Yvette Cooper
Main Page: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley)Department Debates - View all Yvette Cooper's debates with the Home Office
(10 years ago)
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Mrs May
The House is getting a chance today to debate the European arrest warrant. The House has been clear that it wished to have such a debate. We were very clear during the debate on the business motion that regulations are before the House, and the House will vote on those regulations. I have also been very clear about the Government’s position. We have brought those particular regulations before the House because they are the only ones that we need to transpose into UK legislation. I will come on to comment on the European arrest warrant. As I said earlier, I am very clear that the vote today relates to whether or not the UK opts back in to the package of measures that we have negotiated. The package comes together; it is not an a la carte menu from which one can pick and choose.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
Is the Home Secretary telling the House that she disagrees with the ruling made by the Speaker—yes or no?
Mrs May
I recognise my hon. Friend’s point. It is one he has made to me on a number of occasions. I have addressed the two areas where people have sometimes said that alternative arrangements could be made. The first is that we would fall back on the Council of Europe convention of 1957. I have been absolutely clear in the remarks I have just made that there is one crucial aspect that would cause us problems: the length of time that extradition procedures would take. As the House of Lords Extradition Law Committee has just said, that could undermine public safety.
There is another aspect in which that would be problematic were we to be negotiating with other member states. Without the arrest warrant there are 22 member states in the EU, including France, Germany and Spain, that could refuse to extradite their own nationals to the UK. In the past five years alone, more than 100 people from those countries have been returned to Britain to face justice, many for serious crimes including rape and murder. One of those was Andreas Ververopoulos, a Greek, who committed a violent and sickening sexual assault on a 16-year-old girl in Hampshire in 2007 and then fled home to Greece. In July 2013, Hampshire police linked him to the crime using DNA and an arrest warrant was used to return him to the UK. In April this year, he pleaded guilty to his crimes and was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment. The judge in the case said it was
“an appalling attack on a young and vulnerable girl”.
After seven years of further suffering, the victim and the victim’s family finally saw justice done.
Yvette Cooper
I, too, have looked at that case. I agree with the Home Secretary that it is an appalling example of a terrible crime. The European arrest warrant was rightly used in that case. Will she say why the EAW is not on the Order Paper?
Mrs May
The right hon. Lady knows that I have answered that question previously.
The right hon. Lady is right that the case I cited was a particularly difficult and awful case in terms of the crime that was committed. Without the arrest warrant, the individual who committed that crime would still be in Greece today. Before it came into force, Greece did not surrender its own nationals. Indeed, it entered a reservation to the 1957 convention specifically barring the extradition of Greek nationals, so the victims of brutal crimes, such as in this case, would go on suffering. We owe it to them to heed the old warning that justice delayed is justice denied.
I want to come on to one final relevant point that was hinted at by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) earlier: the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. This pass was sold when the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) signed the Lisbon treaty. Our opt-out only applies to those policing and criminal justice measures that precede it. Since the Lisbon treaty came into effect, the UK has signed up to 90 new justice and home affairs measures, accepting the jurisdiction of the ECJ over them. We face the same choice today: whether to accept the jurisdiction of the ECJ over the small package of measures that we wish to remain part of from 1 December, so that our law enforcement agencies can continue to use those powers to fight crime and keep us safe; or reject those measures and accept the risk to public protection that that involves. That invidious choice is the result of a poor treaty, badly negotiated. In my mind, however, it is clear: this is a vote about law and order, not a vote about Europe.
I am certainly no enthusiast for the European Court of Justice. The ECJ should not have the final say over matters such as substantive criminal law or our international relations. That is why, as I indicated earlier, 100 or so measures the Government have opted out of, and will not rejoin, include more than 20 minimum standards measures on sensitive matters such as racism and xenophobia. It is why we have opted out of, and will not rejoin, the EU-US extradition agreement. It is this place that should have the final say over our laws on these matters, and Her Majesty’s Government should be able to renegotiate such arrangements as they see fit.
