The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the UK’s 2014 justice and home affairs opt-out decision.
We return once more to the important issue of the United Kingdom’s opt-out decision in relation to justice and home affairs matters under the Lisbon treaty—an issue that not only raises important questions about the protection of individual rights, but directly affects our law enforcement agencies’ ability to work with their EU counterparts to keep British citizens safe. It is an issue in which a number of right hon. and hon. Members have taken a keen interest, and the Government are grateful to them for their work in this area so far, not least the Select Committees on Home Affairs and on Justice and the European Scrutiny Committee, before all of which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice and I have appeared on a number of occasions.
Those Committees have produced many valuable reports on the 2014 opt-outs. Their most recent was a joint report that was published on 26 March, in which they expressed the view that the Government have not engaged properly with Parliament on this issue. We deeply regret that they take that view and respectfully disagree. The Government have strongly supported and, indeed, encouraged Parliament’s scrutiny of this important matter from the very start of the process. I made an initial statement in October 2012 because the Government considered it important to communicate their proposed direction of travel at an early stage to enable scrutiny of the position to take place. That was in line with standard practice on EU police and criminal justice matters.
Since then, the Government have invited the Committees to play their part in this important work and have supported them in doing so. Well over 12 hours of ministerial time have been committed to giving evidence before the Committees. The Government have also submitted written evidence to inquiries and corresponded with the Committees on a regular basis. In addition, we have answered more than 300 parliamentary questions on this matter.
None the less, we take the Committees’ disappointment seriously. In the light of their disappointment and the views of other right hon. and hon. Members, the Government have allocated time this afternoon for the House to debate this important issue once again.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
It is very unusual for three Committees of the House to agree on every single word of a joint report, which is what we did. The point that the three Committees made—the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee is here and he can make his own points on this—was that it was important for Parliament to deliberate on this matter before the package was put in place, rather than afterwards, which would give Parliament very little time for proper discussion. That is why we felt that it was important to deal with this matter at the earliest opportunity. We are grateful to the Home Secretary for giving us this time.
Mrs May
I am grateful to the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee for setting out the reason behind the joint report from the three Committees. I will go on to explain exactly where we are in the process. He talks about the package coming before the House before it is adopted. We have made it very clear that there will be another opportunity for Parliament to debate the matter and vote on it.
I should remind the House of the background and the stage in proceedings we have reached. Under the terms of the Lisbon treaty, which the Labour Government signed in 2007, the UK had a specific and limited period of time to opt out of roughly 130 justice and home affairs measures covered by the treaty. That opt-out—Labour negotiated it, but never made it clear whether it would use it—had to be exercised en bloc, and before 31 May this year. Last July, the Government informed the House that we intended to exercise the UK’s opt-out. After debates in both Houses, Parliament voted for us to do so.
Accordingly, on 24 July 2013, the Prime Minister wrote to the then President of the Council of Ministers, informing her that the UK had exercised its right to opt-out from all pre-Lisbon police and criminal justice measures. That decision is irreversible, and will come into effect on 1 December 2014.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
Paragraph 85 of the Home Affairs Committee’s ninth report, which dealt with the matter, states:
“The Government should…be explicit on what would happen if the proposed opt-in could not be agreed”—
in other words, they should be explicit on what would happen if the negotiations failed. That did not get a substantive response. Will the Home Secretary be explicitly clear about what will happen if the Government fail to agree the opt-in terms?
Mrs May
I will refer to one or two specific measures in relation to that, but as I have just indicated to the House, the Government have exercised the block opt-out. It is open to us to seek to rejoin any of the individual measures covered by it. If we do not negotiate to rejoin those measures, we will no longer be part of them from 1 December 2014.
When I came to the House last July, I explained that my ministerial colleagues and I had concluded that a number of the measures subject to the opt-out decision added value in the fight against crime and the pursuit of justice, and that it would therefore be in our national interest to seek to rejoin them. We believe that there are only a limited number of such measures—we set those out in Command Paper 8671 for the House to see before it voted on our decision to exercise the opt-out.
They were always separate decisions, and the Government have always been clear that Parliament and its Committees should have adequate time to scrutinise both. To make that explicit, we listened to the concerns of hon. Members, and particularly to the Chairmen of the Committees to which I have referred, and amended the motion for last July’s debate to invite the European Scrutiny Committee, the Home Affairs Committee and the Justice Committee to submit reports before the Government opened formal discussions with the European Commission, the Council and other member states.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I endorse what the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee said with one qualification. It is not just a question of whether Parliament is given the opportunity to deliberate before decisions are taken behind closed doors, but a question of whether Parliament is, in effect, being asked to rubber stamp something that has already been decided in negotiations behind those closed doors. The problem is one of the matter therefore being hidden from the searching gaze of the public and Parliament itself.
