apprehension of 32 people and seizures including drugs, firearms, property, vehicles and electronic equipment.”

It continued by saying that Europol

“provided analytical support, facilitated information exchange between investigating law enforcement agencies and arranged operational meetings.”

The Europol mobile office was deployed in the UK, Ireland and Spain.

The Government document is clear about the importance of Europol as opposed to bilateral arrangements in this operation. It states that if Europol had not been involved

“we judge that the results of operation APAR would have been more limited and the operation would have been significantly more expensive….The UK would have had considerable difficulty securely exchanging real-time intelligence and developing operational action plans with those countries”

if it had simply been doing it bilaterally. The description goes on to state:

“Additionally Europol’s secure IT systems enabled timely and effective communication between all four Member States on the day of the operation.”

It is possible to construct such collaborations bilaterally, but in practice if we simply say, “This is what we would like to do” but we rely on everybody else to collaborate by constructing an operation such as Europol, we are acting irresponsibly.

Europol is a very important organisation and I am extremely pleased that, out of the negotiations on the mass opt-out, we are securely committing, subject to just a few red lines, to opt back into Europol. The fact that Rob Wainwright, a Brit, is leading this organisation shows us a new model of the way in which we should approach European issues across the board, with Britain in a leadership role, making a real difference, delivering not just for the people in Britain, but for all the people of Europe.