Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of effect on the (a) cost and (b) duration of international and domestic criminal investigations of the decision not to opt-in to the Proposal of the European Parliament and the Council on European Production Orders and European Preservation Orders for cross-border access to electronic evidence on criminal matters.

The Government has decided not to opt in to the EU’s “e-evidence” Regulation as while we share the EU’s objectives in this area, it is not clear that the Regulation will be a practical or effective way to address what is a global issue. This opt in decision will have no impact on how UK law enforcement carry out international and domestic criminal investigations.

We are also legislating domestically to tackle this issue, through the Crime (Overseas Production Orders) Bill. This legislation will allow law enforcement agencies and prosecutors to apply directly to service providers based in a territory with whom the UK has a relevant international agreement, by way of a UK court approved order for stored electronic data. This will make the process for gaining access to this type of data faster.