Mrs May
Of course, by definition, the Government’s role is negotiating with the parties I have just indicated—the Council, the Commission and the member states—on those measures to which they agree it is possible for us to opt back into. That process, which takes some time, has been put in motion. I will describe where we are a little later but, by definition, the process must be undertaken by the Government. We have been clear that we will come back to Parliament, which will have the opportunity to debate and vote on the package of measures.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) is well aware, we have indicated the measures on which we wish to opt back in. The discussions are in place with the European Commission and the other member states as to their views—whether or not they wish the UK to opt back in—and any other matters they wish to discuss with us as part of that negotiation.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
To ensure the fullest engagement with Parliament, ought not it to be the case that we vote on every individual measure and not on a package?
Mrs May
The Government have always seen this clearly as a number of measures, some of which interlink and relate to one another. Therefore, they are part of a package in relation to our ability better to protect the public and ensure that our law enforcement agencies have the powers that we consider they need.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
In what precise form will any vote be taken? Would it have legislative effect if the House added or took away one of the measures?
Mrs May
The Government will not bring forward legislation to the House on this matter, because that is not necessary. We will put before the House a package of measures that, following discussions with the European Commission, we believe we should be rejoining.
We responded to the Select Committees when they submitted their reports. I am sure that their work will inform the speeches we will hear in today’s debate.
I said that I would indicate what progress we had made in the negotiations. Everybody will of course understand that the nature of a negotiation is such that it is a poor negotiating strategy to reveal one’s hand in public while a deal is still being done. Detailed and constructive discussions are taking place with the European Commission and other member states. There are a great many processes and technical matters to discuss, but we are all keen to avoid the operational gap for our law enforcement agencies that will ensue if we have not settled the matter before 1 December, when, as I indicated earlier, the UK’s opt-out takes full effect. Our aim is therefore to reach an “in principle” deal well ahead of that date, and, as I have already indicated, to return to Parliament for a further vote before formally seeking to rejoin measures in the national interest.
Keith Vaz
I am most grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way a second time. Has she seen reference made to a note by the Greek presidency that was published by Statewatch—it was leaked; it was not published by the presidency—that the United Kingdom needs to have its re-opting list agreed by June 2014; in other words, before the parliamentary recess? Has she seen that note and is that the case? Do we have to get all our priorities ready by then?
Mrs May
I am aware of a number of reports in the press in relation to documents that, it is claimed, have been leaked as part of the discussions that have been taking place. The timetable I have set out is very clear. On 1 December, having exercised the opt-out, we will no longer be part of any of the roughly 130 measures covered by the opt-out protocol. If, before that date, we have not negotiated the package, had the parliamentary debate and vote, and been able to agree the formal terms for returning to those measures that we choose to opt back into, then we will be out of those measures. It is that date that sets an end-point for us on when we want to be able to ensure we can opt back in.
Chris Bryant
The Home Secretary is always very generous to me; I have never complained about her generosity and magnanimity. I just want to go back to the question I asked last time, because I do not think she understood fully what I meant. I understand that the motion before the House will not be legislation—it will not be an Act of Parliament or secondary legislation—so will it just be an amendable motion that the Government can then completely and utterly ignore?
Mrs May
It will be an opportunity for this House to debate on the basis of a motion that the Government will bring forward. By definition, we have not yet put that motion into place, so the hon. Gentleman may just have to wait and see the nature of the motion when it is brought before this House. The Government have been clear that Parliament should be able to exercise the opportunity to give its views on the discussions we have had with the European Commission and member states in relation to the measure that we choose to opt into. We have been clear throughout this process that Parliament will be given a vote on the final list of measures. I am happy to confirm, as I have done already on a number of occasions in the limited time that I have been speaking, that that will be the case.
While the negotiations continue, I realise that hon. Members want to debate and comment on some of the specific measures that the Government identified in Command paper 8671 as being in our national interest to rejoin. Chief among them is the European arrest warrant. I know that this measure arouses particular feeling in the House. We clearly need strong extradition arrangements in place to see criminals convicted and justice done, but when extradition arrangements are wrong, they can cause misery to suspects and their families, and risk miscarriages of justice.
The previous Labour Government had eight years to address the concerns that people raised in respect of the European arrest warrant, but they did nothing. Where they failed to act, this Government have legislated to implement new safeguards to increase the protection offered to those wanted for extradition, particularly British citizens. The concrete steps taken by the Government in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 will tackle the operational deficiencies of the arrest warrant head on.
