Criminal Law

Steve Rotheram Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I have set out quite clearly the Government’s view on the motion before the House and the debate that we are having. I will attempt to make progress, because I want to get on to some of the other issues, including the European arrest warrant. I recognise the degree of interest in that and the concern that remains among some hon. Members. That is why I wish to have time to speak about that particular measure.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Mrs May]

I will give way once more and then I will make progress.

[Steve Rotheram]

Following on from what the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) said, when the Prime Minister was offered parliamentary time to debate the European arrest warrant by the Leader of the Opposition, he said:

“There is only one problem with the right hon. Gentleman’s …question: we are going to have a vote, we are going to have it before the Rochester by-election—his questions have just collapsed.”—[Official Report, 29 October 2014; Vol. 587, c. 301.]

What has changed, Home Secretary?

[Mrs May]

We are having a vote on the regulations tonight and it has been made very clear that people are able to discuss the European arrest warrant in the debate.

If we were to vote against the motion tonight and did not opt back in to the measures—because a vote against the motion tonight would be a vote against the package of 35 measures—we would find ourselves kicked out of Europol within weeks and our extradition arrangements would be thrown into legal uncertainty, potentially for years. That 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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman is right. It is suggested that we could arrange separate extradition treaties, but in the past when we did that, they took too long and caused immense problems. In the case of Rachid Ramda, the Algerian national arrested in the UK in connection with a terrorist attack on the Paris transport system, France sought extradition from the UK in 1995. The process was completed in 2005. That was when the EAW was not in place.

[Steve Rotheram]

My right hon. Friend started by calling the proceedings in the House “shambolic”. Does she agree that the Home Secretary has got herself into a mess, but that equally the Prime Minister has got himself into a mess, because on 29 October he told the House that he would join Opposition Members in the Lobby on a specific vote on the EAW?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. The Prime Minister was asked specifically about the EAW, not the 11 measures on the Order Paper, and he could not have been clearer: he said there would be a vote before the Rochester by-election. That he and the Home Secretary think they can rip up promises made to the House shows that they are not taking this Parliament seriously.