William Cash
Main Page: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)Department Debates - View all William Cash's debates with the Home Office
(10 years ago)
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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.
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?
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Before I get into the substance of the arguments on the matter before us, I would like to refer to the letter that the Chairmen of the European Scrutiny Committee, the Home Affairs Committee and the Justice Committee received yesterday. It is addressed to each of us and it comes from the Secretary of State for Justice and the Home Secretary. It begins by saying that they would like to express their gratitude for the continued work of our Committees with regard to the 2014 opt-out decision. It then says:
“We have noted and considered your joint report. We deeply regret your collective view that the Government’s engagement has not been satisfactory on this matter. However, our view on the Government’s engagement with Parliament has not changed.”
There we have it. The letter goes on to say:
“As you will know, we intend to hold a general debate on Government time on 7 April”—
that is today. The letter continues:
“For the avoidance of doubt, we reaffirm our commitment to hold a second vote in both Houses of Parliament before making a formal application to rejoin any measures.”
However, it may be noted that that does not state that the second vote would take place before the negotiations have been finalised. I will come on to that in my subsequent remarks.
The difficulty that we face is that this matter has, to a very considerable extent, been a poor substitute for the debate that the European Scrutiny, Home Affairs and Justice Committees requested. This is the first time ever that all members of three independent, all-party Select Committees have unanimously agreed to a joint report on an unprecedented scale. The debate would give Parliament a genuine say and vote in determining which measures the Government should seek to rejoin before—I repeat, before—embarking on negotiations with the Commission and Council.
The motion that we are invited to support today merely refers to the consideration of the United Kingdom’s
“2014 justice and home affairs opt-out decision.”
That decision was considered in Parliament last July, when the Government secured a majority for their recommendation to exercise the UK’s block opt-out of around 130 pre-Lisbon police and criminal justice measures. The real question for us now, surely, is what the Government—a coalition Government who are largely taking account of considerations on EU matters which have been pushed forward by members of the Liberal Democrat party—will do about the 35 matters that are now up for rejoining.
The Prime Minister formally notified the Council of the UK’s decision to exercise the block opt-out on 24 July 2013. All the measures subject to that block opt-out will, as a result, cease to apply to the United Kingdom on 1 December 2014, unless, crucially, the United Kingdom submits a formal application to rejoin some of them.
Command Paper 8671, which was published merely a matter of days before the debate last July, includes a list of 35 measures that the Government say they seek to rejoin. I have to say, without prejudice to my differences of opinion with the shadow Home Secretary, that some of the cases that she put forward demonstrate that the issues are, in many instances, not quite as substantial as some might have imagined.
The motion that the Government wanted the House to approve last July would have endorsed the Government’s recommendation to enter into formal negotiations with the Commission and the Council on the list of the 35 measures, pre-empting any further consideration of the content and significance of those measures by the House and its Select Committees.
The Home Secretary came to the Floor of the House and I said at the time that I thought she was making the problem considerably worse by what she was saying. My intervention as Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, together with the Chairmen of the Home Affairs and Justice Committees, ensured that the House had the opportunity to consider the matter further, and was informed by the reports that all three Committees undertook to produce.
The need for further detailed consideration by Parliament cannot be doubted. The report by my Committee concluded that the list of measures was “incoherent”, and that it bore all the hallmarks of coalition politics rather than a serious analysis of the merits of each measure, or a careful balancing of the benefits of participation in extremely sensitive areas affecting fairness, liberty and justice, which are and should be accorded to individual United Kingdom citizens, and that the benefits of that participation should be set against the risks associated with accepting the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
Mr Redwood
Will my hon. Friend confirm that this is a desperately serious matter, because if we opt in to any of these things, those subjects are no longer under the control of the House and the British people?
Mr Cash
Indeed, and not only that. Those people are no longer able to have recourse to our courts system in the same way that they would have done because the European Court of Justice, once it has made an adjudication and a judgment, binds our Supreme Court. Moreover, under section 3 of the European Communities Act 1972, it also binds this Parliament. That is why, with respect to the charter of fundamental rights, we said in a report that we published only last week that the situation was so serious. We voluntarily entered into the Act in 1972, and I emphasise the word “voluntarily” because what is entered into voluntarily can be adjusted later. Those two features led us to conclude, in respect of the conflict on the perception of the charter of fundamental rights, that the then Prime Minister, who specifically stated on 27 June 2007 that it was absolutely clear that the charter of fundamental rights was an opt-out, was wrong. Furthermore, he was not only wrong but, in effect, contradicted by the Attorney-General of the time when he gave evidence to us only a few weeks ago.