Our changes will protect the fundamental rights of British citizens by allowing arrest warrants that are issued for disproportionate offences to be refused; they will address the understandable concerns that many people had about lengthy pre-trial detention; they will help to ensure that British nationals will not be extradited when the prosecuting authorities are still investigating offences; and they will help to ensure that people cannot be extradited for conduct that takes place in the United Kingdom and is not against the law of this land.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
I am grateful to the Home Secretary for many of the changes that are being made, but, as she knows, I have specific knowledge as a result of the experience of my constituent Andrew Symeou, and I feel obliged to make a point that he made recently when being interviewed about the changes. Although steps have been taken to prevent people from being held for unnecessary periods when a case is not trial-ready, he is certain that the Greek authorities lied in his case, and that there is nothing to prevent them from doing so again.
Mrs May
My hon. Friend’s constituent has particular experience of the operation of the European arrest warrant, and my hon. Friend has been assiduous in drawing attention to that case and to the case for change. However, it will be possible for the process that determines whether a case is trial-ready to take place in the courts here in the United Kingdom, and for decisions to be made there. I am confident that proper consideration will be given to evidence given by the authorities in Greece or other member states concerning the preparedness of the case.
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has set out the safeguards that will apply to the European arrest warrant, which, as she knows, is of huge concern to many people in this country. One of the fears that we all have is that all the measures into which she wishes to opt will be subject to the European Court of Justice. How certain can she be that those safeguards will be upheld by the Court?
Mrs May
It is true that the measures that we opt back into will be subject to the European Court of Justice, but I take some confidence from the fact that other member states have already introduced measures that are similar to a number of the measures that we are introducing in our own legislation. It is noticeable, for instance, that some member states are more able to deal with the proportionality issue than we have been so far. I think it a pity that the last Government did not introduce such measures, but we recognised the extent of the concern that was being expressed and the fact that it was possible for us to act, which we have done. We made changes to the way in which extradition works—in the face of some resistance—in order to protect British citizens in respect of extradition to the United States, and we have now legislated to change the operation of the European arrest warrant in the UK and enhance the protections that British citizens enjoy. The Labour Government dithered, but we have acted to protect British citizens from injustice at home and abroad.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Will the Home Secretary say a little more about the extradition of British citizens to the United States? What improvement has she made in that regard?
Mrs May
I have made a number of improvements. The most obvious one is the introduction of the forum bar. That was not entirely popular on either side of the Atlantic, but we did it because we felt that it was right. I believe that it is an important safeguard in relation to the extradition of British citizens outside the European Union.
I believe that our reforms will make an important difference to the European arrest warrant. It is, of course, in our national interest to have an effective extradition system, and no other extradition system would be as effective.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Before my right hon. Friend leaves the subject of proportionality, may I ask whether she has seen reports in today’s papers about a meeting of the Council of Ministers at which the French and Germans have indicated that they do not think that the proportionality test meets the requirements of European law?
Mrs May
I am aware of the report in today’s press, but I do not think that it referred to a Council of Ministers meeting. It may have referred to a document that possibly had been leaked from the European Commission. I say to my hon. Friend that, as I have made very clear, there are matters for discussion and matters for negotiation that we have to undertake as we go through this process, but other member states do have within their own systems a greater ability to deal with issues such as proportionality, and I think it is right that we have taken powers ourselves in our own legislation to do that.
Returning to my point, I think it is in our national interest to have an effective extradition system in place and no other extradition system would be as effective. We owe it to the victims of crime, and their families, to return the alleged perpetrators of serious crimes to this country and ensure that they face justice. There are many examples of that, of which I will cite only a few.
The arrest warrant recently helped the British authorities to secure the extradition and conviction of Francis Paul Cullen, a former priest who sexually assaulted seven children before spending more than two decades on the run in Spain. Thanks to the European arrest warrant, he will now swap the Spanish sun for a 15-year term in a British jail.
Our law enforcement agencies are clear that the arrest warrant has helped them to secure the return of dangerous criminals to face justice in the UK—criminals who under the old regime might not have been returned to answer for their crimes, including David Heiss from Germany and Florian Baboi from Romania.
