Speech Archives
EC Justice & Home Affairs - 15 October, 2004
EC Justice & Home Affairs
Debate
(Extract
from Hansard – 14 October, 2004)
Mr. Jimmy Hood (Clydesdale) (Lab): I intend to please you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to disappoint Opposition Members by sticking to the Scrutiny Committee report and the subject of today's debate. I am pleased that the Leader of the House has given us this opportunity. I support earlier comments that it is a pity that we do not have more than one and a half hours to discuss such an important issue.
The European Scrutiny Committee published in July its report on the Commission's programme for the next five years. We say in the report that these proposals relate to matters that are "at the core" of our national sovereignty. Therefore the programme directly affects the lives of individual citizens. I am pleased that the report has been so widely supported in the House and in particular that the Government also support it.
Under the treaty of
"to provide citizens with a high level of security in an area of freedom, security and justice."
In that year the European Council held a
special meeting at
"an area of freedom, security and justice."
That meeting approved a detailed programme for
action for the next five years, covering civil and criminal justice, asylum and
immigration, and police and customs co-operation. As we know, the measures
under title IV of the EC treaty on visas, asylum and immigration and other policies
relating to the free movement of people do not apply to the
These new Commission proposals failed, in the
Committee's view, to evaluate the practical benefits achieved so far as a
result of the
"creating an area of freedom, security and justice, covering criminal and civil justice, visas, asylum and immigration, and police and customs cooperation."
Our report questions whether there is a risk that the expression
"an area of freedom, security and justice"
is encouraging the notion that such an area is a unitary state separate from the member states which make up the European Union. Regardless of the countless assurances from Ministers, it is not easy to be comfortable with the Commission's rhetoric throughout its proposals.
On harmonisation of asylum policy, the European Scrutiny Committee argues that we should not go beyond the establishment of reasonable common minimum standards. The proposals for the creation of a European public prosecutor and a European corps of border guards and to give Europol some investigative powers excited the Committee. The report states:
"We have not yet seen sufficient justification for giving the European Union its own prosecutor, border guards and police force."
Again the Government have indicated support for that view.
The extension of the Community's activities
into crime prevention could conflict with the principles of subsidiarity and
proportionality. We also agreed that the scope of measures relating to civil
and criminal justice should be strictly confined to those which are necessary
for mutual recognition, and should not affect purely internal cases or
otherwise encroach on the integrity of the legal systems of member states;
otherwise there would be no limit in practice to EU competence to harmonise
national legal systems. Our concerns are compounded by the Commission's
apparent wish to rely on qualified majority voting to secure the adoption of
its justice and home affairs legislation against the wishes of some member
states. As has been pointed out, the
Mr. Connarty: Obviously it is a joy to
hear such a clear elucidation of the points that we considered and put forward
and with which, as my hon. Friend said, the Government have agreed. Does he not
think it essential that in summing up our Minister makes it quite clear that,
in terms of the motion before us, negotiation will
always be approached by the Government on the basis that they will stand by the
commitments they gave to support the points put forward by him and by our
Committee?
Mr. Hood: I certainly would agree with that; indeed, the last paragraph in the report asks the Government to do that. The Minister's contribution suggested that she has taken on board the comments we made; we should welcome that.
Mr. Hood: All hon. Members, including Conservative Members, know that I always try to be courteous and polite in the House. However, as you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am also a member of the Chairmen's Panel, and we do have conventions in the House. It is a bit rich for the shadow Home Secretary to come in half way through the debate and then seek to intervene on a contribution by an hon. Member who has sat here from the beginning, so if he will excuse me on this occasion, I intend to carry on with my speech and not accept an intervention.
The Commission states that substantial progress
has been made in most aspects of justice and home affairs since 1999, but that
the original ambitions of
"It was not always possible to reach agreement at European level for the adoption of certain sensitive measures relating to policies which remain at the core of national sovereignty. The legal and institutional constraints of the current Treaties, where unanimity in the Council generally remains the rule, partly explain these difficulties.
The Member States are sometimes reluctant to cooperate within this new European framework, and when their interests are at stake they do not hesitate to threaten the use of the veto . . . in order to lower the level of ambition of the Commission's proposals and reject [the European] Parliament's opinions."
The Commission says that once legislation is adopted, the limited role of the European Court of Justice and the restricted powers of the Commission are an obstacle to ensuring it is effective.