I understand the concerns raised about the European Court of Justice in the many debates we have had on protocol 36. I believe we must look again at this matter in our renegotiations with the European Union before the referendum that a Conservative Government will deliver by the end of 2017. In the meantime, however, we must act in the national interest to keep the British public safe. We have therefore exercised an opt-out, which it seems no one else would have exercised. We have brought back more than 100 justice and home affairs powers that had already been signed away. We have listened to those who work tirelessly to keep us safe on which of the tools at their disposal are vital to their important work. We have gone to Europe and negotiated a good deal for the United Kingdom. We have won support from the Commission and other member states to remain part of a smaller package of measures in the national interest. Now we must vote to transpose those measures that require transposing and, in doing so, vote to seal the deal.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
Today we have had a completely shambolic debate. The Home Secretary has given an excellent account of why we should support policies that are not on the Order Paper. She has given an excellent defence of the European arrest warrant, which is not on the Order Paper. I agree with her that the European arrest warrant is immensely important. It helps us to fight crime. It helps the police, in Britain and across Europe, to stop murderers, traffickers and sex offenders. It helps us to deport more than 1,000 suspected foreign criminals primarily to their own countries to face justice. Given that there is a majority in this House in favour of the European arrest warrant, why on earth are we not voting for it? Why the sophistry? Why the games? Why the dancing around? It is just baffling that the Home Secretary is playing games with something so important to criminal justice and to the fight against international crime and terrorism.
The draft regulations cover a series of measures—the 11 measures that are on the Order Paper—and we support them. The confiscation orders, freezing orders on criminal records, the European supervision order, the joint investigation teams—we support them all. We support the measures on confiscation and freezing orders because no country in the EU should become a safe haven for criminal assets. We should be able to confiscate them wherever they are held. We support the two measures on criminal records and conviction. Exchanged data on the conviction of EU nationals should be harnessed for us to identify, locate and stop EU criminals entering our country and committing crimes. We support the European supervision order as a vital reform to interact with the arrest warrant, because suspects awaiting trial should, if appropriate, be in their home state. We support the joint investigation teams because we saw with Operation Golf that co-operation in complex investigations means we can arrest 126 traffickers from across Europe and safeguard vulnerable children not just in Britain but across the continent too. We support the prisoner transfer framework, because it makes it harder for other member states to refuse to take back their nationals from our prisons. We should have that co-operation in place.
We support the rest of the 35 measures that are not on the Order Paper—the measures we do not have a chance to demonstrate our support for and to vote for tonight. We saw, with the problem of foreign criminals entering in the UK, that the Schengen information system is also vital and necessary. We need Europol to support and co-ordinate cross-border investigations. We support closer co-operation on combating child abuse imagery, because with this crime there are no borders and the police need to work with police across Europe and across the world too. We support action to tackle football hooliganism across borders, and as we have made clear many times in the House, we particularly support the EAW. The Association of Chief Police Officers has described it as an essential weapon, and distinguished legal figures, including the former President of the Supreme Court, have argued that
“Britain also risks becoming a safe haven for fugitives from justice, a handful of them British citizens, but the vast majority foreign nationals wanted for crimes elsewhere in Europe.”
And they are right.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
Does the right hon. Lady believe that our country was a safe haven for foreign criminals before the EAW, and does she believe it is a safe haven now for foreign criminals from countries outside the EU?
Yvette Cooper
As the hon. Gentleman knows, there were cases before the introduction of the EAW when it took years to extradite suspects—for example, suspected terrorists back to France. We should not be in that situation. If we have people in our country wanted in France for serious crimes, particularly terrorists allegations, we should be able to deport them to face justice.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
Is not the important point that in a completely multilateral system we do not stand out, whereas if everybody else opted into the justice and home affairs measures and the EAW, and we alone stood outside, we would become a safe haven, because it would be much easier to stay in this country for extended periods than in any other EU state?
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.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
Is not this fine mess in many ways of Labour’s making, given that the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) gave away the opt-outs? To be clear, would Labour have used the opt-out for any of the 130 justice measures.
Yvette Cooper
Nice try. I will come to the issues that the Home Secretary has opted out of in a second, but the idea that the Home Secretary’s utter shambles today is the fault of the previous Labour Government is pushing the hon. Gentleman’s political argument to a ludicrous extreme.
The statistics are clear: the EAW helps us to deport foreign criminals and terrorists, and of the 1,057 people removed under an EAW last year, only 43 were UK nationals, and eight of those were connected to child sex offences. It is because the EAW and the other measures are so important that we should be having a vote on them now.
The Home Secretary has form. We saw it when she was asked about the net migration promise. No ifs no buts, the Prime Minister made a promise—a contract with the British people, he said—but she said it was no longer a promise but a comment. We saw it again today when she dismissed the Prime Minister’s promise to the House that there would be a vote on the EAW.
Frankly, the whole opt in, opt out process has been a con. It is an in/out hokey cokey back to where we started. On the measures to be opted out of, the Prime Minister promised the biggest transfer of power from Brussels back to Britain by opting out of more than 100 measures, but what powers in practice have been brought back? Britain will no longer be expected to have a good practice guide on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, but we will keep one anyway; Britain will not sign up to having a contact point for cross-border allegations of corruption, but the police and Border Force will still have one anyway; we will not sign up to receive a directory of specialist counter-terrorism officers, but we will get someone to send it to us on the side; we will not sign up to a whole series of accession measures that apply to other countries and did not cover us anyway; we were already opting out of the European judicial network, and we will carry on opting out of it; and we will not be involved in setting up contact points to deal with the other countries in pursuing those responsible for genocide, but we will—quietly—let Europol know whom they should ring.