David Heiss viciously murdered a British student, Matthew Pyke—originally from Stowmarket in Suffolk—in Nottingham in September 2008, stabbing him 86 times. Heiss was arrested on a European arrest warrant at his home in Germany a month after the offence and was surrendered to the UK the month after that. He has since been sentenced to a minimum of 18 years in prison. Before the European arrest warrant, Germany did not surrender its own nationals; indeed, there was a constitutional bar to its doing so, so it is clear that in this case the arrest warrant made a real difference.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
In how many of the recent cases is the European arrest warrant making extradition quicker, rather than facilitating it when it would not have happened under existing arrangements? The Home Secretary has given one very powerful case, but quantitatively how many cases are we talking about because the argument has been made that actually we would face a cliff edge and just not get fugitives back rather than get them back a little bit slower?
Mrs May
The argument I make in relation to the European arrest warrant is on both those aspects of its operation. I have just cited a case where there was an issue of whether an individual would have been able to be extradited back to the UK had we not had the European arrest warrant. There are other cases where it is a matter of fact that the European arrest warrant has been able to be exercised more quickly on average than extraditions were before the EAW was in place. So it is not just that there are people who would not come back unless we had the EAW; it is that it also smoothes the process and makes this quicker and brings people here to justice quicker.
Mr Cash
The Home Secretary has given us a number of indications of concerns that have arisen in some member states. Is she conscious of the fact that the French have said the UK requirements risk imposing an undue burden on other member states, that the Germans raise serious doubts about compatibility with European law, that Spain says the Legal Service should give its opinion and that the Dutch have said that there are a number of fundamental and practical problems? Is it not all rather running into the sand?
Mrs May
No it is not, and I have to say to my hon. Friend that he is not party to the discussions that we are party to, but I am interested that he mentions Germany because it is one of the countries that has a greater ability to deal with the proportionality issue than the United Kingdom. As I say, there are other member states who have themselves already, either automatically because of their constitution or because they have taken powers, taken steps to ensure they can deal with the very issues we are dealing with in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act I referred to earlier.
Florian Baboi is a Romanian national who was returned to the UK from Romania under an arrest warrant to stand trial for the murder of David McArthur in Birmingham in August 2011. He was found guilty in May 2012 and sentenced to life in prison. That is another case where the EAW has helped to bring dangerous offenders to justice.
So it is unsurprising that the Association of Chief Police Officers’ evidence to the Home Affairs Committee made clear its view that the arrest warrant is an “essential weapon” in the fight against serious criminality. This view was echoed by the outgoing Director of Public Prosecutions, who was clear that the streamlined process of the arrest warrant makes it easier to bring serious criminals back to face justice. I agree wholeheartedly with those assessments.
Dr Huppert
The Home Secretary is absolutely right to highlight the huge importance of the European arrest warrant. I am constantly surprised by people who are so fanatically anti-European that they would jeopardise our safety by trying to opt out of it. Is she aware that, last Friday, the Daily Mail wrote about a case involving Magdalena Ferkova, who was brought back to this country using the European arrest warrant? If even the Daily Mail is happy about it, there must be something to be said for it.
Mrs May
Today’s debate has probably generated a first in parliamentary history: my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) praising the Daily Mail in a debate in the House of Commons.
I want to turn now to some of the other important measures that the Government are proposing that we should rejoin. We are seeking to rejoin the European supervision order, which allows British subjects to be bailed back to the UK rather than spending many months abroad awaiting trial. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) will be particularly aware of the benefits that this could have brought in the case of Andrew Symeou, to which he alluded earlier. I am sure that the whole House also wants to see foreign national offenders sent back to their own country. The prisoner transfer framework decision provides for non-consent-based transfers throughout the European Union, and the Government want to opt back into that measure and send criminals back home.
We also want our law enforcement agencies to be able to establish joint investigation teams with colleagues in other European countries. Hon. Members might ask why we want this to happen. I cite Operation Rico, the biggest-ever operation against so-called boiler-room fraud, which is precisely the kind of practical co-operation we want to encourage. Thanks to the excellent work of our National Crime Agency and its Spanish colleagues, there have been 83 arrests in Spain alone, and 18 in the UK. It is also quite clear that many other EU member states and their law enforcement agencies rely on measures of this sort to provide the necessary framework for practical co-operation in the fight against crime. In most instances, bilateral agreements would simply not work as effectively and our co-operation would suffer.
We therefore owe it to the victims of crime, both here and abroad, to ensure that such co-operation can continue unhindered. We owe it to the elderly who have been scammed out of their life savings, and to the hard-working people who have been conned into dodgy investments by fraudsters and had their hard-earned money shamefully spent on flashy watches, sharp suits and fast cars. I want to protect victims of crime, and I am determined to give our law enforcement the tools they need to do that.
The Government’s policy is clear. We have exercised the United Kingdom’s opt-out and are negotiating to rejoin a limited number of measures where we believe that it is in the national interest to do so.
