European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-02-26
Topic: International Affairs
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, as we have heard, these amendments relating to reciprocal issues are key to continuing to protect and assist British citizens after Brexit, including children and protected persons, in ways that hitherto our EU membership and cross-border agreements have provided. In particular these are the European arrest warrant, the mutual recognition of family court judgments, information exchange, Europol and Eurojust The Government’s approach to these issues must be agreed in principle with the EU in time to be included in the framework part of the Article 50 requirements and form part of the withdrawal agreement, so a satisfactory approach to these will be key to the future vote on that deal. However, as we have heard from speakers tonight, there seems to be an extraordinary lack of urgency, especially if there is any chance—I am not sure whether this is what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, hinted at—that a standstill transition agreement could not cover these issues. That would make it even more urgent I ask in particular about the Government’s urgency, or lack of it, as I began asking Written Questions on this a year ago. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, will remember it very well: it was on St Valentine’s Day last year—I do not think he chose it to be that day, but never mind—that he answered some of my questions on matrimonial and maintenance proceedings. It was very reassuring: he said that the Government, "recognises the importance of the issues" Wow. There was no more than that then, nor indeed on civil judicial co-operation and cross-border disputes and family law when he replied to a similar Written Question in August. I worry about the lack of progress since then As the Prime Minister has remarked and others have repeated, keeping our citizens safe is the first mission of any Government. Therefore, like others, I welcome that she used the Munich speech to reiterate her desire to negotiate continued, and in some cases enhanced, co-operation with EU nations and particularly with these bodies and schemes. As we have heard, the amendments cover the Schengen Information System, the European arrest warrant, the European Criminal Records Information System, Europol and Eurojust. Given what we have heard today and in earlier debates, the Minister will recognise the importance of our continued participation in all of those, but also the challenges that that will bring to them in negotiating While we heard from Munich the desire for this comprehensive agreement, it is time for the Minister to offer a bit more detail and clarity sooner rather than later. It is about the direction of travel or the objectives. It does not undermine any negotiations for us, not just our Parliaments, to know what the Government want to do. As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said, it is time for the Government to move from intention to reality. These issues, as has been touched on just now, are partly held up by an obsession with red lines around the ECJ. They cannot be allowed to stand in the way of some logical and sensible solutions to these problems. These issues are too important to be left to a divided Cabinet. At the moment I see a pantomime horse, or Dr Dolittle’s pushmi-pullyu, being pulled in two different directions, mostly about red lines that are immaterial to the issues we have been discussing. I hope we can hear about some direction and some practical steps from the Minister, particularly on how these negotiations are taking place.