The Committee criticises the fact that the communication does not evaluate the practical benefits and measures already adopted, and says that it is therefore not possible to judge whether expected benefits have been achieved.
"Moreover, the Communication does not state what practical benefits the Commission expects from the priorities it proposes for the next five years.
We consider that it would be prudent, therefore, for member states to withhold commitment to the inclusion of these proposals in the work programme until they are presented with, and have considered, such a statement."
The European Scrutiny Committee adds, on unanimity:
"It seems to us reasonable and proper for member states to withhold their agreement from measures they do not support and which, to use the Commission's own words, 'remain at the core of national sovereignty'. It bodes ill for the future if, on such sensitive matters, the Commission envisages reliance on QMV to impose on Member States legislation to which they are opposed".
Mr. Djanogly: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Is it therefore the view of the Committee that QMV should become a red-line issue for the Government; in other words, should the Government insist on not giving up our national veto?
Mr. Hood: The Committee would agree with the view that QMV is not suitable when deciding the issues that are contained in the proposal.
On visas, asylum and immigration, I refer to the Commission's proposals again. One proposal is the development of an integrated border management system and visa policy. The external agency and co-ordination mechanisms must be
"supplemented with the long-term objective of establishing an European Corps of border guards to complement the national border guards."
Visa policy should address the security of documents—including biometric identifiers—and improved consular co-operation.
Another proposal is a common policy on the management of migration flows, including proposals relating to links between legal and illegal migration, such as legal admission for employment purposes, better integration of legal migrants, targets for legal admissions, an effective policy on returns and readmissions and partnerships with countries of origin to deter illegal immigration and trafficking of human beings.
The Government support the development of a common EU asylum policy, which quickly and fairly identifies those in need of protection.
Caroline Flint: I thank my hon. Friend
for giving way. Does he agree that one thing that the Government secured is
that even where there is QMV, on asylum and immigration issues we have an
opt-in to any measures that protect our frontiers? Also, in regard to criminal
procedural law, we have an emergency brake which would mean that any issue that
we felt undermined the judicial systems throughout the
Mr. Hood: Yes I certainly agree and the Committee accepts that in its report.
As I said, the Government support the development of the EU asylum policy, which quickly and fairly identifies those in need of protection whilst tackling abuse and inefficiencies in the system. They support a more practical approach to EU co-operation, in particular through partnership with countries of origin and transit, but are not convinced of the need for further harmonisation of EU asylum policy. Again I took comfort from what the Minister said earlier.
The European Scrutiny Committee says:
"the Commission has not presented a sufficient justification for the proposal"
for the creation of a European corps of border guards. We say that the Convention did not support a reference to such a corps in the draft treaty and that the proposal is objectionable in principle. We say:
"Control over admission is a good illustration of the sensitive matters which remain at the core of national sovereignty."
The Scrutiny Committee also notes that the
common policy on asylum is not necessarily the same as a uniform policy and,
while recognising the importance of
common minimum standards for asylum, agrees with the Government that the case
for further harmonisation remains to be made.
Mr. David: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and I agree with the comments and criticisms of the European Commission made by the European Scrutiny Committee. However, does he agree that what we need to do is ensure that in future the European Commission is held to account to a greater extent both by national Parliaments and the Council of Ministers, and that is not in any way an anti-European argument?
Mr. Hood: I will not surprise my hon. Friend when I say that I very much agree with him. As Chairman of the Committee and as a member of the 16-member Committee, I should say that we were very much maligned by some sections of the press recently for our scrutiny successes. However, I can say that as a Committee we very rarely, if ever, follow party lines in our deliberations. We see our function as looking after the national interests of this Parliament, and anything that we do and say and anything that we report on has that at the core of its considerations.
Mr. Denham: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons why the debate on the proposals becomes so polarised is the truth that the Commission has produced an extraordinarily poor-quality JHA document? In fact, if it came to my hon. Friend the Minister in her red box this weekend as a work programme from officials, she would chuck it back in the box and say, "Go away and do it again." Should not one of the messages that we send to those in the Commission be that, if they produce such vague and ambiguous documents, they lay themselves open to the type of misinterpretation that we have heard from the Opposition today?
