Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact on cross-border security of the loss of real-time access to the Schengen Information System; and how many requests for information from that System have been made by the UK since 31 December 2020.

In the absence of UK participation in the 2^nd generation Schengen Information System (SIS II), although there will be a mutual loss of capability, the Government is clear that cooperation with EU partners through pre-existing bilateral channels is unaffected, and that Interpol provides a tried and tested mechanism for exchanging law enforcement alert information. Interpol was the primary means by which the UK exchanged warnings alerts with EU Member States as recently as 2015. It remains the primary means by which EU Member States share information with partners who do not have access to SIS II. Our assessment is that the UK was a safe country before joining SIS II in 2015 and we will continue to be one of the safest countries in the world.

The UK disconnected from the SIS II system at 2300 on the 31^st December. There have, therefore, been no searches against SIS II by the UK since the 31^st December.