Beyond Brexit: Policing, Law Enforcement and Security (EUC Report) — House of Lords, 2022-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
David Anderson (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, this country can be proud of its historic contribution to the EU’s joint effort on policing, law enforcement and security. We were not, of course, in at the start of everything. However, we can take credit for a great deal: the policy and legislative framework for countering terrorism, borrowed largely from our own; the reinvention of Europol as a vehicle for intelligence-based policing; the repurposing of Eurojust to accommodate our distinctive prosecutorial systems; the huge contribution made by our courts to resolving conflicts of laws under the Brussels convention and regulation; and the promotion of legislation—notably in relation to the use of data for crime-fighting—where UK influence in the Council and the Parliament gave much-needed emphasis to operational imperatives over some of the more academic notions of privacy All this provides a good example of the wider truth, perhaps better understood abroad than at home, that EU membership was not something sinister that others did to us but rather an effective vehicle for the export of British values and traditions to a reunited continent and a wider world. To be fair to the promoters of Brexit, the unravelling of police and judicial co-operation rarely featured in their vision of the sunlit uplands. The debate over the Protocol 36 opt-out had already convinced Theresa May and most others in government that the country’s security was better served inside than outside these EU mechanisms. Part 3 of the TCA was thus, to a large extent, an exercise in damage limitation with few, if any, gains to be expected. It is some comfort that, subject to anything the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, will say, co-operation between intelligence agencies will continue undiminished outside EU mechanisms I had the privilege of serving on the sub-committee that produced this report, chaired with deftness, humour and virtual conviviality by the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, and serviced by our excellent staff. The litany of committees, contact points, liaison officers and double-keying described in its pages seems to me at least a poor exchange for the seamless operation and strategic leadership that we used to enjoy. Online crime in particular knows no borders, and policing needs to reflect that as far as possible, both at home and internationally. However, while there were predictable disappointments in the TCA, there were negotiating successes too. We have a solid base for closer integration in the future, although that integration is unlikely to be on British terms and its speed will no doubt be a function of political temperature as well as operational need I end with a few questions. Can the Minister tell us how the numbers of those being surrendered to the UK are holding up, given the loss of access to SIS II at the end of 2020 and the unwelcome fact that 12 member states, comprising more than half the population of the EU, have declared that they will be invoking their constitutional rules as a reason not to surrender their own nationals to the UK, or to do so only with their consent? Does the Minister know when the EU might, in the interests of its own people as well as ours, withdraw its short-sighted bar to UK accession to the Lugano Convention Lastly, Part 3 of the TCA depends on the maintenance of high standards on both human rights and the protection of personal data. Brussels is no doubt looking carefully at two recent consultations, by the Ministry of Justice on human rights reform, and by the DCMS, entitled Data: a New Direction. On data, the Centre for European Reform in a report of 15 November last year wrote: "There are three scenarios, any one of which could kill the EU’s adequacy decision: the European Court of Justice … ruling that the UK’s intelligence gathering should have prevented the Commission granting adequacy; the Commission choosing to withdraw adequacy because the UK diverges too far from the GDPR in the future; or the UK unilaterally deciding to allow seamless transfers between the UK and third countries, which would probably compel the Commission to revoke the adequacy decision." Some of the proposals in the DCMS consultation seem in that context rather close to the bone. So my final question is: what assurance can the Minister give the House that Part 3 of the TCA will not be placed in jeopardy by the weakening of current protections for data and for human rights?