UK and Gibraltar Prosecuting Authorities

Thomas Docherty Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Robert Neill]

That is exactly what the then Foreign Secretary said, and I believe the right hon. Member for Leicester East may have been a member of the same Government. Robin Cook was right, and his comment summarises the matter.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

I regularly meet Gibraltar Ministers through the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and other bodies, and they are always telling me about the robust steps that they have taken in partnership with the UK and Spain to ensure that Gibraltar has the highest standards. Is that the hon. Gentleman’s experience in his conversations with Ministers from Gibraltar?

[Robert Neill]

That is my experience of conversations with Ministers in Gibraltar. It is my experience of conversations with our embassy in Madrid. It is also my experience of conversations with police officers and the senior judiciary in Gibraltar and the senior Crown Counsel and his Department in Gibraltar. It is certainly my experience of conversations with the excellent Attorney General, Ricky Rhoda. All the evidence is clear in such matters. That is a further indication of the permanent and long-running co-operation with the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, the hon. Fabian Picardo QC, who is in London at the moment for a meeting of the Joint Ministerial Council of Overseas Territories. Gibraltar works closely with the UK at every level and to the highest standards, and it moves swiftly.

To allow my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General to respond, I will make my final point. No sooner had this House opted back into some European justice issues, from which we had had an opt-out—the justice and home affairs area—on 1 December, the Government of Gibraltar published a series of regulations to give effect to the same principles and arrangements as those that the UK has now opted into. It could not have moved more swiftly to ensure that it met exactly the same standards as the UK on police, criminal and judicial co-operation, including important matters such as exchange of intelligence and information, mutual recognition of criminal freezing orders, asset recovery confiscation orders and financial penalties. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, who I am delighted to see here today and who is highly experienced in such matters, will be able to confirm that.

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Leicester East for accepting on the record in this House that any allegations and slurs against Gibraltar were utterly baseless. The people of Gibraltar are entitled to an apology and a correction, and I hope that we have been able to achieve that in this debate and that the Solicitor-General will be able to set out the Government’s position on the excellent co-operation between our two jurisdictions.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Solicitor-General]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The delicate network of interlocking mutual legal assistance is vital if we are to have a truly international approach to the fight against crime, which nowadays often exists in many jurisdictions and crosses many boundaries.

[Thomas Docherty]

Two specific allegations could be levelled against Gibraltar. The first is that it is a soft touch on the physical bringing of drugs into its ports; and the second is that it is a soft touch on the financial services-based introduction of laundered money. Will the Solicitor-General confirm, for the record, that Gibraltar’s ports are as safe as, if not safer than, UK ports and that its financial arrangements are as robust as those of the United Kingdom?