Time and again, the Home Secretary claims to be repatriating huge numbers of powers, when in fact she is simply opting out of dozens of measures that either do not operate anymore or which cover areas where we plan to carry on regardless, whether we are in or out. So much for a repatriation of powers—it is a repatriation of other people’s phone numbers. She has taken back the Yellow Pages. Congratulations to her.
Yvette Cooper
Given the shambles the Home Secretary has presided over today, the idea that she wants to make this about the last Labour Government is frankly ludicrous, and it makes her look silly. She decided what she wanted to opt into and out of, and she then claimed to the House that she had repatriated powers and safeguarded the hugely important things she is still too scared to give the House a vote on.
Yvette Cooper
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, if he can tell the House whether he thinks, like us, that we should have a vote today on the EAW.
Nick de Bois
Since the right hon. Lady has been busy disparaging the 100 things or so she signed up to, does Labour now acknowledge that the Lisbon treaty was one of the greatest betrayals of this country on record?
Yvette Cooper
Again, nice try. The problem is that we are debating a series of measures that we and the Home Secretary think we should be opting back into. We think that the 11 measures are important, and we want to have a debate today on the additional measures we also think we ought to opt back into: the EAW and the rest of the 35 measures. I understand that the hon. Gentleman and other Conservative Back Benchers disagree, but at least we should have the debate. I can reassure the Home Secretary that there would still be a strong House of Commons majority in favour of her 35 measures, because they are important for fighting crime. Surely, however, we should have that debate so that the House can send a strong signal to Europe and the courts that we support these measures—that they are the right thing for fighting crime and for Britain and Europe.
Sir William Cash
Is the shadow Home Secretary effectively saying that she agrees with the treatment of the Kings: a small child with a brain tumour is taken away from his parents in Spain, a European arrest warrant is issued by the British courts—after the July reforms—and the parents are arrested? Was that a good way to treat a child?
Yvette Cooper
I think there was dreadful decision making in that case. The police should not have continued with the EAW—they should have withdrawn it—and I think it was a bad decision. However, the hon. Gentleman will know of cases in this country where the police wrongfully arrest somebody; we do not then conclude that the police should not have a power of arrest. Instead, we say there should be proper and thoughtful decision making. What happened to that family should not have happened, and the whole House will have immense sympathy with them. They should not have been put through what they were put through.
Sir William Cash
Of course, the big difference is that in the case of the Kings, this European arrest warrant is subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. It overtakes the Supreme Court; it overtakes this Parliament because the Lisbon treaty has allowed it to do so. That was passed by the right hon. Lady’s Government, but the bottom line is that it has created grave injustice.
Yvette Cooper
As I have made very clear, the police and the CPS should have withdrawn that arrest warrant much earlier; it was the wrong thing to do. I also think it important for the police to be able to work with other police forces right across European and right across the world, and to have these particular powers in place to work in Europe. The Home Secretary agrees, and we agree with her that this is the right thing to do, but the way in which we have had this debate in Parliament today has been utterly chaotic.
Geraint Davies
We have heard from the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) about the Kings, but what about Hussein Osman, one of the 21/7 bombers, or the murderer Jason McKay and many more appalling cases of appalling crimes that have been brought to justice by the European arrest warrant? Yes, there have been a few odd mistakes, but a massive number of criminals have been brought to justice who, if the hon. Gentleman had his way, would still be lounging around, posing a threat to the public.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right. A huge number of people, including more than 1,000 foreign citizens, are deported from this country, having been suspected of committing crimes, to face justice. I think it is right that we have the ability to do so.
The Home Secretary has basically told us that we should be grateful for the debate that the Government have somehow conceded should take place. You gave your ruling, Mr Speaker, that we were not having a vote on the European arrest warrant. The Home Secretary then stood up and completely contradicted that. She went on to say that we were voting on a package of 35 measures and that it was not a “pick and mix”. Why, then, has she picked and mixed only 11 of the measures and put them on the Order Paper rather than the full package of 35? The Prime Minister said categorically that we would have a vote on the European arrest warrant, yet he has refused to allow it.