Sir Gerald Howarth
I wonder whether the Home Secretary is going to mention any of the other 35 opt-in measures, including the European police college. Will she explain why it is necessary to have such a college when we have separate police forces in each of our sovereign states? What is the purpose behind it?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend is referring to CEPOL, which has been based at Bramshill in the United Kingdom in recent years. CEPOL is an organisation that encourages and facilitates cross-border co-operation between police forces. The European Commission recently proposed a measure to enhance and increase the ability of CEPOL to operate in relation to the training of individual police forces. The United Kingdom resisted that measure, as did other member states, and it is no longer going ahead.
As I was saying, this Government are very clear about the measures that we wish to rejoin, just as we have been clear about the opt-outs that we have exercised. Sadly, however, we are no clearer about the position of the Labour party. Some have called the Opposition’s policy inconsistent and incoherent, but I think it could be more carefully described as involving confusion and chaos. Labour signed up to the Lisbon treaty without giving the people of Britain a vote and without giving this House a say, and we must recall that the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), flew in alone and under the cover of darkness to sign it. That tells us a great deal about his belief in it. That treaty contained an opt-out, but Labour never explained whether it would use it.
All the evidence suggests that Labour does not share the determination of this Government to reduce the control Brussels has on our criminal justice system. Because even after negotiating their opt-out, the last Labour Government signed us up, by way of unanimity, to another 30 or so measures. In fact, virtually all the measures covered by the Lisbon treaty and this opt-out decision were agreed by unanimity by Labour during its time in office. So are we to assume that it would rather we had remained bound by all 130 of them than exercise our opt-out and seek to rejoin the limited number we have identified? If not, why did it agree to the measures in the first place? But if so, why did it negotiate an opt-out? As I say, it is confusion and chaos.
Sadly, the Opposition day debate Labour called in June last year did nothing to clear up the mystery of Labour’s position, because the motion highlighted only seven measures the UK should “remain” part of. It was not clear whether that meant Labour would have exercised the opt-out and left all the measures other than those seven, such as Eurojust, a measure that the police and prosecutors deem vital to continuing our co-operation with our EU partners. Another such measure is the prisoner transfer framework decision, to which I have referred and which allows us to pack foreign national offenders back off home. I suspect that the Labour party would rather we did not know, unless of course the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) is going to reveal all in her response to this afternoon’s debate. Having negotiated an opt-out from all the measures the Labour Government signed our country up to in the first place, when this Government chose to exercise that opt-out, the right hon. Lady and her party voted against it—again, I say confusion and chaos.
I repeat that the position of this Government is clear: we have exercised the opt-out, we support the return of powers from Brussels to the UK and we support acting in the national interest by rejoining a limited number of measures that protect British citizens and the victims of crime. That is consistent with our approach to the European Union as a whole. The EU needs fundamental change, and under the Conservatives Britain is leading the way in delivering that change. At home, we have made the difficult decisions in the national interest to secure Britain’s economic future—now it is time to protect Britain’s interests in Europe. The Prime Minister has already taken tough action to stand up for Britain in Europe by cutting the EU budget, saving British taxpayers over £8 billion; vetoing a new EU fiscal treaty which did not guarantee a level playing field for British businesses; and refusing to spend British taxes on bailing out the euro.
Only the Conservatives have a credible plan to reshape Britain’s relationship with the European Union and to put this to the British people in an in-out referendum by the end of 2017. [Interruption.] The right hon. Lady may laugh, but the Labour party opposes this plan and will not give the British people their say. Labour has no policies and no ideas, and that is not the sort of leadership the United Kingdom needs in Europe. The leadership it needs in Europe is the leadership we are giving it, with the clarity we are giving to return powers from Brussels to the United Kingdom, but to take other decisions to opt back into measures that are firmly and clearly in our national interest.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
I should like to start by expressing my thanks to all those who have spoken in the debate today. I shall address some of the points that they have raised, but I should first like to make a couple of observations.
My views on matters European are well known. British justice is the envy of the world, and I will not countenance any attempt to replace it with a pan-European justice system. It would be entirely wrong for Britain to hand over control of Justice and Home Affairs entirely to the European Union or its Court of Justice and, under this Government, that is not going to happen. Those who were here for the debate a couple of weeks ago on the three recent proposals from the Commission will have heard us putting forward this Government’s intentions loud and clear on matters that we all believe would be an unnecessary and unwarranted intrusion on our justice system.
Mark Reckless
The Secretary of State says that he does not want to hand over powers over Justice and Home Affairs to the European Union entirely. Is he happy to hand them over in part?
Chris Grayling
If I may, I shall answer that question by setting out for my hon. Friend where we stand.
