EU Justice and Home Affairs Measures

Richard Shepherd Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I want to bring the House’s attention back to the excellent speech from the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer). He touched on the central issue—the most difficult issue for me—which is the mutual recognition of other legal systems. I am puzzled about why the Opposition should be so devoted to sweeping aside any consideration of something so important for our liberty and our due processes.

The problem is mutual recognition, so let me draw attention to the dire events taking place in Perugia. This is uncomfortable for me because I am an admirer of Italy. An English girl was murdered there. The question of guilt ran through three trials, and the return to Italy of the American involved is being sought again. This is not a judicial system with which we are familiar. It is one that, painfully, did not come to a resolution. The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton was right that mutual recognition is not equal standards, so people such as me feel it to be a degradation of our own legal system to be placed in such a position where we have no control over the liberty and freedoms of our own citizens. That is the key point for me.

The Labour party had a Prime Minister who was absolutely convinced that without 90 days of pre-trial detention the state would fall. It was the Labour party that put an end to that nonsense, and the Labour party not going along with 90 days of pre-trial detention, which resulted from the hysteria of Ministers and a Prime Minister, was one of the most exhilarating moments I have seen in this House. I commend the Labour party for that. Why, then, does it not stand up for our own legal system, which protects the liberty of each one of us who enjoys either the jurisdiction of Scotland or our own common law. That is what I am worried about—that the Labour party, which has used the law creatively to advance our liberties, is now prepared to cast away that essential control over the liberty and freedoms of the citizens of the United Kingdom.