UK-EU Renegotiation Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office
Wednesday 3rd February 2016

(8 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton Portrait The Prime Minister
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I certainly can give the hon. Lady that reassurance. The House debated this issue. We opted out of much of justice and home affairs but we specifically chose to opt back into the European arrest warrant because it has proved very valuable, not least in the case that the hon. Lady mentions and other cases, in ensuring that terrorist suspects and serious criminals can be returned straight away to Britain. If we stay in a reformed European Union, those arrangements will continue. It is more a question for those who want to leave to say how they will put back in place something as powerful as what we have.

Steve Baker Portrait Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
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I very much admire the tenacity, the courage and the skill with which my right hon. Friend is defending—nay, polishing—this deal, but what happened to our 2010 manifesto commitments on the charter of fundamental rights and social and employment law?

Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton Portrait The Prime Minister
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We have put in place, as I and my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles), the former Communities and Local Government Secretary have said, all the things that we put in the manifesto—the manifesto on which my hon. Friend and I stood at the last election. The social chapter no longer exists; it is now merely part of the single market legislation. We have secured, for the first time, an annual reduction in legislation, which can of course include the sort of the legislation that my hon. Friend mentions.