The House will be aware that more than 130 justice and home affairs measures were due to come under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in December 2014, as a result of the Lisbon treaty signed by the previous Government. It is important to point out to my hon. Friends that this Government have secured the opt-out. Had we not been able to reach agreement on that, we would have been required under the terms of the treaty to participate in all those 130-plus measures. The opt-out has been a significant step—[Interruption.] I hear chuckles from the Opposition Benches, but I have to say that, although we have heard complaints and criticism from them this afternoon, it was the Labour Government who set up the process. They negotiated the opt-out, but they now appear to be trying to disown what they did, and to claim that the process we are now going through is nothing to do with them. It was they who negotiated the process, and it was they who set out the way in which we would have to address these issues. Their arguments on this are therefore completely bankrupt.
The Lisbon treaty clearly paved the way for the creation of a European justice area, and that system is now beginning to take shape. The European Commission is pushing ahead, with the latest justice scorecard just one signal of its intent. My hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) talked about some of the things that the Commissioner had been doing recently. She was explicit earlier this year when she said:
“We need a true political union. To me this means that we need to build a United States of Europe”.
She has set out her ambition to have a common justice area by 2020. Let me be clear: that is not something I want, it is not something the British people want, and with the Conservatives in government, it is not something this country will ever sign up to. Indeed, I trust that no future Government of any political persuasion would take this country down that route, despite the Opposition’s rather mealy-mouthed answers today on where they stand on these matters.
That is why it was important that the Prime Minister exercised our opt-out in July last year to ensure that Britain did not become part of a common European justice system, and that is why we continue to assert our right to opt out when Brussels brings forward new legislation in this area. This Government are protecting our national interest and standing up for Britain, whereas Labour typically just ran up the white flag over many years.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Lord High Chancellor for giving way, not least because we are relying on him, as the last bastion, to stop this happening. The problem seems to be that we have opted out of 98 things that do not matter, and that some of the 35 things that we are opting back into matter enormously. To call that a repatriation of powers is terminological inexactitude.
Chris Grayling
I set out clearly to the House at the start of this process where I believe we stand. We are absolutely set against the creation of a European justice area and against the Europeanisation of our laws, but we also have a duty to our citizens to fight international crime, and I do not want us to be outside the battle against it. Earlier, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary set out clearly the message that she has received from groups involved in fighting organised crime about the need to take the necessary measures to do so. She has clearly and robustly set out what she believes to be in the UK national interest on that front.
The shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), talked about the challenge posed by foreign national offenders, and I want us to be part of pan-European arrangements to return foreign national offenders as quickly as possible. He said that he hoped I was not going to give the House what I think he called another rant against the ECHR. I would simply draw the House’s attention to one or two recent Court decisions taken under the European Court of Human Rights framework that have actually prevented us from sending prisoners back to other countries. I hope that that situation will change very soon.
Mr Cash
My right hon. Friend might recall giving evidence to the European Scrutiny Committee in respect of the charter of fundamental rights, which has a significant overlap in relation to the rights of the citizen and which, of course, relates indirectly to the European convention on human rights. This is very special, however, because Labour actually wanted to prevent the charter of fundamental rights from applying in the United Kingdom and took what the then Prime Minister described as a clear opt-out. However, my right hon. Friend knows that we now have an Act of Parliament saying one thing and a Court of Justice ruling saying another. What is he going to do about that? Is he going to adopt our proposal to amend the European Communities Act?
Chris Grayling
Let us be clear: what the last Government said about the charter of fundamental rights was simply an untruth. There are many quotes in which they clearly talked about an opt-out from the charter, but that opt-out does not exist. We on the Government Benches have our differences on aspects of human rights law, but there is unity across the coalition on the role and presence of the charter of fundamental rights. None of us wishes to see it become part of UK law, and none of us wishes the ambitions of some in Brussels who talk about it being extended into national law come to pass. We will resist that absolutely. As my hon. Friend knows, we are testing the current legal position in the courts, and I have no doubt that I will be giving further evidence on this subject to his Committee in the near future.
Michael Connarty
I am sure that we will debate the charter of fundamental rights report, which divided the European Scrutiny Committee when it was finally read. To return to a question I asked earlier: why are the Government still in the situation where a UK court can decide that a European arrest warrant is not valid and that the person does not have to return to the country demanding their return—in the case I am interested in, that country is Poland—but when they leave the UK to go on holiday elsewhere in Europe, it appears that the Government have not put in place the ability to have that judgment recognised in other countries. I have a constituent whose father is very ill, and who is now in Poland, having been arrested in the Netherlands—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. We have got the point. Let us not make these interventions too long.