Mr. Hood: I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention and for making that important point. In accepting it, I can reinforce the fact that much of our work identifies what I would class as incompetence. Such things are, by their incompetence, provocative and cause unnecessary provocation in national Parliaments of other member states as well. That message should go out loud and clear, and it is one that the Committee often sends to the Commission, both in our reports and, if we are given the opportunity to meet or take evidence from individual commissioners, in Brussels.
On civil and criminal justice, the Commission proposes the creation of a European judicial area, respecting the legal traditions and systems of the member states. It says:
"The development of the European judicial area has neither the objective nor the effect of challenging the legal and judicial traditions of member states, and total harmonisation would be neither proportionate nor appropriate . . . For this reason, the principle of mutual recognition has been placed at the heart of European integration in this field . . . However, mutual recognition requires a common basis of shared principles and minimum standards."
"It will be necessary to avoid a situation where in each member state there are two separate legal regimes, one relating to the disputes with cross-border implications and another purely on internal disputes."
Measures proposed include the definition of fundamental guarantees, the conditions of the admissibility of evidence and strengthening the protection of victims. The Commission calls for a coherent crime policy to enable the European Union to fight serious crime effectively and for action to define fixed-minimum penalties for certain offences.
The Commission also calls for a European public prosecutor's office to be created from Eurojust. On the European public prosecutor, the Government say:
"We support strong action to
tackle fraud against the
On minimum standards, the Government have
"reservations about the statement that mutual recognition requires a common base of shared principles and minimum standards, which suggests that criminal procedural law measures are a pre-condition for mutual recognition."
Mr. Cash: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Cash: We have not got many moments.
The European Scrutiny Committee emphasises that the principle of mutual recognition does not necessitate uniformity of procedural or substantive law. We regard
"such uniformity both as unnecessary and as prejudicial to the integrity of the different legal systems of the Member States."
The Committee is concerned by the implications of the Commission's view that it is necessary to avoid a situation where each member state has separate legal regimes for disputes with cross-border implications and for purely internal disputes.
Mr. Cash: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hood: Yes, I certainly will, briefly.
Mr. Cash: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I should have liked to say much more, but I shall keep it to some simple points. First, the European Scrutiny Committee has condemned the proposals. That is basically what the report boils down to. Secondly, when the vote takes place, I hope that hon. Members who have contributed to the report will follow me into the Lobby. Thirdly, in 1967, the then Labour Government said:
"Nothing in Community law would . . . materially affect the general principles of our criminal law . . . "—
and the same was repeated in 1975. In a nutshell, the fact is that, as the Leader of the Opposition said at the Conservative party conference:
"Politicians . . . have made promises they have failed to keep."
This is about the existing treaties, and those treaties must be renegotiated, repealed and amended.
Mr. Hood: For my sins and for reasons better known to some higher authority, I am rather fond of the hon. Gentleman. He served on the European Scrutiny Committee before me, and I have served on that Committee for 17 years. I always leave him to make his own points, even though I do not necessarily understand them too clearly.
"We draw attention to the
danger that measures which are ostensibly concerned with mutual recognition
will have the effect of creating uniform rules which will then apply to all
cases, whether they have any cross-border implications or not. As we have
commented before, Commission proposals on the 'area of freedom security and
justice' have appeared to treat this 'area' as synonymous with a unitary State,
with only one legal system. We do not believe that there is any treaty basis
for such an approach, or that it complies with the principle of subsidiarity.
If Parliament has not chosen to unify the separate legal systems of
Angus Robertson: I agree with every word that the hon. Gentleman has said until now. Is he concerned that the explanatory memorandum on that very issue—he notes the important separate legal systems—has had no input from the Scottish Executive, as noted in the paper itself?
Mr. Hood: I accept the point that the hon. Gentleman makes and has made on previous occasions. Indeed, the report covers that issue as well.
In trying to reach my conclusion, I wish to say that the Commission's proposals include strengthening the role of Europol, including giving Europol some powers of investigation, extending the work of the European police college and creating a legal framework to improve the sharing of intelligence between enforcement authorities and possibly making Europol a Union agency, financed from the Community budget.
The Commission's proposals include counter-terrorism activity, including the creation of an information exchange centre, action to combat the financing of terrorism, and action in the fight against serious crime, such as public-private partnerships. The European Scrutiny Committee recognises the possible benefits of further co-operation between member states and improved exchanges of information—