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EU: The Hague Programme—Justice and Home Affairs (EUC Report)

My Lords, in speaking in the gap I owe your Lordships an apology for missing the greater part of this debate. However, it is impossible to do any work in Scotland on a Monday morning and get here in time to participate in the proceedings. I look forward to reading the debate. I wish to pay tribute to a number of people, particularly the noble Lord and noble Baroness of Richmond—the chairmen of the committees on which I had the honour and privilege to serve. I refer to the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, and the noble Lord, Lord Wright of Richmond. I listened with great care to what the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said about terrorism. I agree very much with what he said. I, too, was impressed by the visit to Interpol. That was rather surprising to me given many people’s perception of that organisation and that no one was certain what it did. However, it is a highly efficient, highly motivated organisation. I agreed very much with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, when he said that the relationship between Europol and Interpol was not clearly thought out when Europol was set up. There is a lesson to learn there and the sooner those two parties can get their act together and work closely together and build greater trust, the better our lives will be. The point about terrorism being cheap was very well made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. In conclusion, I would like to thank our specialist advisers who did a huge amount of work. Without their help we would not have been able to produce what I consider are excellent reports.