Chris Grayling
I say to the hon. Gentleman that it would not be right for me to deal with a constituency case at the Dispatch Box. I suggest he write to the Home Secretary about that. I am still confused as to what he wants, however. He appears to be expressing scepticism about the European arrest warrant, but his party’s policy is to rejoin it. I am confused about what the Opposition really want. We have set out a clear view for Parliament, but we still do not know where the Labour party stands on all this.
I am grateful, too, for the excellent work done by the European Scrutiny Committee, the Justice Committee and the Home Affairs Committee, not only through their extremely thorough and thought-provoking reports, but through the contributions their members have made on the Floor of this House. Their work has been and will continue to be important in informing the Government’s view as this process proceeds. May I express my particular thanks to the Chair of the Justice Committee for his analysis of the decisions we took earlier? Extremely important issues are involved and we gave them careful thought, and I am glad that his report recognised the process we have gone through and that he felt we had reached the right decisions in that area.
Let me touch briefly on the issue of the amount of time provided to this House, which a lot of right hon. and hon. Members have raised today. Last summer, we gave this House a clear opportunity, which it took, to support the Government’s decision in principle to exercise the opt-out, and I am grateful to the House for giving us that support. We will come back to the House at the conclusion of the negotiations with the Commission and the Council to offer the House the further opportunity to endorse or reject what we are doing. If this House rejects what we are doing, clearly it will not be possible for us to return to the Commission and simply override the view of this House. We will of course give this House an opportunity to vote and decide what should happen, but I do think the House needs to give the Government the opportunity to negotiate unfettered by a fixed mandate, because these are complex issues and we need to reach the right decisions in the interests of this country. That is what we are seeking to do.
Sadiq Khan
The Justice Secretary just said that he would give the House a chance to “endorse or reject”, but will he give it the chance to amend?
Chris Grayling
We will discuss the detail of that motion in due course, but of course we will give the House the opportunity to express a very clear view on the conclusion of the negotiations that we have reached. That is what we said at the start and it is what we will deliver.
We have been through detailed discussions both with the Select Committees and within the Government. We are now going through detailed discussions with the Commission and we will return with the conclusions in due course.
Pete Wishart
There is one group the Justice Secretary has not had any discussions with: the devolved Parliaments and Assemblies. Given that this has such a significant impact on our delivery of devolved services, why has he not listened to the Government in Scotland and the devolved Assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland?
Chris Grayling
With respect, what the hon. Gentleman says is simply not right. We have had extensive discussions with the devolved Assemblies. The Minister for Security and Immigration has had detailed discussions with the devolved Assemblies, I have been involved in detailed discussions with the devolved Administrations and I believe the Home Secretary has had discussions. We have had extensive discussions and will no doubt continue to do so. We discuss issues with our counterparts in Edinburgh and in Northern Ireland all the time, and we will continue to do so.
Let me deal with the specific issues raised in this debate. The shadow Home Secretary began for the Opposition, and I am still at a loss to know whether Labour supports the list of 35 measures: whether Labour supports what we are putting forward or wants to see a different list. It is absolutely unclear what the Labour party’s view is; we heard a long diatribe from her and a long list of accusations, but no clear policies from the other side. We heard much the same from the shadow Justice Secretary, but I give him credit for picking out one or two measures on the Justice side that he did support, although he did not say whether he supported the minimum standards measures decision we had taken. One way or another, at the end of this debate we have little idea what the Opposition stand for.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) made a typically knowledgeable contribution. He talked about the importance of the issue of European Court of Justice jurisdiction and about the charter of fundamental rights, which is doubtless an issue he and I will return to and discuss extensively. We share the aspiration, aim and absolute clear goal that the charter will not become part of national law in this country. We heard from the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, who is no longer in his place. He talked about the timetable as we work towards 1 December. We need to be very clear that a timetable is already set out for us, as envisaged in the treaty signed by the previous Government, and we are working towards that date of 1 December. We need time to complete the negotiations and, on the back of those, formally apply to the Commission to rejoin the measures. That is precisely where we stand; that is the approach we are taking and it is the approach envisaged in the agreement reached by the previous Government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) does not want to opt in to any of these measures. I would simply remind him that we secured agreement to exercise the opt-out in the first place. Were we not in that position, we would now face the situation of opting in to all these measures or remaining in all of them. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) set out his concerns about the issue of discussions with the devolved Assemblies, mentioning them again a few moments ago. He made a strong statement, which I suspect had a little more to do with certain campaigning taking place in Scotland than with this debate. The bit I did not understand was that he was talking about the risks he alleged this Government were taking with our relationships within the European Union, yet he and his party are going down a route whereby it is far from clear that if they are successful—heaven forbid—in September, they will even be a part of the European Union. I do not understand how he possibly squares that circle.
