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1 Apr 2003 : Column 851—continued
4.30 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Bob Ainsworth): I am awfully glad that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr.
Hawkins) brought us back at the end of his speech to the position of those on the Conservative Front Bench. I thank him for doing so, because they welcome most of the Bill, which they believe necessary and to have been substantially improved in another place, as the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) said in opening the debate for the Opposition.I want to cut through some of the rhetoric that we have heard and thank the Opposition for the general welcome that they have given the Bill. I also thank the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), who spoke on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, for generally welcoming the Bill. I think that we will be able to satisfy both sets of hon. Members in Committee on most of the points that have been made this afternoon.
Mr. Heath: I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has just said. Was he as puzzled as I was at the disparity between those members of the Conservative Front-Bench team who spoke from the Front Bench and those members of the Conservative Front-Bench team who spoke from the Back Benches?
Mr. Ainsworth: There was a marked contrast, in fairness, until the winding-up speech, when most of the rhetoric reflected what had been said from the Back Benches, but the substance reflected what was said from the Front Bench by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire. That is why I said what I said.
We have had a detailed and prolonged debate. It would be fair to say that it has been a lot more prolonged than some of us envisaged an hour or so ago. I shall try to address a couple of the over-arching issues that have been raised repeatedly and then turn to some of the issues raised by hon. Members during the debate. I am sure that we can pick up any other points in Committee, and I feel confident that we will be able to satisfy hon. Members that the safeguards that they want will be in place.
The issue that keeps being thrown at us is that we are, somehow, trying to achieve recognition of the Schengen acquis by the back door. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath went further and suggested that we wanted to do so by the nose, by the back door. I thought for a moment that he would complete the picture by saying that we wanted to do so feet first, by the nose, by the back door. In relation to his point about doing so by the nose, I know that it is difficult for him to recognise the fact that the Labour party won the last two general elections, but we live in a democracy and the democratically elected Government are entitled to make such propositions.
With regard to the hon. Gentleman's allegation that this is being done by the back door, which was said first by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire in opening the debate, I remind him that the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, said, on 17 March 1999, that we intended to opt into those parts of the Schengen acquis that we thought added value—the police and judicial co-operation arrangements—so nothing has been done by the back door in any way.
No measure in the Bill adds to the involvement with the Schengen acquis outside what was clearly said in the House a long time ago. The allegation that we are somehow trying to do something behind the scenes
simply does not wash. It is clear that the measures in the Bill are part of the Schengen arrangements with which we told the House that we intended to involve ourselves.
Mr. Ainsworth: The hon. Gentleman has not been with us for most of our deliberations. As I recall it, he left rather briskly when the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire suggested that he might want to join us in Committee. If he will forgive me, I will not be too hasty and allow him to jump into the debate at this point.
As with our debates on the Extradition Bill, we have had a great deal of debate about what the Government are trying to do. Allegations have been thrown around about the harmonisation of jurisprudence across the European Union, co-operation and co-ordination. The hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) is even opposed to co-ordination. The position is clear. The Government have said—it needs to be repeated because of the allegations that have been thrown round—that there is nothing in the Bill that involves the harmonisation of our legal system with the legal systems in the other parts of the EU. We see mutual recognition as the alternative to that.
In the modern world, we enjoy all the benefits of the free movement of people, capital and everything else. However, the criminal fraternity might also enjoy those benefits, so we need effective co-operation. By the time that the hon. Gentleman had finished his speech, I think that he had come to accept that effective co-operation involves a degree of co-ordination. Mutual recognition is the way to achieve that, and it is an alternative to harmonisation. That is our policy. It is very clear, and there is nothing in the Bill that involves harmonisation.
Mr. Ainsworth: I shall give way first to the hon. Member for Buckingham. Otherwise he will be after me for a very long time.
Mr. Bercow: I am grateful to the Under-Secretary. It is true that my ambition to serve on the Standing Committee is less than 100 per cent. but I had the considerable privilege of listening to the opening speech of the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration. Given the way in which the Under-Secretary has just chided my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) on the subject of Schengen, is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that the result of the last two general elections represented mass public enthusiasm for the acquis communautaire?
Mr. Ainsworth: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that I was responding to the point about people being led by the nose or about our going into the agreement through the back door. The back door does
not apply and nor does the nose if one accepts that this is a democratic country and that the Government are allowed to make such propositions.
Mr. Paice: The Under-Secretary said that there was nothing in the Bill about harmonising our legislation with that in Europe. However, surely the gist of the whole section on driving offences to which my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) referred is that someone could pay a penalty or be disqualified in Britain after being prosecuted for an offence under the legislation of another country. Surely if someone is penalised in Britain after being prosecuted under a totally different legislative system, that is effectively harmonisation of the law.
Mr. Ainsworth: I look forward to our debates in Committee. As I recall it, at the start of our debate the hon. Gentleman welcomed our proposals. He spoke quite glowingly about them and said that they were absolutely necessary. The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) walked in halfway through the debate—I do not know on whose prompting—and appears to have changed the hon. Gentleman's mind. We look forward to hearing the Conservative party's position in Committee. We shall have many opportunities to find out whether its policies have changed. Perhaps I have misrepresented or misheard the hon. Gentleman. He might have had deep concerns about the issue at the start of the debate, but I do not remember him saying so.
Mr. Cash: A simple question has been raised three times, and I would be grateful if the Under-Secretary would answer it. Is it the Government's intention to retain the existing opt-outs in relation to Schengen in the context of the European convention?
Mr. Ainsworth: We have said clearly that our opt-outs do not involve police and co-operation matters. They involve border controls and other measures, and we intend to maintain them. There is no dubiety about that. The hon. Gentleman should be able to sleep safely in this bed in the knowledge that they are there and will continue.
There has been a great deal of discussion about the five-hour limit on surveillance. That was already part of the Schengen arrangements, which have been operated by our European partners for some time. I do not share hon. Members' worry about that time limit. There must be adequate time to hand over a surveillance operation so that the British team or joint team who are taking control have time to get established. We did not participate in discussions on the Schengen arrangements, so we had no say on the time limit. Conservative Members ought to think about that, because it is a consequence of their general opt-out—their empty chair policy towards the European Union. If we choose to join protocols after they have been introduced, we have no ability to mould them and we have to take them as written. We are trying to avoid that through our leadership in Europe on this issue and on mutual recognition as an alternative to the harmonisation of judicial systems.
Chris Grayling: The Minister must recognise that the Committee needs to discuss the five-hour rule on
surveillance, if only because the nature of crossing the border, in a car, between France and Belgium, or between the Netherlands and Germany, is fundamentally different from coming to Britain. To get here, people must travel by plane, by boat or through the channel tunnel, and they must pass through customs.
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