European Police College
The Committee consisted of the following Members:
† Clappison, Mr James (Hertsmere) (Con)
† Dromey, Jack (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
† Green, Damian (Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims)
† Heaton-Harris, Chris (Daventry) (Con)
† Hopkins, Kelvin (Luton North) (Lab)
† Horwood, Martin (Cheltenham) (LD)
Jackson, Glenda (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
† Milton, Anne (Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury)
Qureshi, Yasmin (Bolton South East) (Lab)
† Randall, Sir John (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)
† Rutley, David (Macclesfield) (Con)
Shannon, Jim (Strangford) (DUP)
† Wilson, Phil (Sedgefield) (Lab)
Helen Wood, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee
European Committee B
Wednesday 30 April 2014
[Hywel Williams in the Chair]
European Police College
8.55 am
The Chair: Does a member of the European Scrutiny Committee wish to make a brief explanatory statement about the decision to refer the relevant documents to the Committee?
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con): It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Williams, for this much anticipated debate.
The proposal is a simple one: to make provision for the relocation of the European police college—CEPOL—from Bramshill in Hampshire to Budapest, following the Government’s decision to sell the site. However, it has far wider implications.
The draft regulation is subject to the United Kingdom’s title V justice and home affairs opt-in, and, at its first meeting after the Christmas recess on 8 January, the European Scrutiny Committee recommended that the Government’s opt-in decision should be debated in European Committee, for two reasons.
First, the Government have expressed their full commitment to rigorous scrutiny of opt-in decisions. In his written ministerial statement to the House on 20 January 2011, the Minister for Europe said that
“the Government urges the Committees to take full advantage of their existing right to call a debate on an amendable motion on any opt-in decision and expresses its willingness to participate in these debates to ensure full transparency and accountability of opt-in decisions.”—[Official Report, 20 January 2011; Vol. 521, cc. 51-52WS.]
The European Scrutiny Committee endeavoured to take full advantage of its right to call an opt-in debate, only to be thwarted in this case. Today’s debate was scheduled nearly four months after our debate recommendation was made, and more than six weeks after the Government notified the Committee of their decision to opt in to the draft regulation. A debate after the Government have decided to opt in is clearly contrary to the spirit of the undertakings made by the Minister for Europe in 2011 and removes the much needed debate to enable Parliament to do its job effectively.
We have been told by the Leader of the House that “wider business management reasons” make it difficult to ensure that all debates take place in a timely manner. However, opt-in debates are in a special category. They are, by their very nature, time-critical because the Government have to reach a decision within three months, and they provide a unique opportunity for Parliament to influence and inform the Government’s approach before they reach a definitive position.
The reverse is true in the present case. As our last report on the CEPOL draft regulation made clear, we expect the Minister to explain the “business management reasons” that prevented the Government from scheduling a timely debate. We also expect him to explain what
position the UK took in the Committee of Permanent Representatives discussions on 5 March and, in particular, whether the UK was able at that stage to indicate support for the compromise text informally agreed by the Council and the European Parliament.The second reason for recommending an opt-in debate was to explore the wider implications of a decision to opt in to the draft regulation. The draft regulation proposes a simple amendment to one article of a 2005 Council decision establishing CEPOL as a European Union agency and setting out its tasks and functions. Yet that simple amendment will have two important consequences. First, it will remove the 2005 decision from the scope of the UK’s block opt-out of pre-Lisbon EU police and criminal justice measures. Secondly, it will give the Court of Justice full jurisdiction over disputes concerning the implementation or interpretation of the 2005 decision, as amended by the draft regulation.
Those are significant changes—significant enough to warrant a debate in Parliament before the Government committed themselves to a course of action that will give the Court a jurisdiction it does not currently exercise in the UK. Will the Minister explain why the extension of the Court’s jurisdiction in relation to the 2005 CEPOL decision is acceptable to the Government when they rejected a similar extension of the Court’s jurisdiction to more than 90 EU police and criminal justice measures? Those are subject to the UK’s 2014 block opt-out and will cease to apply to the UK from 1 December 2014.
Finally, the European Scrutiny Committee has asked the Government to confirm that they will not support the adoption of the draft regulation until the UK’s share of the relocation costs for the move to Budapest has been resolved. The text of the draft regulation—informally agreed by the Council and European Parliament in early March, but made available to us only last Friday—includes the following new wording in recital 2:
“the United Kingdom in particular is required to ensure a smooth transition of CEPOL to its new location, without jeopardising the regular budget of CEPOL.”