Again I urge the Home Secretary to rethink. It is not too late for her to rethink and to provide the House with a specific vote on the European arrest warrant. It is true that some of her Back Benchers would vote against it, but the rest of us would vote for it. On the Labour Benches, we want enthusiastically to endorse the Home Secretary’s measures; on the Conservative Benches, Members want rebelliously to oppose them—but we all want a parliamentary vote.
Is not the truth that the Government took the European arrest warrant out of the motion because the Home Secretary and the Chief Whip thought they were being clever? They took it out because they wanted to minimise the rebellion. They wanted to tell journalists that it was a vote on the European arrest warrant, but tell the Back Benchers not to worry because they were voting only on prisoner transfer agreements. They wanted to pretend to Parliament that this was a vote on a package of 35 measures, yet let their MPs fend off UKIP in their constituencies by claiming that they never voted for the most controversial plans.
Yvette Cooper
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if he can tell me whether the European arrest warrant is included in this motion.
Ben Gummer
I have the privilege, unlike the right hon. Lady, of being in receipt of communications from the Whips and from the Home Secretary about today, and I have to say that we were all perfectly well aware of what we are debating, as the right hon. Lady has made clear.
Yvette Cooper
It might have been helpful if the hon. Gentleman had explained that to some of his fellow Back Benchers—and certainly to us, as we really would have liked to know. We thought we were coming to vote on the European arrest warrant. When we saw the motion on Thursday and Friday last week, I specifically wrote to the Home Secretary to ask for clarity, because it was utterly baffling to us.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) quite understandably does not read his communications from the Whips Office with care and attention. Had he read section 4 of the document on today’s business, he would have found that it said:
“We then move to a motion to approve the draft Criminal Justice and Data Protection (Protocol No. 36) Regulations, which includes the European arrest warrant.”
I hope I have been able to clear up this matter.
Yvette Cooper
Now that the hon. Members for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) and for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) have referred to this document, it really must be put in the public domain. The hon. Member for North East Somerset has kindly put it in front of the House so that that we can all consider it.
That demonstrates the chaos we are in. You have ruled, Mr Speaker, that this is not a vote on the European arrest warrant, yet communications to Government Back Benchers were very clear that it was.
Let me now give the Home Secretary the opportunity to agree from the Dispatch Box that there will be a vote—an additional vote—on the European arrest warrant before the Rochester and Strood by-election. Let me give way to the Home Secretary so that she can do this. [Hon. Members: “Come on!”] She has not done so, and that is really disappointing. Let me give her one further opportunity to do so, because it is a huge concern for this House if we do not have the opportunity to put the European arrest warrant beyond legal doubt—we know the mischief lawyers will make through judicial reviews. Let us have a chance to give a strong signal that we support all 35 measures, not just the 11 that appear on the Order Paper. [Interruption.] It is no good the Home Secretary saying from a sedentary position that we will do that by voting for this motion, because Mr Speaker has said that it is not a vote on the European arrest warrant. We are therefore acting on advice from the House. I urge the Home Secretary again to stand up and say that she will withdraw this motion and give us the opportunity to vote on the full 35. I will let her do so.
Yvette Cooper
I have to tell the Home Secretary that this puts the House in an extremely difficult position. She has effectively said that Ministers are just going to make it up. The Speaker has been very clear that this motion does not include a vote on the European arrest warrant. The right hon. Lady has said that she is going to reinterpret this in any way she chooses. That is an irresponsible way in which to treat this House. If she brings this motion back tomorrow, with all 35 measures included, we will support it. We will work with the business managers, we will support it, we will vote for it. Then there would be no doubt that we had categorical support for all 35 measures. The Home Secretary should do that tomorrow. We will get it through—there is plenty of time. Will she do that tomorrow?
If the Home Secretary will not do that tomorrow, she is playing fast and loose with the criminal justice system and fast and loose with this Parliament. On that basis, Mr Speaker, I think we need further debate now, and to return to the issue tomorrow. We have loads of time tomorrow. There is plenty of time for the Home Secretary to do this tomorrow. We could get it all in place. On that basis, I move that the Question be not now put.
Mr Speaker
Order. The question is, that the Question be not now put. As the Previous Question is an unusual procedure, addressed on page 404 of “Erskine May”, I ought to explain the effect of so deciding. I should perhaps first make the point that the question is debatable. If the previous question is agreed to, the draft regulations will not be further considered at this sitting. If the previous question is negatived, the Chair will be required to put the question on the draft regulations straight away, with no further debate. Only if the previous question is withdrawn can the House continue to debate the regulations. As usual, withdrawing the previous question would require the unanimous assent of the House. I repeat, for the sake of clarity and the benefit of Members, that the question is, that the Question be not now put.
