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European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, I oppose the amendments. Two of the main benefits and advantages of the Lisbon treaty are, first, to give a much clearer presentation of the scope of the competence of the EU on borders, immigration and asylum matters, which are explained in a much more straightforward way than in the existing treaties, and, secondly, to move to qualified majority voting and—I declare an interest as a Member of the European Parliament—to codecision with the European Parliament. Amendment No. 3, which is a blanket amendment to exclude the area, is completely unwise. Surely it is useful and valuable to have provision to strengthen the common EU borders through integrated border management and a common visa policy. I am in the odd position as a British MEP of negotiating Schengen biometric visa arrangements, which we are not opting in to. That is a peculiarity of the European Parliament. It is sensible to have a common asylum policy where we avoid both forum shopping by asylum seekers and pass the parcel where people are shipped around because we have provisions about where the asylum application should be made. The noble Baroness referred to this point in relation to the so-called Dublin regulation, through which, if someone makes an asylum application in a country that is not the first EU country that they visited, they can be returned to that first country. A common asylum policy is sensible in order to have rational management of asylum flows. The UK has opted in to all asylum legislation and measures, as well as those on combating illegal immigration. It has not opted in to anything on legal migration. It would be sensible for the EU to move towards including the UK, but that raises the question of borders, Schengen and so on. I am not prejudging that question, but at least it is sensible for the Schengen zone to have a coherent policy on both legal and illegal migration in the round. If we are to have an area of free movement within the Schengen zone, of course we have to have common external borders. That is surely even in our interests. There are some measures that the UK has opted in to and will opt in to in the future; for instance, we opt in to part of the Schengen information system. It is entirely in our interests that the countries that are getting on with this as a normal part of their business should do so in an efficient and sensible way. When and if we decide that it is sensible for the UK to opt in, we will hope to opt in to rational arrangements. For example, I am sure that there will have to be some kind of arrangement for an exchange of visa data between the UK and the Schengen zone, which has set up the so-called visa information system. I declare an interest as the rapporteur on that. It will be in both parties’ interest to have some kind of pipeline between UKvisas and the Schengen VIS to exchange information, not least on undesirable people. When and if we decide that we want to opt in to some of the measures, it makes sense that those measures should be good. Of course, the UK wanted to opt in to FRONTEX, the external borders agency, but we were not allowed to. The UK could not opt in because, under the existing protocols, there is a sort of lockout rule where we can be excluded if we have not taken part in the underlying Schengen-building arrangements. There is a downside; on a similar basis last December the European Court of Justice said that we could not opt in to the regulation on common standards for biometric features in passports. As I have said before in this House, when the Government says that the EU requires us to have biometric features in passports, that is not true. We are not legally bound because we were not allowed to opt in to the regulations. This has been an autonomous UK decision. I make no value judgment on that; it is the situation. Under the Lisbon treaty, the UK position has become more flexible as regards our wide freedom to opt in or to stay out of EU proposals on justice and home affairs, including borders, immigration and asylum, although there are of course repercussions. If the UK declines to participate in an amending measure, we could be ejected from the original measure if that becomes inoperable. There are swings and roundabouts in the set-up. I speculate that an example could be an amended Schengen information system. If the Schengen information system is taken to a different technical level, we could find that we cannot operate one system when the rest are operating a more advanced system. Therefore, the system could become inoperable and there would be difficulties. In its impact report, the EU Committee also mentioned an amended European arrest warrant, but that is not borders and immigration. I might have my personal views about the extent of the opt-out. I am not entirely sure that the wide extent of the opt-out is completely in the UK’s interests; it might lead to our being isolated in some areas. However, it exists; that is a fact. We have complete freedom to opt out. It is also a difficulty that the Lisbon treaty does not make it any easier for the UK to opt in to measures that the UK does want, such as FRONTEX and the biometric passports, if we have not opted in to the measures that have built up to that point. The Council of Ministers—the other member states—can refuse our request to participate, just as now. However, that is where we are. Therefore, whatever develops in borders, immigration and asylum, we will have a considerable interest in opting in to a lot of it. The Minister can correct me if I am wrong, but I would certainly expect the UK to continue to opt in to the asylum legislation. It does not make sense to have 27 different asylum systems. It does not make sense for the UK to be excluded from this, not least because we benefit from it. As the noble Baroness said, we benefit from the Dublin regulation. It is operating and starting to work. We can politely direct people to the country of first visit, where they should make their asylum claim. I hope that we do not see a trend develop, of which there have been some signs in the area of civil law, whereby the UK opts in after the negotiations are concluded. Tactically that might be regarded as a clever idea, because it means that the UK is not committed sooner than the point at which it wants to opt in, but I think that it weakens our influence. The Minister and I have seen each other in the corridors of Brussels, although I do not really do civil law. I believe that it is in the UK’s interests that common policies are developed in the EU, specifically in the Schengen zone, on good border management, integrated border management and common asylum and immigration policies. Regardless of whether we opt in to a large number of these policies, we want to live next door to a Schengen zone that is well managed in terms of immigration and combating illegal immigration, with a well managed asylum policy that is fair and respects the refugee convention. It is not at all in our interests to live next door to a chaotic situation. I hope that we will be able to opt in to a considerable amount in this area. I hope that we might be able to opt in to FRONTEX in some way in order to contribute to the EU as a whole, ensuring that it has well managed external borders and free movement inside. Although we maintain our border controls, British citizens largely benefit from those arrangements when they travel round the EU or go to live in another EU member state. There are all kinds of ways in which we benefit from common, rational EU/Schengen borders, visas and asylum policies. We have the freedom to decide to opt in or out. I do not think that these amendments are useful and I do not see why they are necessary, because we have this freedom of the opt-out. With respect, those are my reasons for opposing the amendments.