The consequence of this, which is extremely serious, is that we have an Act of Parliament that is covered in confusion, with some judges saying one thing and other judges saying another. As there is no doubt that the charter applies to the United Kingdom, the only way of dealing with this is not, with respect to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice, by having another legal challenge, as he proposes, but by amending the 1972 Act, because the situation is so serious that we have to bring in primary legislation in order to get it right in the interests of the people of this country. All the rights contained in the charter overlap with rights of the sort that people in this country, as citizens of the United Kingdom, would expect to be accorded to them. These are the kinds of matters that arise in respect of what we are considering as a result of the whole question of the 35 measures.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman is right. One of the key issues now is how many opt-ins there should be. I would probably err on the side of there being more than 35. He probably errs on the side of there being fewer than 35. The Commission might want to say that there have to be 53, or none. Who knows what the end result of all this will be? What I do not understand—perhaps he will be able to explain it, because he knows the Home Secretary’s mind better than I do—is why on earth the Government would not want an amendable motion to be presented to the House before they start the negotiation so that they know beforehand that they have Parliament behind them.
Mr Cash
I am rather attracted to the idea of an amendable motion. Indeed, in effect, I have just said so myself. If we have a vote beforehand, the coalition Government will know what Parliament thinks.
The Home Secretary clearly indicated that the Government must have a free hand in entering into these negotiations. In an intervention, I mentioned the complications involved in this and its rejection, or apparent rejection, by several countries. I referred to Spain, Germany, France and Holland, and there are others that say that the matter should be put to a referendum. The situation is so complex, and running so far into the sand, that it would be a good idea, in these very special circumstances, to discuss the question of a block opt-out. It is very important that Parliament should be given the opportunity to vote on an amendable motion before the negotiations are concluded. It is particularly important as we get down to discussing the finer detail of precisely what should be done in the interests of fairness, liberty and justice for individual citizens, who will be bound by these Court decisions against which there will be no appeal. Unless this is subject to an amendment of the 1972 Act, there will be no way of retrieving the situation to protect those citizens.
Sir Gerald Howarth
I am very exercised about the application of the role of the European Court of Justice. As my hon. Friend will know, I asked the Home Secretary to what extent the safeguards she has secured with regard to the European arrest warrant will be respected by the ECJ. Does he have a view on that?
Mr Cash
Yes, I am deeply concerned about the matters that my hon. Friend raises. Indeed, the whole question of the role of the European Court of Justice is a matter of great concern, not only in this country but in many other countries of the European Union. I will not go all the way down the route of discussing the role of the Court. However, there are issues about who is qualified to be members of the Court and whether members of our own Supreme Court are entirely satisfied with the nature of the decisions that come out of it, just as they are concerned about questions regarding the European Court of Human Rights.
The reports of all three Committees are tagged to today’s debate, as is a joint report castigating the Government for their refusal to allow Parliament a debate and vote on the measures the United Kingdom should seek to rejoin before negotiations begin with the European Union institutions.
Dr Huppert
I presume the hon. Gentleman would accept that it is much harder for someone to negotiate when their hands are tied. Will he reassure me that he is not trying to ensure that we leave everything by making all the negotiations so difficult that they simply cannot be brought home? Is that what he is trying to achieve?
Mr Cash
What I am saying is that voting in this House is a test of our democracy. We have already had ample opportunity to consider the ramifications of the block opt-out and we now know the 35 matters in question. Given the importance of those issues to UK citizens, those who represent their individual constituencies in this House should now have the opportunity to vote on them. That is a matter of principle and it is also a matter of democracy. Once the decisions become irrevocable, the reality is that they will be binding, through the European Communities Act 1972, in a way that would not be the case if this were a general debate about home affairs policy. This debate is tied to the role of the European Court of Justice, against which there is no appeal.
Why have the Government set their face against an open, transparent and informed debate and vote on these measures before negotiations are concluded? In the absence of any convincing explanation from the Government—I say with great respect to the Secretaries of State that we have not had one—we are compelled to conclude that the risk of unravelling a carefully crafted coalition deal weighs more heavily than the desire for democratic accountability. Such an approach is inimical to this House’s European scrutiny system, which is based on our Standing Orders and on early analysis and assessment of the legal and policy implications of EU policies and legislation so that Parliament has a genuine opportunity to influence not only the Government’s position in negotiations, but their outcome as well.
