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1 Apr 2003 : Column 809—continued
Mr. Bercow: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, for my beady eye has also focused on clause 82. Given that the principle that ought properly to apply is surely that, be the officer ever so high, the law is above him, can my hon. Friend possibly fathom the rationale for including in clause 82 in the first instance proposed new section 76A(6)?
Mr. Paice: My hon. Friend has a perceptive and, indeed, inquisitive approach to such matters, and I am sure that he can work out in his own mind what might have given rise to the proposal on civil liability. I do not know the answer and, as he will be aware from what I know will have been his careful studies of what went on in the other place, my noble Friend Baroness Anelay spent a lot of time trying to uncover whatever it may be, but the Government were very reticent. I shall not attribute any nefarious reasons to them for having been so, but we will certainly explore the matter in Committee. If my hon. Friend wishes to join us, I am sure that he will be expert in probing the Government as to why—[Interruption.] I hasten to assure the Minister that that is a perfectly genuine invitation.
Chapters 3 and 4 of this part of the Bill are, in the main, very sensible, but there is one issue of concern, which relates to speciality and, in particular, areas of banking. The legal processes of searching for evidence can differ between the UK and another participating country, resulting in what might be construed as fishing expeditions for evidence. While it is perhaps reasonable to expect a large banking organisation to be able to swallow the cost and time that could be involved with such expeditions, many smaller institutions cannot.
Perhaps more important is the issue of what should be admissible in court and in subsequent proceedings. It is preferable that the Bill should permit only evidence
sought in direct relation to the offence for which a person has been arrested or is being investigated to be requested from a banking institution. We will want to pursue in Committee the importance of restricting fishing expeditions and, topically, the links to the welcome changes made only last week when the Extradition Bill, in which the two issues come together, was considered on Report.Part 2 relates to terrorism and will extend jurisdiction under article 9 of the framework directive. We welcome those measures, particularly the ones that will extend the freezing of terrorist assets. They are necessary, but that should not obscure the fact that they also represent swingeing new powers, which we need to examine in detail. Further explanation of them is required. Will the Minister confirm that, as those measures are derived from the framework directive, the extension of extra-territorial jurisdiction applies only to countries that are also signatories to that directive? We will, of course, support all measures to increase the protection of our citizens from terrorism and to detain and detect those who would commit it, but we need to be reassured that those measures are also being pursued by other signatories to the framework directive and that the reciprocal arrangements will be as thorough, genuine and robust as our own.
That brings me to a wider issue involving the Bill. In the other place, my noble Friends repeatedly asked for a statement on the arrangements being put in place by other member states to implement the Schengen acquis and the convention on mutual assistance. Time and again, we have pursued legislation in the House that was alleged to be our duty as part of our EU membership only to find that some other countries made no such effort to comply with their obligations. Will the Minister agree to publish, before the Bill is considered in Committee, an assessment of the actions taken by all the other signatories so that, before we allow them to send police officers here on hot surveillance, we can be assured that ours can go there? My noble Friends pressed Ministers for such an assessment, but we have not yet had it. I hope that the Minister realises the importance of ensuring that one is published before the Committee sits.
Information is dealt with in part 4, which introduces access to the Schengen information system. The Information Commissioner will be granted unprecedented powers to monitor and challenge data held in that system. In principle, sharing such information is bound to be right and it must help the fight against crime, but, as we are already finding with our own police national computer, any database is only as good as the quality and timeliness of the information put into it. We shall seek reassurances that the protocols for the use of that system applying to all countries are robust.
I return to the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash). What is not clear is how they relate to the other existing and fledgling EU law enforcement systems. We have Europol, which staggers on but is torn between those who want ever more centralised power and those who see the way forward as the successful joint investigation teams. As my hon. Friend said, some participants in the European judicial co-operation unit want it to become a European public prosecutor, so I repeat his question: will the
Government confirm their total and outright opposition to such a proposition? Of course, it would introduce the concept of a Napoleonic judicial system to Britain, which we have never had before.The Minister also referred to the provisions relating to traffic and driving offences, which, on the whole, are sensible and welcome. Two Members at least referred to them during interventions on the Minister. One might cynically say that, surprisingly in terms of legislation being considered by the House, the proposals address issues that really matter to ordinary people in the streets who have seen such problems arise. Understandably, when they see someone apparently escaping with little or no punishment for a serious offence, possibly including a fatality, they get very frustrated. We welcome those provisions, although I slightly share the implied doubts of the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) on whether the theory will work in practice. Again, we shall want to address that in Committee.