That suggests that the UK will in fact bear the lion’s share of CEPOL’s relocation costs. I trust that the Minister will tell us whether that is the intention and how much the UK will be expected to pay as a result of the Government’s decision to sell the Bramshill site.
The Chair: I call the Minister to make the opening statement.
9.1 am
The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere for his introduction to the debate on behalf of the European Scrutiny Committee.
I will address my hon. Friend’s particular point straight away and apologise for the fact that there has been a delay in scheduling today’s debate. I know that members of the European Scrutiny Committee have a keen interest in the justice and home affairs opt-in, and I am aware of the commitments this Government have made in order that opt-in decisions can be debated in the three-month window set out by the treaty.
As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said in his letter of 19 March to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), the delay in arranging today’s debate was in part due to the time taken in obtaining information requested by the European Scrutiny Committee, and in part due to the need to secure agreement across Government, which is necessary before Government can reach a final position. But I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere that it is clearly unfortunate that we did not hold this debate earlier.
My hon. Friend asked about the COREPER discussions. As he said, on 5 March COREPER approved the Trilog negotiations on the member state initiative to amend the existing Council decision and agreed to inform the European Parliament that the Council would adopt the text agreed at the Trilog provided that it was adopted unchanged at the plenary session. He also asked what the UK delegation did at COREPER. We appealed to the Council to remove the explicit reference to the UK being required to ensure the smooth transition of CEPOL to its new location without jeopardising the regular budget of CEPOL, arguing that such a reference within the regulation was inappropriate and that the UK could not ensure the smooth transition on its own. COREPER was unwilling to support that request, largely due to the importance the European Parliament had placed upon the inclusion of that reference.
My hon. Friend also asked about the location of EU institutions, a question underlying the debate, and drew attention to the fact that the treaties say locations should be decided by common accord of member states rather than by the Council and European Parliament through the legislative procedure. He is right to draw attention to the importance of that and, in particular, to the importance of resisting any expansion of the competence of the European Parliament in this area.
The Government have always sought to defend that position, as it avoids expanding the European Parliament’s competence by giving it a role in determining the location of an agency. For example, we voted against the regulation establishing the EU’s JHA IT agency because it specified the agency’s location, even though we supported the text in all other respects. However, in this case the existing CEPOL council decision already states the location of the European police college as Bramshill. Under Article 87(2)(b) of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, any legislation amending that decision must be agreed by the ordinary legislative procedure, which means it must be agreed by the European Parliament as well as by the Council. There is therefore no scope to resist the European Parliament’s involvement.
To turn to the substance, as has been explained, the motion before us endorses the Government’s decision to opt into the member state initiative, published in December, for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council to relocate the European police college from Bramshill to Budapest. The Government’s primary concern from the outset has been to minimise the impact of Bramshill’s sale on both CEPOL staff and the operations of the agency. Our aim has always been to ensure that the move takes place as quickly as possible.
The current CEPOL Council decision states that the headquarters shall be in Bramshill. The Bramshill site is owned by the Home Office and is also currently used by
the College of Policing. The site costs the Home Office £5 million a year to run and is not economically viable. The Home Secretary therefore decided in December 2012 that Bramshill should be sold. It was placed on the market last summer and we are on schedule to complete the sale by March 2015.Clearly, the sale of Bramshill means that we will be unable to continue housing CEPOL there, so a new location needed to be found for it. The draft regulation addresses that by changing the location to Budapest. The regulation is an important step towards ensuring that CEPOL vacates the Bramshill site in good time for any sale. A buyer would expect vacant possession, so, in the context of securing the sale, it is very much in UK interests to support the proposal.
Opting into the measure will maintain the positive momentum we have built with other member states, the Commission and the European Parliament to secure our objectives of relocating CEPOL and selling Bramshill. It is therefore important that we opted in to give the UK the best possible chance of ensuring a positive and timely outcome. It is also important to note that if the UK does not opt into the proposal to relocate CEPOL, but that is subsequently adopted by the rest of the EU, the UK will remain bound by the underlying CEPOL Council decision. Therefore, as far as the UK would be concerned, CEPOL would still be based at Bramshill, the site we are trying to sell, which would clearly be an unacceptable outcome.
