EU Police, Justice and Home Affairs

Wayne David Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I recognise the point that my right hon. Friend makes. We will supply the Select Committees with explanatory memorandums and the list of measures that the Government propose to opt back into, and we will also discuss with relevant Committees how the vote will be taken in Parliament.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

Given the importance of the European arrest warrant, to avoid any confusion or misunderstanding and to achieve maximum clarity, will the Home Secretary say here and now that it is the Government’s intention to opt into the European arrest warrant because she recognises that it is so important to this country?

[Mrs May]

I will announce what the Government will do in relation to the European arrest warrant at the time that I list those measures that we wish to opt into or not rejoin, so the hon. Gentleman will just have to be a little more patient.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

Sadly, the right hon. Lady does not seem to understand what the decision is about and, therefore, what her debate is about. Her debate is about the fact that her Government negotiated a situation in which we can either opt out of all the measures and then try to opt back in, or opt into all the measures.

I have been very open that it would not be appropriate to opt into any measure that we think would take considerable time and money. We will not be in a position to immediately rejoin Prüm, which requires member states to allow the reciprocal searching of their databases for DNA profiles, vehicle registration data and fingerprints, because implementing it fully will take years and require substantial funding. The previous Government estimated that it would cost more than £30 million back in 2007—that figure may well be higher now—and they subsequently did nothing to implement it.

The shadow Home Secretary’s spurious accusations about the Government’s European policy seem to be a cover for the confusion on her own Benches. I note that in response to a number of interventions she did not clearly state what her own policy is. It seems to be to negotiate an opt-out but not exercise it and to sign up to costly measures such as Prüm but not implement them. That is not the sort of leadership that the United Kingdom needs in Europe.

[Wayne David]

The Home Secretary says that she has had discussions with ACPO. What advice did it give her?

[Mrs May]

ACPO, as it has made clear to Committees of this House, has set out those measures that it feels will be useful in a policing sense. There is absolutely no secret about what ACPO has made clear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

That is a fair point that I take on board in this debate.

I am slightly concerned by the Opposition’s tendency to say that we would be unable to extradite to European countries if we opted out of these measures, or that each extradition case would take 10 years. I believe that we could consider opting back into the European arrest warrant, but only after it had been reformed so that it no longer sacrificed UK citizens to face incompetent justice systems, as in the Colin Dines case; corrupt police, as in the Andrew Symeou case; or appalling prisons, as in a number of cases. We should seek to reform the European arrest warrant, and then have a sensible debate about whether we should opt back into it once it had been reformed. A number of other European countries want to reform it, including Germany, France and the Netherlands. Picking up on the point made by the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), I do not think that our EU partners would want to lose such a major partner as the UK in a field in which we have unique expertise, intelligence and experience.

[Wayne David]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that it is better to achieve change on the European arrest warrant by co-operating with other countries?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

That is exactly what this Government are doing, so I have no issue with that point, or with what the Government are doing.

There is concern that the opt-out is all about ideological hostility to the European Union. I do not accept that, especially coming from Labour Members. The last Government signed up to a vast array of measures without putting in place any proper means of empirically assessing or evaluating their benefits to this country. They simply signed away power after power. I actually think it is quite nice to see this Government properly scrutinising an important decision on policing and criminal measures in this way. I welcome this debate and I look forward to its continuing over the next year or so. I also look forward to voting on these proposals, because it is right that this Parliament should eventually decide for itself whether we have the block opt-out or not.