In this case, however, the position is reversed. As I said in an intervention, Parliament will simply be asked to rubber stamp the outcome of negotiations that are being held behind closed doors and hidden from the searching gaze of the public and Parliament. Negotiations are being held behind closed doors not only by the Council of Ministers and the European institutions, but by the coalition itself. We do not know the basis on which these decisions have been reached. It is a double whammy.
Pete Wishart
The hon. Gentleman needs to forget about the Liberals, because there is a big elephant sitting in the room and its name is Nigel. Does the hon. Gentleman think that growing support for the UK Independence party has been a factor in the way in which this process has evolved?
Mr Cash
I do not think so. The driving force behind the arguments being made by the Conservative part of the coalition from the Back Benches is based on objective analysis in the interests of democracy, transparency and accountability in Parliament. Mr Farage cannot deliver anything, because he does not have one Member of Parliament. He cannot change one word of legislation—he can do nothing about any of this. I know that the situation is uncomfortable for the Secretaries of State at this moment in time, but I know for a fact that they will agree emphatically that the United Kingdom Independence party can achieve absolutely nothing. They know perfectly well that Conservative Back Benchers can achieve something. As in relation to many other European matters, Conservative Back Benchers can, by doing what we are doing now—working towards, we hope, a listening Government and listening Secretaries of State—achieve the results that we need, in the interests of the country as a whole. I hope that that answers the hon. Gentleman’s very useful question.
Mr Cash
Let us be in no doubt about that, as my right hon. Friend and distinguished colleague says—and more power to his elbow.
Let us for a moment return to first principles and remind ourselves why the United Kingdom, alone among member states, has a block opt-out. In this context, it is worth remembering that we do not of course have a written constitution, and that gives us flexibility, unlike every other member state. We are not therefore insular or isolationist in taking such a view; as I know both Secretaries of State will appreciate, we are exercising our democratic right to express our views in a free forum—this House of Commons, to which we are elected to represent our constituents—and, as Chairmen of three significant Select Committees, we have worked together on an all-party basis to agree a view on a matter of such importance.
United Kingdom Governments of all political persuasions have been wary of extending the full jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice to EU police and criminal justice measures—that has been true of Governments of all parties—because they have recognised that conferring primacy on a court beyond the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom, and of our Supreme Court and of this Parliament, is a very profound and grave constitutional step.
Whatever views may be expressed in the debate—some will perhaps advocate opting back in to a far wider range of measures, while others will say, “None at all”; and when it comes to the vote, there may be splits and fragmentations in political parties on both sides of the House—I say to the Secretaries of State that surely we can all agree on the significance of the negotiations on which the Government are about to embark and the vital need for Parliament to have a genuine say and vote at the right time, before the negotiations have been concluded, on a matter of profound practical and constitutional significance, which bears very heavily on the liberty of the subject. What matters now is not what we have opted out of, but what measures we propose to rejoin. I ask my right hon. Friends to consider this very carefully: this is the time for the Government to think again.
On the basis of the leaks and information about the discussions that come through to us in various shapes and forms, I have referred to what has been happening in many countries throughout the European Union, and I understand that very little headway has been made in negotiations so far. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary shakes her head. Perhaps she would like to get up and tell us that everything is going fine.
I trust that today’s debate will cause the Government to think again and allow Parliament to vote on these important measures before the negotiations are concluded. This matter of principle needs to be settled not after the horse has bolted, but now, so I tell my right hon. Friends that this is the moment. This serious matter is of grave concern to many of our citizens, and this is the time to think again.
Dr Huppert
My hon. Friend is right on the technicality that there would have been a second vote, but the principle ensconced in both was to have military intervention without the UN approval that some of us wanted. However, that is not the subject at the heart of this debate.
I share the concerns expressed about whether the whole effort has been worth while. The shadow Home Secretary is not in her place. I do not always agree with her, but I did agree when she said that the things we will not remain opted in to are, generally speaking, the less important ones. They are the ones that do not matter; they are more trivial. That is by design, but it also means that the entire balance will not have been changed as a result of this. The Home Affairs Committee agreed unanimously that if the Government proceed with the option as proposed, it will not result in any repatriation of powers. Some of us think that is a good thing—that collaboration and co-operation are worth having—but others have concerns. Has it been worth the huge amount of parliamentary, ministerial and official time and effort in negotiating with partners to achieve what will probably—hopefully—be a very small effect?
