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European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am very grateful to the noble Lord. Given that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, has grouped together two groups of amendments, I shall try to do what the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, did and deal with these issues one by one and, perhaps, address the concerns that noble Lords have raised. I recognise the importance of the moves that have been made in the areas of justice and home affairs. I declare my interest in that I was a Minister who sat on the Justice and Home Affairs Council for just under three years and I have some experience of the opting-in process that noble Lords have referred to. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, took us on a journey through Maastricht to Amsterdam on the way that justice and home affairs have evolved. Indeed, one can look back to the beginnings in the 1970s of the Trevi group and see the moves within Europe to recognise the importance of co-operation in matters of justice and home affairs to achieve common ends—particularly on issues such as serious and organised crime. Those moves tried to make sure, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, said, that in areas of civil justice, where people live, work, study, travel, buy or sell across the European Union, they have the benefit of knowing that they can rely on the EU to work together to resolve any problems that may arise. Put simply, if you are a tourist who buys something in a shop in any part of the European Union and it is faulty or breaks, you know you can be recompensed. Equally, it makes it easier to have debts repaid to you because of transactions that you have undertaken. These are issues that I worked on personally across the European Union in my time as a Justice Minister and I know the importance of the potential benefit to UK citizens. It is in that context that I want to talk about these matters. I think it is important when we look at the area of justice and home affairs, particularly in terms of judicial co-operation, that we look at what is within Article 81 of the consolidated treaties. When I was a Justice Minister I spent a huge amount of time on Article 65, trying to make sure that we considered it in the context of cross-border implications. I was very pleased to see that the treaty helpfully makes clear that measures in that field must be based on the principle of mutual recognition. From a UK perspective, that is an improvement on what went before. It is very important to me that we are recognising each other’s legal systems and not seeking any form of harmonisation. That is an important principle that is much clearer within this treaty than what went before. As noble Lords have said, family law remains subject to unanimity and the consultation procedure with the European Parliament. There is a passerelle clause that allows family law measures to move from unanimity to qualified majority voting. It has appeared in every treaty from Amsterdam onwards but, under the Lisbon treaty, national parliaments have the right to veto its use. Going back to the amendments that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, who is not in his place, was concerned about and that my noble friend Lord Bach discussed on recognising the importance of the role of and strengthening the control of national parliaments, here we have an example. I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, spoke to Amendment No. 55. No? I will not deal with it because I thought he was going to. I will leave it for another time. I will speak to Amendment No. 56, which is next on my list and deals with Article 82 in the consolidated version of the treaty on the function of the European Union. It talks about judicial co-operation in criminal matters, which is currently under Article 31 of the treaty of the European Union. Again, I think that that is an improvement on the existing treaties in a number of respects, which was implicitly acknowledged in the report of the Select Committee. It said that Article 31 was of ““uncertain and controversial width”” and replaced it with an exhaustive list of areas of criminal procedure where the adoption of minimum rules could be proposed. It concluded that what it described as that ““clarification and definition”” was, "““unlikely to involve any significant expansion of jurisdiction””." The new provision expressly limits activity in this area to, "““the extent necessary to facilitate mutual recognition””," and to police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters, "““having a cross-border dimension””." Again, these are important areas of clarification. It also explicitly requires that rules created under this provision should take into account the differences between the legal traditions and systems of the member states. All these requirements are welcome and I would have thought that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, might welcome them as well because of the importance of mutual recognition of traditions and legal systems of individual member states. In moving the provisions on judicial co-operation from a system of unanimity and consultation to qualified majority voting and codecision, we have extended, as the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, rightly said, our opt-in to apply to these provisions. That means that we choose whether we participate in them. We cannot be obliged to participate in such measures where we deem that they are not in our interests. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, made clear, there will be many occasions when it is in our interests to co-operate with our European Union partners. Criminals and organised gangs do not respect borders, and therefore we need to work with our partners in pursuing cross-border prosecutions. The existing provisions on judicial co-operation in Article 31 of the European Union treaty provided the means to create the European arrest warrant, which is now working successfully in combating those who seek to evade justice by crossing borders. It enables the UK to bring to justice those who have fled the country. As noble Lords will know, one of those suspected of the 21 July 2005 attempted bombings in London was swiftly returned to the UK from Italy using the European arrest warrant and has subsequently been convicted. Amendment No. 57 relates to the inclusion of ““organised crime”” in the list of crimes where the EU, by qualified majority voting and codecision with the European Parliament, can establish minimum rules concerning the definition of criminal offences and sanctions. As I indicated, Article 31 of the current treaty provides for the adoption of measures establishing minimum rules. On that basis, the JHA Council has already agreed a framework decision which requires member states to have in their domestic laws offences and penalties relating to participation in a criminal organisation. That decision is wholly consistent with the Criminal Law Act 1977, which is the relevant UK legislation on conspiracy and defines ““organised crime””. The framework decision provides for member states to opt either for offences of participating in a criminal organisation or for offences founded on national conspiracy laws. Therefore, we are able to support the framework decision on the basis of the laws that we already have in place. It is an important element in ensuring that there are no safe havens for criminals across the European Union. Through collaboration and through the lists that we have put forward, which the committee say are a step towards an exhaustive list, the minimum and possibly the maximum rules are set out. Criminals will therefore know what will happen to them in any state in the European Union, rather than being able to evade justice. That is particularly important in the area of terrorism. Amendment No. 58 concerns the provisions relating to Eurojust’s ability to initiate criminal investigations. The Lisbon treaty—