---

European Union (Amendment) Bill

If we read the exhaustive list being put forward, my perspective is that it is very important, as a European Union collaborating on judicial and police matters, to look for areas where the best proposition to put to those who would perpetrate those crimes is that within all the member states, there is a commonality of what the tariffs—the minimum standards, if you like—could be, rather than relying on X person moving to country Y, where there is not such an offence or where the tariff is much lower and having to seek, through the European arrest warrant, a solution. The noble Lord is right to say that the European arrest warrant is a useful and helpful tool—it has certainly been extraordinarily helpful to the UK—but I do not believe that that is the only solution. As crimes become more international in their nature and as serious and organised crime operates across borders—for example, people trafficking and drug trafficking can occur throughout the European Union, and serious crimes can operate in more than one nation state—having a commonality of the minimum tariff, and so on, can be a huge benefit. The advantage of the Lisbon treaty in that is that it puts that list forward more clearly. That should give some comfort and assurance to the noble Lord that this is not inexhaustive but, rather, is exhaustive and can be added to only under the procedures proposed.