It is important to highlight why this matters. We have had a great deal of discussion about process, but we should remember why it is important. Our work with our partners in this area of policing and criminal justice is one of the great benefits of European Union membership. There are other benefits—on trade, free movement and a stronger voice on the international stage—but that ability to share information to catch UK criminals on the run and to bring them back to face justice at home, and to fight international terrorism and crimes such as child abuse, come from our participation in the European Union’s justice and home affairs measures. Europol is an incredibly important element in the fight against organised crime. We would suffer badly if we lost that. Cases such as Operation Rescue involved huge co-operation with 12 other countries, with Europol playing a critical role in intelligence and analytical support which resulted in the safeguarding of at least 230 children worldwide, 60 of whom were in the United Kingdom, and the arrest of more than 180 offenders, 121 of whom were arrested in the UK. That is the sort of thing that would be put at risk by those who are simply allergic to anything that mentions the word “Europe”, and there are a number on the Conservative Back Benches, though fortunately not on the Front Bench. We do take that lead. It is not a coincidence that the head of Europol is a Briton.
Mr Cash
The hon. Gentleman raises the question of those people for whom the word “Europe” evokes all kinds of spectres. [Interruption.] Well, he got very close to it. He is only repeating Bismarck in the late 19th century, when he said, “Whenever anybody uses the word ‘Europe’, I then realise what they are up to.”
Dr Huppert
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that enlightening quote. He can choose to describe himself how he likes.
It is strange that the Home Office, while trying to stay within Europol, has created ambiguity about the relationship with Europol by, for example, not opting in to other measures. I want the Government to have flexibility on these things so that they can take many of the other Europol measures and not be bound too tightly by the exact details of a vote here. It will make it very strange. As the Home Affairs Committee highlighted, that runs contrary to the logic of the Government’s stated policy.
We get huge benefits from the European arrest warrant. The Association of Chief Police Officers—it nears the end of its career but it continues for now at least to speak for senior police officers—has highlighted that relying on alternative arrangements to the European arrest warrant
“would result in fewer extraditions, longer delays, higher costs, more offenders evading justice and increased risk to public safety.”
That is what has to be set against the allergy that many have to this issue.
Keir Starmer, former Director of Public Prosecutions, said that failure to opt in could lead to an
“uncertain, cumbersome and fragmented approach, which is likely to have a damaging impact on the prosecution of crime in England and Wales.
That is what has to be addressed by those who want us just to leave the EAW. I am glad that Ministers have taken a sensible line on this. We need to reform the European arrest warrant, but we are better off for having it. For example, the Government’s Command Paper highlights that an extradition now takes on average three months, whereas it takes about 10 months for countries that are not covered by the EAW. That is a substantial change, and some people would not be extradited at all. Those who want to go back to the old framework would slow down the process of justice in some cases and stop it in others.
Of course, we need to make some changes to the EAW, and I pay tribute to the principled stance taken by the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), who I do not think is allergic to this. He has some detailed, thought-through concerns about a number of aspects, and I hope we will hear thoughtful comments from him later.
Changes have been made. For example, the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 made some changes to extradition to ensure that our courts can take greater account of these matters, and the judge will have to consider the seriousness of the offence and the likely sentence. Changes are also happening within Europe to try to make the situation better and to deal with cases where people might face a long period of pre-trial detention. Many of our Members of the European Parliament have been working on this. In particular, Sarah Ludford—Baroness Ludford—has been successful in securing a majority in the European Parliament for a package of EU-wide reforms of the European arrest warrant. These recommendations are important. They propose the inclusion of an EU-wide human rights safeguard clause preventing miscarriages of justice, and measures to improve standards of detention, specifically pre-trial detention. I hope that the European Commission and this Government will make sure that these reforms happen by coming up with proposals to enact them that we then get into law.