In negotiations in the Council, the UK argued for the removal of the explicit reference to the UK being required to ensure a smooth transition of CEPOL to its new location, without jeopardising the regular budget of CEPOL. We argued that such a reference in the regulation was inappropriate and that the UK could not ensure the smooth transition on its own. However, other delegations were unwilling to support us on that point, largely due to the importance that the European Parliament had placed on its inclusion. As the Committee will be aware, the measure is subject to co-decision and therefore requires agreement by the European Parliament as well as the Council. The regulation has now been approved by the European Parliament and we expect the Council to adopt it on 6 May.
I would also like to underline that the decision to relocate CEPOL is not in any way a reflection of the Government’s view of CEPOL itself. The Government value the contribution CEPOL makes to policing and security across Europe and we are working with partners in Europe to ensure that the transition is as smooth as possible so that CEPOL can continue its work.
To conclude, this measure will save the taxpayer money by allowing us to sell Bramshill and relocate CEPOL with minimal disruption to its operations. The Government therefore concluded that it was in the national interest to opt in. I urge the Committee to support the motion.
The Chair: We now have until 9.55 am for questions to the Minister. Questions should be brief. Members may ask related or supplementary questions at my discretion.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams. Am I right to suspect that “wider business management reasons” are really just a cover for political resistance to having
this debate brought forward? I do not want to accuse the Leader of the House of misleading us, but, without specifying those reasons, it does look rather suspicious.Damian Green: The hon. Gentleman, who is experienced in these matters, is wrong to be suspicious; there is nothing malicious or underhand. As I explained to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere, discussions need to take place inside Government Departments about such matters and some of those are more difficult than others. Sometimes they take some time. This Government offered the timetable that we seek to adhere to, to ensure more and better scrutiny than ever took place in the past. As I said in apologising for this in my opening statement, it is unfortunate that this has not happened in this case, but there is absolutely no sense of attempting to evade scrutiny.
Kelvin Hopkins: I thank the Minister for his answer, but the reason cannot be a shortage of time either on the Floor of the House or elsewhere. On the Floor of the House, the Government’s business is relatively light and has been for some months now. Indeed, I understand that extra Opposition days have been offered to fill up the time, in a sense, and there is also quite a lot of time for Backbench Business debates. So it cannot be a problem of parliamentary time on the Floor of the House, and these Committees can be called at reasonable notice on a regular basis. So what is the problem?
Damian Green: As I explained, for the Government to reach a common position, agreement needs to be reached. That was one reason. The other reason, as I said in my opening remarks, was that getting a lot of the information—which was reasonably demanded—took more time than we anticipated. I am not arguing that it was for the business management reason that no time was available, but simply for those other two reasons.
Kelvin Hopkins: Is it not simply the case that the Government do not want to have a debate, particularly on the Floor of the House, about opting-in to something in the EU? That could cause an interesting debate, with Members of the Government, and indeed Labour Members, arguing the case about opt-ins at a time when we are supposed to be opting out of things.
Damian Green: No, the hon. Gentleman is over-interpreting again. If I were to choose an uncontroversial opt-in decision, I would choose a decision that is saving the British taxpayer tens of millions of pounds, potentially. This is an eminently sensible proposal, to which I do not imagine that there will be any substantive opposition on either side of the House. As I say, if the hon. Gentleman is going down that route then he is over-interpreting.
Mr Clappison: My right hon. Friend has taken a very sensible view on these matters, if I may say so, and has perhaps implied contrition. He has given us a detailed account, but would it not have been better if we had had the detailed account of what the Government were doing before the opt-in decision was taken? We would then have had the opportunity to debate it.
Damian Green: Indeed. It is the same point made by the hon. Member for Luton North. I am grateful for the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere. As I said when apologising in my opening remarks, it is unfortunate. I would have preferred to have gone through the normal—and better—order of things. For the reasons I have explained, that was not possible. However, we seek to meet those timetables as much as we can.
Mr Clappison: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is in fact pointless to have debates about opt-in decisions after the opt-in has taken place?
Damian Green: It is always good to have the collective wisdom of the European Scrutiny Committee in the ether, so that everyone can know—and indeed our colleagues and partners in the European Union can know—how strongly people on both sides of this House feel about an individual matter. As I say, I think that the substance of this is relatively uncontroversial. Indeed, I observe that all the questions so far quite reasonably have been about process rather than substance, and as I say I accept that the process in this case has been unsatisfactory. I can only keep repeating that I agree with my hon. Friend.