I refer to a concern brought to me by the Police Federation, which I think the Minister will understand. I go so far as to say that the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) would have understood it more, given his much longer experience in dealing with ministerial matters. In passing, I should say that I regret that he is no longer on the Front Bench to deal with police issues. He served the House and the Government well in that capacity.
Part 4 is far-reaching in the protections that it offers to foreign officers in terms of their liabilities when they are in this country carrying out hot pursuit, but we do not know for certain that those protections will be extended to our officers when they carry out similar operations in another participating country. We cannot with a clear conscience commit our police to a reciprocity agreement without knowing fully what the reciprocity will involve. We must consider the protection of our own police officers fulfilling their duties abroad. The Bill says a great deal about safeguards for foreign officers but very little about safeguards for our people, which is why I expressed the hope that the Government would publish their assessment of how the legislation is applied in other countries.
We will not oppose the Bill, not least because the Government have already signed us up to many of its provisions through various European Union agreements. We will support it because we recognise that criminals and terrorists no longer operate solely in one country, as the Minister rightly reminded us. Crime has become global, and we need provisions to deal with it effectively. We will, however, challenge the Government on many elements of the Bill. Some were challenged in the other place and the Government did not respond to our satisfaction; in the case of others, we believe that further clarification or indeed tightening is required, not just to protect foreign police in the context of hot surveillance but, more important, to protect our own citizens.
The Bill will not prompt headlines in any newspapers, notwithstanding current events, but it will go a long way towards dealing with the problems of crime across international barriers, and we therefore welcome the principles behind it. A number of issues remain to be debated, but we will debate them in Committee.
1.31 pm
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome): We broadly support the Bill, and will not oppose its Second Reading. Anyone who brings sense to the debate must realise that the maximum co-operation between police across national boundaries, and between judicial systems, will benefit us when we are dealing with terrorist offences and international crime—along with, of course, the resources and policing that must accompany such co-operation. Many of us are still very worried about the integrity of some of our policing systems as they apply to ports of entry and airports.
I think it fair to say that the Government seem to be adopting a piecemeal approach. Bits of legislation dribble through the system, dealing with various aspects. We would benefit from more co-ordination. I do not have a problem with one aspect, however. I am glad that the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) did not suggest that it was a problem, although it was a recurrent theme in another place. I refer to the Government's power to enter into treaty arrangements with other countries. That, of course, is what being a Government is about—but it does not absolve this House, this Parliament, from the duty, and indeed the right, to scrutinise what has been agreed and if necessary to reject it.
However beneficial co-operation between states on policing matters and judicial systems may be, three essential tests must qualify it. The first relates to our national security and the integrity of our policing system. Our accession to the Schengen arrangements is partial, as is confirmed by the treaty of Amsterdam: we still have an opt-out, if that is the correct term, from free movement across our national frontiers. We need to be persuaded that the integrity of our security information will not be compromised in a way that might put us at additional risk.
The second test is the recognition that different judicial systems and jurisprudences operate across the European Union and beyond. The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire referred to the Code Napoléon, on which much European law is based. We have differences of jurisprudence within our own country as well, of course, in that there is a difference between the law of England and Wales and that of Scotland.
I feel that if we start from a basis of respect for different legal systems, while recognising that they cannot easily be absorbed into a single amorphous system, we start from a healthier basis than the assumption that there is any such thing as true harmonisation of widely differing legal systems. That is, I think, recognised in the Bill, but it needs to be recognised in the House as well. Many of us do not want English and Welsh common law to be eroded in the process, while at the same time recognising the quality of other systems of jurisdiction.
The same applies to policing. There are different methods of policing. Most European countries have a form of gendarmerie which we do not have. We should respect such differences, and treat them as differences in approach but not necessarily in quality.
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