If we want to benefit from these tools and change them so that they work for Britain, we obviously have to be there at the table leading the negotiations. If we walk out, we give up on any chance of doing that, leaving our citizens vulnerable at home or when they go holidaying or working in Europe. Crime crosses borders and so must we. That means co-operation, information exchange, and justice systems that match our own high standards. We should opt in to these measures and make sure that we do not accidentally walk out, because that is the key to achieving this effectively and efficiently. I hope that the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor will successfully conclude these negotiations, and that my fears of our sleepwalking out of them do not come to pass, because that is the best thing for Britain.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
It is a privilege and an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab). He spent six years as a Foreign Office lawyer and has a family back story that is perhaps more exotic than that of many on the Government Benches. Over the past half hour, he has, with his searing intellect, differentiated the small print, which he understands as well if not better than anyone in the House, from the key principles, which he enunciated. In particular, he concluded that we can achieve outside EU structures, albeit slightly more slowly in a few instances, what we can achieve within them, but without the downsides to liberty and democracy that are implied if we remain within those structures. He has done us a great service.
My hon. Friend spoke of the European arrest warrant. I felt that he spoke from the current centre of gravity within the Conservative party. He mentioned that the Home Affairs Committee, on which I sit, concluded that the EAW was “fundamentally flawed”, but did not mention that the Liberal Democrat member of that Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), voted to remove the word “fundamentally” from our report. I am delighted that Conservative members voted that proposal down unanimously.
It was instructive to hear from my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). I intervened on him to ask how many people he would be prepared to see kept in custody wrongfully in order, supposedly, to bring 100 guilty people to justice, but he did not answer. He has great hopes that there will be some new EU directive that will stop all those bad things happening and properly protect everyone’s rights: as long as we legislate, people will be protected in practice and we need worry ourselves no more. However, we also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), whose constituent, Andrew Symeou, came to the Home Affairs Committee. My hon. Friend said that the proposals will not work and cannot be trusted, and that they will be judiciable by the European Court of Justice and subject to the proposals of the European Commission. As my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton said, the problems that have been seen in the old member states may be not just replicated but worse in the new member states. How many people would the Liberal Democrats be prepared to see wrongfully imprisoned to get 100 crooks bang to rights? Alas, there are no Liberal Democrats here to answer my question. They tell us that they believe in the civil liberties of the British citizen, but when it comes down to it they always put the European Union and their belief in Europe, right or wrong, before the liberties of the British citizen.
Today, we debate a motion on an opt-out. We have heard an awful lot of discussion on what we might opt into, but the motion actually reads:
“That this House has considered the UK’s 2014 justice and home affairs opt-out decision.”
It is important to understand that the opt-out has been agreed. Parliament has voted to exercise the opt-out. All this talk about opt-ins is speculative. We may or may not opt back into some, any, or none of these measures—that remains to be seen. The status quo ante is that we have opted out, we have exercised it and that we have that great repatriation of powers. We will have to see whether it will be undone, or whether it will be maintained.
The great worry of my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, who is not in his place, is that we may sleepwalk, or accidently fall, out of the measures he would like to be in. I think he underestimates the degree of planning that went into delinking the two matters. A number of motions and draft motions were put on the Order Paper, and others were discussed between the coalition parties. Ultimately, the motion we voted on was to exercise the mass opt-out. There has been no decision by the House to approve any measures to opt back in. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, because the amour propre of Select Committees was also involved. The result of the decisions to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed and my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge signed up was that the mass opt-out and any opt-ins were delinked. Crucially, one came before the other.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge seemed to be concerned that there might not be agreement in this House on what we might opt back into. One fear was that, as he sees it, the Labour party might play political games and that it would like us to opt back into more than the Government might wish. If, as with the Syria vote, Labour Members vote for their own motion or amendment, rather than voting for the Government motion, and it fails, there might be no agreement on any set of measures to opt back in to. The Home Secretary told us about her negotiations with her European partners and the Commission. Have there been negotiations with those on the Opposition Front Bench on whether they will support the package the Government put before the House, or does she believe that she has enough votes from Government Members to drive through measures to integrate this country into the European Union in a way that we have not seen before?
My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge worries that this may come unstuck if the Government cannot reach agreement on what the measures should be. There has been discussion and there may be understanding but, as the Home Secretary rightly says, we do not know what we will be able to negotiate until we go through the process. We read in The Daily Telegraph today the concerns of a number of our partners about even a very modest proportionality test for the European arrest warrant. There will have to be further discussions between Conservatives and Liberal Democrats on whether an agreement can be reached in the coalition on what the Government want to opt back into and what is put before this House as a motion.