Mrs May
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for setting that out so clearly, and she is obviously deeply concerned about that point. She intervened on me earlier in relation to a particular case, and I would add to that that while, of course, in any individual case it is up to the independent police and prosecution services to choose what to do, if we were not in the European arrest warrant it would, as she has indicated, be harder for us to extradite people who had committed offences in Northern Ireland and who were now in the Republic of Ireland. The Minister for Justice in the Republic of Ireland has been very clear that if there is any operational gap at all between being in the European arrest warrant and opting back in to it, which there would be if we reject the package of measures, that would have serious consequences because it would be assumed that the arrangements currently in place would no longer be extant.
Yvette Cooper
Will the Home Secretary confirm that there is time tomorrow to debate this, and we would then be able to vote on the whole package of 35 measures, support all of them and have no operational gap by 1 December? Will she confirm there is time to do this tomorrow?
Mrs May
If the right hon. Lady is concerned about the operational gap, she is perfectly able to vote for the regulations we have put before the House tonight. She talks about wanting to have time for debate. I say to her that we had time for debate and what has happened is she has raised another motion that is interrupting that time for debate.
Mrs May
I say to my hon. Friend, as I have been saying throughout the debates on the various motions tonight, that the Government have been very clear about why they have brought the regulations forward in the form they have done in relation to UK legislation, but we are also very clear that if this House votes in favour of the regulations, then it is endorsing the package of measures the Government have brought forward to ensure we can maintain the ability of our law enforcement agencies to deal with matters they need to deal with.
Yvette Cooper
So determined are we that the House should be able to debate and pass these regulations and the rest of the 35 measures that we will not jeopardise those regulations. We want to have a vote tomorrow. The business managers can agree, and will agree, to have a debate and vote on all the measures tomorrow. If not, the Home Secretary can have our Opposition day debate in order to do it then, so there is no gap and we can get all these measures voted on in this House.
Mrs May
The right hon. Lady doth protest too much. If she wishes to have a debate and to vote on the regulations, that option is open to her tonight. However, she has chosen to play politics with the matter and tried to curtail the debate. As we have heard from the Speaker’s answer to the point of order raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), a significant number of Members have indicated that they wish to speak in the debate on the regulations. The Speaker has granted latitude regarding the subjects that Members may speak about, and we are able to debate the European arrest warrant and other matters that are not in the regulations.
It is open to the House to have that debate but, sadly, the right hon. Lady has chosen to take a step that could curtail the debate and ensure that the regulations are not put before the House, in which case it would not be possible for Members to have their say on these important matters. She and I agree on the importance of these matters. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and I might disagree on how some of them should be finalised and on whether we should be party to the measures, but I am clear that, at this point, the House of Commons has an opportunity to debate and vote on measures that relate to law and order in this country. These are important decisions for the House to make, and I have clarified for the House the exact form of the regulations.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
In a fit of enthusiasm earlier this evening, I voted with the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and the Labour party along with a rather distinguished collection of rebels from at least two diametrically opposed positions on Europe and from at least four different political parties. That was because we all shared her frustration at the outcome of the procedural shenanigans that have landed us in this situation in which we are voting on only 11 of the 35 justice and home affairs measures, and not specifically the European arrest warrant, which is the very one that we all wanted to debate and vote on. Now, the right hon. Lady has got a bit carried away. I cannot see any earthly reason, however frustrated we all are with the situation, for not voting on the 11 that we all agree on. There is no logic to that whatever. What justification is there for not voting on co-operation between asset recovery offices of the member states in the field of tracing the proceeds of crime? That is something on which we all agree.
Martin Horwood
I am making only a brief speech, but I will happily give way.
Yvette Cooper
Let me clarify this matter for the hon. Gentleman. We think we should vote in support not just of these 11 measures but of all 35 so that we have a vote from this House that puts it all beyond legal doubt, and we should do so tomorrow. We will work with him and the Government Front Bench to make that happen. The Government can have our Opposition day debate if they do not want to do it tomorrow.
Yvette Cooper
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can you confirm that the House will now move to vote on the 11 measures that the Home Secretary has put forward, which we support? Have you had any indication from Government Front Benchers, in the light of the speeches made in all parts of the House today, that they will come forward with a vote tomorrow on the remaining 24 measures?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her point of order. As I indicated in my explanatory statement before this vote, in which I sought to explain to the House the implications of different courses of action, I had been approached about debating some matters tomorrow, and I explained what was possible, but no determination was communicated to me by Government on that matter. In the circumstances, therefore, the proper course is to proceed to the next vote, which flows naturally from the defeat of the first motion. I therefore now need to put the Question on the draft regulations straight away without any further debate.
Original Question accordingly put.