Leaving the EU: Security, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

The Prime Minister made it clear in her speech yesterday that one of her objectives in exiting the European Union would be to release the United Kingdom from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. During yesterday’s proceedings on the statement made by the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, an issue arose of how cross-border trade disputes are to be settled if the UK refuses to be bound by the rulings of the ECJ. The Secretary of State did not give a comprehensive answer to how such disputes will be arbitrated once the UK is outside the EU, which raises the possibility that he does not yet know.

It gives me enormous concern that the Department for Exiting the European Union does not yet have a clear idea of how the role of the ECJ will be replaced once we leave the EU. Although it might be possible to cobble together a mutually acceptable compromise for trade deals, as the Secretary of State airily declared yesterday, the ECJ has a far greater role to play in our national life than just being the arbiter of trade deals.

As members of the EU, we benefit from a range of different schemes for sharing data and resources across borders, including the Schengen information system, the European arrest warrant, Europol and the European criminal records information system, among many others. We collaborate with our European neighbours on matters relating to family law, asylum and the freezing of assets.

The Prime Minister argued passionately in favour of those measures as Home Secretary, and when leading the Government’s case for opting into 35 justice and home affairs measures in 2014. In this very House, she argued that without such measures we would

“risk harmful individuals walking free and escaping justice, and would seriously harm the capability of our law enforcement agencies to keep the public safe.”—[Official Report, 10 November 2014; Vol. 587, c. 1229.]

Our membership of the European Union gives us an automatic right to the co-operation of our EU neighbours in all those measures. Once we exit the European Union, we will lose that automatic right. As we have seen with the single market, the Prime Minister and her Cabinet are failing to support measures that they have spent their whole careers championing as fundamental to our security and public life.

It is entirely possible that we can negotiate a new agreement to maintain access to data and resources. The UK has been instrumental in setting up many of the cross-border police and crime systems that the EU has adopted, and our contribution will be missed when we leave. It is to be hoped that this will provide a powerful negotiating tool when we come to strike a new deal. However, so much of that cross-border co-operation and data sharing depends on all parties accepting the jurisdiction of the ECJ. There are several reasons for that. First, the EU can only act in compliance with the charter of fundamental rights. The ECJ is the ultimate arbiter of that, so it is impossible for the EU to sign an agreement with the UK that conflicts either with the charter or with ECJ case law.

Secondly, any agreement needs to be policed. If the UK acted in ways that breached the terms of this agreement, it would be open to an EU citizen to take a case to the ECJ and have the EU’s decision concluding the agreement annulled. Thirdly, the developing jurisprudence of the ECJ is binding on EU member states. If the UK failed to keep pace with legal developments on the continent, or diverged from EU law on any significant matter, a gap would open up. The international deals that the EU signs with third countries tend to include a mechanism for discussing legal divergence, including the ability to allow the agreement to be terminated if the differences cannot be reconciled. The UK would therefore have to stick closely to the rulings of the ECJ to avoid the agreement being annulled.

One of the most valuable contributions that membership of the European Union makes to the UK’s continuing security is the sharing of data between national police and intelligence agencies, but the sharing of personal data must be subject to stricter safeguards to prevent misuse. Within the EU, all countries have signed up to data protection legislation that governs the sharing of this data. Once the UK has left the jurisdiction of the ECJ, which oversees the data protection legislation that governs such data sharing, any bespoke agreement will have to continue to be governed by similar levels of protection.

Should UK law diverge from EU law on data protection, any agreement will become void if the ECJ deems that UK law is insufficient to protect European citizens’ data. That would result in the flow of data from the EU to the UK being immediately stopped, putting at risk the ability of British police and security forces to investigate and prosecute potential threats.

Given the Prime Minister’s determination, as expressed yesterday, to cut all ties with the European Court of Justice, I urge the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union to form, with the utmost urgency, a proposal for the future of information sharing and co-operation on security matters between the UK and the European Union. He needs to set out detailed plans for how collaboration can be continued if the UK will not accept the jurisdiction of the ECJ. He also needs to state how the risks of any bespoke arrangement will be addressed, especially the risk that UK and ECJ case law diverge in the future, making negotiated arrangements untenable.

I hope that Members on both sides of this debate will acknowledge that the full implications of rejecting the ECJ were not put to voters in a referendum campaign and that, had they been, the Prime Minister might not now be so determined to remove the UK from its jurisdiction. I hope that the very real risks to our future security are being properly considered by the Secretary of State and look forward to hearing his proposals in greater detail in due course.