Those discussions and any decisions are likely to come after 22 May, when we consult the electorate in the European and local elections. That is when our constituents will have their chance to pass judgment on politicians, and, in particular, on the self-proclaimed “party of in”, which has made great play of these supposedly co-operative measures. The president of ACPO is quoted, and reference is made to whatever the police want. I remember the previous Prime Minister Tony Blair saying that if the police ask for something, there is nothing that any responsible Prime Minister can do except to give it to them. That, surely, is the definition of a police state.
We hear about the ACPO evidence, but I understand that people in ACPO have been fighting to avoid this portfolio. When Sir Hugh Orde talks about the ACPO position on EU matters—he may continue doing so for at least the next few months—it is not because the police consider them to be so terribly important that Sir Hugh must talk about them, but, I fear, it is because other chief constables have learnt the lessons from the noble Lord Blair. If they intrude into politics and tell the public and politicians that they have to vote a certain way so that they can lock people up for 90 days without charge—to say nothing of police vans festooned with “Vote Labour” stickers—there will be a backlash, because the police should not get involved in politics to that degree.
Unfortunately, with the European investigation order and the new statute for Europol, we have the prospect of our police being ordered what to do by politico-judicial structures in other EU countries where the separation of politics and operational policing is not what it is in this country. Do we, as a country, want to make a trade-off that allows British citizens to be arrested on the say-so of magistrates in Greece or Bulgaria and locked up for many months, if not years, in prisons that do not meet the standards that we in this country consider to be acceptable? Fundamentally, that is a matter for us as politicians, not the police.
Mr Cash
Many examples have been given of perceived injustices as a result of the European arrest warrant being applied in other countries. For example, is my hon. Friend aware that, under the European arrest warrant, a man from a neighbouring Staffordshire constituency was convicted in Italy, in absentia, for a murder that he could not have committed, because he was serving in a restaurant at the time, and sentenced to 15 years? It is definitely not just a one-way street.
Mark Reckless
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing that example to the attention of the House. It goes to show that in principle we cannot sign up to the European arrest warrant, because we do not have a sufficient degree of trust in the similarity and protections of all EU 27 judicial and policing systems to allow us to do that. People in our country deserve and have had, over centuries, protections that are greater than those now offered within the European arrest warrant. It is for that reason that I hope and believe it is still possible that we will choose not to opt back into it.
The Home Secretary has given her view, but there are many views in the Conservative party. Those views are held not just on the Back Benches, but, I know, deep in the most senior levels of Government. I ask that we listen to the electorate. Once the electorate, on 22 May, passes its judgment on the “party of in”, and on how weak their arguments are, with the Deputy Prime Minister just recycling arguments he has picked up without giving any liberal thought as to what they are or what the principles should be, we will see that this is not what the people in this country want. Ultimately, we still have the right to make a different decision. What we have seen with the opt-out we have already made is that the opt-ins are still to come. One analogy that Members, at least in my party, may find instructive is with regard to what happened over the AV referendum and the boundary changes. We agreed, in good faith, to give the Liberal Democrats their referendum on AV. In return, they agreed to later give us boundaries that would give fair representation across constituencies. They banked their AV referendum, and then did not give us the boundaries that there was, at the very least, an understanding that they would give.
I would argue that the mass opt-out equates to the AV referendum in that analogy. I do not think that we would have any more reason to agree later to opt in to matters in which we do not believe because of that opt-out than the Liberal Democrats had to give us our boundaries because they secured their AV referendum; and I think that after 22 May, we will be in a different political situation.
Mark Reckless
My hon. Friend has made a very sensible point. I think that, as we get nearer to the election, we need to differentiate between what we believe in as Conservatives and what we have been forced to agree to by the need to be in harness with the Liberal Democrats. Given that they have not fulfilled their promises to us, and as we discover in the course of our negotiations with our European partners that we may not be able to secure protections in every area in which we would like to secure them, we shall have to consider, in those new circumstances, the balance of the opt-ins that are proposed, and decide whether we, as Conservatives, wish to agree to them.
Mr Cash
There is yet another example. The Liberal Democrats and the Labour party agreed to allow the European Union (Referendum) Bill, presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), to complete its passage in the House of Commons, but when it reached the House of Lords, those same two parties made certain that it would not be passed, and we now understand that the Liberal Democrats are refusing to allow a money resolution to be tabled in respect of any future Bill that may be subject to the Parliament Acts.
Mark Reckless
I think the Liberal Democrats will ultimately find that as we act to others, so they will act to us.
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?
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.
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.