Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Home Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts
Monday 29th October 2018

(5 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Ben Wallace Portrait Mr Wallace
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My hon. Friend’s suggestion is similar to what already happens through the regional organised crime units. We have injected £140 million in grant funding to help to establish them and to ensure that we put in place the right financial investigators in each region to tackle fraud.

Yvette Cooper Portrait Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
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Organised crime crosses borders, and the National Crime Agency relies on the European arrest warrant and databases and joint operations with Europol, all of which will fall if we leave the European Union without a deal in place in April. Given that Ireland has repealed its extradition arrangements to do with the previous 1957 convention, will there be any legal way to extradite organised criminals from Dublin if there is no deal?

Ben Wallace Portrait Mr Wallace
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The right hon. Lady makes an important point about what happens post Brexit. She will of course know that the negotiations with Michel Barnier are all about issues like that. I suspect that Ireland will go along with whatever the EU’s deal is to implement, and we are seeking a security treaty so that we can put in place many of these important measures.