The UK’s Justice and Home Affairs Opt-outs

Debate between Sadiq Khan and William Cash

Thursday 10th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

This has been a good debate. By the time we finish, it will have lasted for more than four hours. We have had some excellent speeches, and even some from hon. Members who are not lawyers or Chairs of Select Committees. All 12 speeches have done the important job of holding the Executive to account. They have all been passionate, demonstrating huge expertise on and experience of the issue.

Let me begin, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) did, by saying that I support most of what the Home Secretary said. Both she and my right hon. Friend made the point that it is no longer the case, if it ever truly was, that tackling crime and keeping the public safe can be achieved solely within our own borders. Crime and the criminals who perpetrate it do not abide by the borders of nation states. Both Front-Bench speakers gave examples of organised crime, terrorism, cybercrime, big drugs cases and serious sexual offences that crossed borders. The world is increasingly interconnected by the movements of people and the movement of trade, and that is all made even more complex as technology moves ahead at a fast pace. We need to ensure that the systems we have in place to prevent crime from taking place and catching those who commit it keep up with that fast pace.

[Sir William Cash]

rose—

[Sadiq Khan]

I have only a short time in which to speak, but I will give way later if I can.

We owe it to the victims of crime to do what we can to prevent further victims and to bring to justice those who have inflicted harm and misery on others. Part of that involves working closely with our European partners across the European Union to establish working relationships that allow each member state to tackle crime and the community as a whole to cut crime.

As I said, we have heard 12 speeches. The Chairs of the three Select Committees—the European Scrutiny Committee, the Select Committee on Home Affairs and the Select Committee on Justice—all reported extensively on the Government’s proposals and their concerns about the process, as well as some of their concerns about the substance of the measures. There has been criticism of the fact that the past two debates have been general debates without a vote. In particular, we have discussed whether Parliament will be given a vote on the Government’s decisions, how many votes there will be, when they will take place and the format in which they will take place, as well as whether each of the measures will be debated and voted on.

Let me be clear that the Opposition will consider all the measures on the basis of what helps the fight against crime. We will not allow anti-European Union feelings to cloud our view of what works. What is needed is a considered response on the issues raised by Back Benchers on the important role that European institutions can and do play in fighting crime.

The first speech was from the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), who reminded us of his “mild interest” in matters European over the past three decades. Towards the end of his speech, he read out a list of questions that he asked the Justice Secretary to answer. We also look forward to hearing the answers.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) admitted to being a usual suspect. He asked—I am looking forward to the answer—whether there will be a separate vote on the European arrest warrant, about which his Select Committee has raised serious concerns. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) explained that this process has taught him how difficult it is to get blood out of a stone. He said that notwithstanding his concerns about the process, he supports the measures that assist in fighting crime.

My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) reminded us that the European arrest warrant is not perfect and gave an example of one of his constituents who is suffering as a consequence. He explained how it had helped to bring back to this country one of those alleged to have been involved in the 21 July bombings who was subsequently charged and convicted and is currently behind bars.

The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Sir Richard Shepherd) reminded us of his experience of seven Parliaments and expressed concern about the European arrest warrant. The right hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) told us how thrilled he was to be sharing his birthday with his brother knights and the rest of us; the sad thing is that he was not joking. He also told us about the evidence from ACPO and its concerns about the European arrest warrant.

The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) is also Chair of a Select Committee. I am sorry that I missed his performance in the choir last night with German colleagues. He reminded us—this is a really important point—that, unlike Lisbon, the opt-ins are permanent and therefore a transfer of power. He reminded us of what the Justice Secretary, when shadow Home Secretary, told us about his views on the European arrest warrant, and of what the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary said about it, and asked whether they would now be eating their words.

The hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) reminded us, and his party, of what political message it would send if we opted into all 35 measures. The hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) expressed his concern about the European single market morphing into a European superstate. He was particularly concerned, like many other colleagues, about the European arrest warrant, and reminded us, as have many others, of what the Prime Minister said about it previously.

I must confess—I hope my Whips are not listening—that I always enjoy the speeches by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). His 13 minutes were magnificent. I admit that I did not agree with most of what he said, but his speech was a tour de force in terms of quality. He was confident, as only he could be, that the trappings of office would not mean that the Justice Secretary no longer espoused all the views he held on the European arrest warrant only five years ago. We will wait to see what he says in five or six minutes’ time.

The hon. Gentleman reminded us that we are opting into not 35 measures, but 49, and referred to the other 14. He also wondered whether people who are considering voting Conservative would have confidence in a Prime Minister and a party who went into the election promising to repatriate rights from 2015 onwards if they were giving up rights in the preceding 10 months. His message to the Prime Minister, if I understood him correctly, is that there is a danger of having a backbone in opposition but being a jellyfish in government.

The hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) expressed concern, as have many others, about judicial activism and too much intervention. He also pointed out that the fundamentals of British courts and justice are not necessarily threatened by the ECJ having jurisprudence.

The last speech was made by the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), who has huge expertise in this area. He made four key points. He warned about a single European justice system and said that sooner or later we may end up with that destination if concerns are not expressed now. Again, he highlighted concerns about the European arrest warrant, and referred to individual cases.

Six of the 35 measures relate to justice, my area of responsibility, and the Chair of the Justice Committee touched on most of them: the data protection secretariat, the data protection framework decision, the application of the principle of mutual recognition to financial penalties, prisoner transfers, the European supervision order, and trials in absentia.

For the sake of brevity, I will touch on only one of those issues, namely prisoner transfers. From his time as a Minister in the previous Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn knows full well the importance of transferring foreign prisoners to their home countries to serve out their custodial sentences. He negotiated many of the agreements that are still in place. However, since 2010, only four further agreements have been negotiated by the current Government, compared with the 50 negotiated by my right hon. Friend and other colleagues in the previous Government. One in eight of those behind bars in England and Wales is a foreign national, and the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee reminded us that the cost to the British taxpayer is £300 million a year. That is why it is so important that we get this right.

The Home Secretary was right to refer to the case of the Latvian prisoner who was sent back to Latvia last month, but the numbers transferred are still pitifully low. When the Justice Secretary responds, will he tell us what progress he has made in persuading other countries to take their own prisoners back from the UK? I appreciate that Poland has a derogation, but the other countries do not.

I will not refer to the measures we are not going to opt into, except to ask whether the Government are considering having impact assessments on them. That question has been asked by Members of the other place. I appreciate that we now have impact assessments on those measures that we are going to opt into, but will there be impact assessments on those that we are not going to opt into?

Lots of colleagues have made interventions and 12 Members from both sides of the House have made speeches. They have asked many questions and I, like them, am looking forward to hearing some answers from the Justice Secretary.

Justice and Home Affairs Opt-out

Debate between Sadiq Khan and William Cash

Monday 7th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

We have had a very good debate, which has lasted for nearly four hours. We heard 11 speeches from Back Benchers, most of them parliamentarians who take their role as members of the legislature very seriously. They hold the Executive of today to account, they held the last Executive to account, and I dare say that they will hold future Executives to account as well. Three of them were Chairs of Select Committees, and I shall say more about their important contributions shortly.

Keeping the citizens of our country safe is one of the biggest challenges that any Government face. Increasingly, in the modern world of mobile populations and ever-changing technology, criminals take no notice of national boundaries. That is why cross-border co-operation is becoming ever more crucial in the fight against crime, and why today’s debate has been so serious. What we have been discussing is the extent to which we, as a country, believe that co-operation with our European partners is in the best interests of the fight against crime.

Unfortunately, what was already a complex debate on justice and home affairs issues is being made more complex by the Government’s deep-rooted anxieties about all things European. What should be a cool, calm and rational debate about measures designed to help the fight against crime risks being overshadowed by the Conservative party’s wider palpitations about the European Union. Nevertheless, today’s debate has been good-humoured, and many serious points have been made. I trust that the Government will respond to them, as they surely must.

Labour Members have made it clear that we do not oppose the principle of opt-outs. That is why we negotiated the power in the first place. The various Select Committee reports have confirmed that some of the original measures are redundant in any event, and that it would make no difference whether we were in some of them or not. My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) listed a number of those measures.

[Mr Cash]

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that on 27 June 2007—the very day on which he handed the reins of power to his successor—the former Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair stated that it was absolutely clear that we had an opt-out from the charter of fundamental rights, and also from justice and home affairs? What he did not mention was the fact that the overall system contained a power to rejoin.

[Sadiq Khan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for reminding us all of his excellent memory of historical facts and dates. I am afraid that I cannot comment on that particular remark by Tony Blair, although I can comment on most of his remarks.

There is clearly concern about the way in which the Government have gone about seeking—or rather not seeking—the views of Parliament, and the lack of votes on this matter. Today we heard from three Select Committee Chairs: the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). I shall not repeat the unprecedented criticisms of the Government’s approach by not one but three Select Committees, namely the European Scrutiny Committee, the Home Affairs Committee and the Justice Committee. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) expressed concern about the lack of consultation with the Scottish Government, and a number of other Members in all parts of the House referred to the lack of scrutiny being given to the decisions on which the Government are embarking.

Labour Members will approach the substance of the issues on the basis of what will help us in the fight against crime, rather than what will help us to ensure that our Back Benchers are soothed and reassured, which has been the Government’s approach. I wait to hear what the Justice Secretary has to say on the issues that have been raised today, but I live in hope that, rather than hearing the usual EU-bashing or ECHR-trashing, we shall hear a considered response to the important issues raised by Government Back Benchers and, indeed, by other Members in all parts of the House.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford has already described in detail our views on many of the measures that the Government are proposing to opt back into. Let me now touch briefly on some of the measures that fall into my own area of responsibility. They were dealt with in the Justice Committee’s report, and, today, in the excellent speech of its Chair, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed.