We heard a thoughtful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who has done valuable work in the Fresh Start group. I understand her concern about the ability of international courts to extend their jurisprudence. She also made the point about the charter of fundamental rights, and it is very important that we keep a close watch on that issue and resist any attempts to extend its remit. We know that there is a divide in opinions between the Government and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), and he made an impassioned speech about the need for more and more integration. He set out clear differences between us and him, although he could not tell the difference between Spain and Brazil in his comments. It was a typically robust contribution that highlighted to us why there remain some significant divisions across the Floor of the House on Britain’s future in the European Union.
The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) expressed fears about a gap between the discussion taking place now, what happens after 1 December and the continued provision in areas such as the European arrest warrant. I would simply remind him of what Professor Steven Peers said about the issue of the time frame for the next few months in evidence to the Home Affairs Committee on 10 September:
“There certainly ought to be enough time. I would say it would not be the Government’s fault if there is no decision in time by December next year. It would be some kind of political difficulty that the Council and the Commission have dreamed up.”
I am confident, as is the Home Secretary and those involved in the negotiating team, that there is time, will and a desire on the part of other member states to ensure that there is a smooth transition and we can get this done without the gap that the hon. Gentleman is afraid of.
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) rightly again highlighted the issue of the ECJ at the centre of the debate, and I suspect that we will have further lively discussions about it as the months go by. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) had examined the issue of justice measures and talked about probation, as did the shadow Justice Secretary. There are genuine issues relating to the drafting of the probation directive which make it difficult for us to consider at this moment the concept that we would release this to the jurisdiction of the European Court. I have no intention of going forward with an opt-in under the current wording, as that could cause all kinds of complications for our rules on deportations, in respect of somebody deported to another country who then had to be repatriated because their probation conditions were breached. At the moment we believe the measure is flawed and we have therefore decided it cannot be in the list of things to opt back in to.
My hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton gave a thoughtful contribution in which he talked about the “cold, hard lens” of national interest. That is certainly what has guided us, particularly in respect of the discussions the Home Secretary has had with law enforcement bodies about the need to say that there are things they believe need to be in place in order for us to ensure we can provide proper protection for our citizens. Some strong recommendations have been made by those organisations, which she articulated clearly in her remarks this afternoon. Lastly, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) was clear about his views about opting in to these measures. I simply remind him that we have opted out already and the decision to exercise the opt-out is a major step forward for the country; otherwise we would have had no option but to end up with 133 different measures.
So, for reasons of policy, principle and pragmatism, the Government have exercised the opt-out in the national interest. We have decided that it is in our national interest to co-operate in measures that help combat cross-border crime and keep our country safe. That is what we are negotiating for in Brussels and it is what we aim to deliver. It is a coherent package that we aim to bring back to Parliament for a vote before the UK formally makes any application to rejoin later this year. It is very much in that national interest that my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton talked about. It has guided us in these discussions and in discussions across the coalition.
Chris Grayling
We have had long discussions across Government about how best to shape the right package for the country. Inevitably, we have had those discussions. We now have a package that provides a sensible balance between a number of different factors and different interests, which is why we have brought that package to the House for consideration. It is why we brought it to the House last summer and why we have set it out in our negotiations on the future of our participation in these measures.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor for giving way once again; he is being enormously generous. The Deputy Prime Minister has said that in coalition the issue of collective responsibility has to be treated differently. Accepting that as a new constitutional principle, which I would not normally do, but for these purposes accepting it, will the Lord Chancellor give us his own personal view?
Chris Grayling
Madam Deputy Speaker might deem me to be out of order if I followed too far down that route tonight. No doubt we can have that discussion over a beer some time.
We have a sensible package. We have sought to operate in the national interest and to reflect the views of the law enforcement community about what it needs to fight organised crime. I am clear that I do not want, and will not tolerate, the idea of us becoming part of a Europeanised justice system. I will continue to pursue that in my dealings with the European Union—in our interactions over things such as the justice scorecard. Equally, it is important to understand the task that the Home Office faces in dealing with international crime and in ensuring that it can combat organised crime. I am talking about some of the most abhorrent offences, such as human trafficking, that are a real challenge to all of us across the whole of Europe. We need to have enough protection to enable us to take part in genuine international collaboration on those issues. That is why we have placed this package before the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the UK’s 2014 justice and home affairs opt-out decision.