The Government propose to opt back in to five of the six mutual recognition measures, which we welcome. On the financial penalties framework decision, it is right that member states collect financial penalties regardless of which country the offender lives in. There should be no hiding place for offenders just because they live in a different country from where their crime was committed. The measure has been used considerably over the last few years. The Justice Committee confirmed that in just the short period between June 2010 and September 2012 we received penalties collected by other member states of £90,000 and collected for other members £50,000 in penalties.

On the previous convictions framework decision, courts must take account of a defendant’s previous conviction in other member states. Even the Justice Secretary has conceded that this measure was needed and is not part of a Europeanisation of our justice system, but is in fact central to our efforts in fighting crime. This is a key tool in helping us to fight crime and allowing our courts to have access to information from other member states on previous convictions.

Prison transfers are a massive issue, and not only within the European Union. Just last week Jamaica refused to ratify a transfer agreement with the UK which would have seen many of the Jamaicans behind bars in our jails sent back home to serve their sentences. We know it costs around £40,000 a year to keep someone in a UK prison, and with more than 10,000 foreign nationals behind bars—1 in 8 of the whole prison population—that represents a cost of £400 million a year to keep foreign criminals in British jails. If for nothing else, for purely financial reasons we should be doing more to send back to their home countries those foreign nationals who have committed crimes on our soil. The Prime Minister made big and wild promises back in 2010 personally to intervene to send back tens of thousands of criminals, but that is yet another broken promise to add to the long list. Since then, only a handful have been returned to their home countries.

To be fair, I accept that there are difficulties in negotiating prisoner transfer agreements with other countries. The setting up of the EU prisoner transfer framework, signed in November 2008 and brought into force in December 2011, was not a walk in the park, and I sympathise with the problems all Governments have had in negotiating these agreements. However, with about one third of all foreign nationals in our prisons being from the EU, this ought to make a difference to the numbers behind bars. I note that the Justice Committee reports that more needs to be done, and the Justice Secretary might want to tell us about some of the problems he has been having in negotiating these agreements in relation to the opt-in.

It would also be useful if the Justice Secretary were to tell us what else he is doing to make sure other member countries are stepping up to the plate on this issue. To date, too many are not playing a full part in the scheme, meaning that the scheme as originally planned and the agreement that has been signed have not borne the fruit we all would have liked to see.

The Government also propose to opt back into the judgments in absentia framework decision and the European supervision order, both of which play a key role in stopping criminals evading justice and allowing citizens to be returned to their home country for a period of non-custodial pre-trial supervision. Out of the mutual recognition instruments, the only measure the Government have chosen not to opt back into is the probation measures framework decision, but from reading the explanation given by Ministers it is clear that there is not a principled objection to this framework decision; there is rather a concern about how it might operate in practice. Will the Justice Secretary tell us more about his views on where the concerns may lie in practice rather than in principle?

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Sadiq Khan and William Cash

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

The hon. Gentleman, who is a friend, has been absent for the past few days, and I am not quite sure what point he makes.

Sensible, neutral suggestions that have commanded support on both sides of the House, such as the proposal to ensure that the Executive do not grow disproportionately powerful as the legislature is reduced in size, have been dismissed. As any independent observer who has followed the passage of the Bill to date will readily admit, that unbending attitude deprives the Bill of the adjustments and improvements it sorely needs.

The scrutiny process has suffered from being rushed. It is a convention that major constitutional matters are debated here, but it is also a convention that they are given sufficient time.

[Mr Cash]

On constitutional conventions, is it not the case that in many countries, including ours, Bills of this kind are subject to thresholds because they ensure that enough people have voted? On the abstention argument, do the Opposition believe that people have a right not to vote? Otherwise, do they believe that voting ought to be compulsory?

[Sadiq Khan]

The problem with the hon. Gentleman’s propositions is that the manifestos of neither coalition party contained any of the ingredients of the Bill, let alone thresholds. That is one reason why, like sheep, they have voted against proposals for more accountability, both in Committee and on Report. Any independent observer who has followed the passage of this legislation, including the Deputy Prime Minister, who might have had a chance to read some of the Hansard reports, will readily admit that that unbending attitude deprives the Bill of the adjustments and improvements it sorely needs.

Let me give some examples of Bills that have gone through the House with proper debate and scrutiny. The Government of Wales Act 1998 was taken on the Floor of the House and was the subject of more than 69 hours of debate. The Scotland Act 1998 was also taken on the Floor of the House and was the subject of more than 121 hours of debate before it left for the other place.