Kelvin Hopkins: I turn to another subject, which is about substance rather than process. It seems that the Commission wanted to relocate CEPOL so that it could join Europol in The Hague, but member states were resistant to that. It was the member states, through the Council no doubt, which pressed for Budapest rather than for a merger based in The Hague. Would the Minister be able to explain what that was all about?
Damian Green: Along with a large number of other member states, we flatly disagreed with the Commission. We have made it clear from the start that we do not support a merger with Europol. The Commission’s thought is being driven by cost savings, which they said they had identified, but we were unconvinced that that justified bringing together two organisations with really quite different purposes. There is no obvious reason, from a policing perspective, why Europol and CEPOL would be merged. Having had that debate with the Commission, we are pleased that references to CEPOL and the Europol academy, which is what the Commission was pushing for, have been removed from the draft Europol regulation text. Summing it up, I think we have seen that one off.
The Chair: If no more hon. Members wish to ask questions, we will now proceed to debate the motion.
Motion made and Question proposed,
That the Committee takes note of European Union Document No. 17043/13 and Addenda 1 and 2, an initiative of Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyrus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Decision 2005/681/JHA establishing the European Police College; and endorses the Government's decision to exercise the UK's opt-in under Protocol 21 to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.—(Damian Green.)
9.15 am
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams.
I shall begin by making some comments on the substance of the proposal. European collaboration is essential if we are to fight crime, particularly given the changing nature of crime: trafficking, organised crime, fraud and cyber-crime. CEPOL performs a valuable function and I agree with the Minister that that function should be valued. Successive Governments have been right to support CEPOL. The Government are right to decide to opt in—that decision is supported by the official Opposition—and three issues flow from that.
First, in relation to the suitability of CEPOL’s relocation, ideally, it would have been good if CEPOL continued to be located in our country, but in the circumstances we accept that the case for Budapest is compelling. Secondly, on scrutiny, as the Minister has explained, it was inevitable that there would be a role for the European Parliament in the process, and we believe that that is legitimate. However, on the issue of scrutiny by this House, we share the concerns that have been expressed. For the Government to plead that business reasons prevented them from providing a scrutiny debate at an earlier date is somewhat suspect, particularly in circumstances where one is bound to ask, “Business? What business?” The Minister is right to express contrition and to accept that it was unfortunate that this debate did not take place earlier. The simple reality is that this debate is taking place after the stable door has closed.
Thirdly and finally, on cost, we accept the Government’s argument that a smooth transition is essential and that nothing must be done in the process to jeopardise the valuable, ongoing work of CEPOL. Reasonable costs are inevitable, but again the Minister was right to say that, looking in the round at the sale of Bramshill, that the public purse—the taxpayer—will not lose out as a consequence of what is being proposed. In substantive terms, we agree with what is being proposed. In procedural and scrutiny terms, it is highly unfortunate that there was not an earlier debate, but we are content to support the Government on the proposal.
9.18 am
Kelvin Hopkins: The matter was covered well in the opening statement made on behalf of the European Scrutiny Committee by the hon. Member for Hertsmere in fairly strident terms, as was appropriate. However, delays in responding to a request for a debate from the Committee are not unusual. We have complained about that before. Some Departments, notably the Foreign Office and the Treasury, clearly give the impression of being irritated by the strength of views coming out of the Committee.
A year or so ago, we recommended some five items individually for debate, some in the main Chamber and, after weeks of delay, eventually the Committee agreed reluctantly that those items would be debated together in one meeting of a Standing Committee. That lowers the status of those debates considerably, as important as those Committees are in providing a good opportunity for scrutiny and for questioning Ministers. Indeed, I would like to see the format that I have suggested used on the Floor of the House. We could have a series of questions to Ministers to build up a case. Ministers
might find it uncomfortable, but our scrutiny would be rigorous and we would make sure that European matters were given a proper airing.I am not suggesting that the Minister is responsible for any delay, but somewhere in the system people are putting brakes on, and it is not a case of simply not getting round to it or being overworked. There is definitely resistance to matters being rigorously debated, particularly on the Floor of the House where things get more publicity and perhaps might even open up divisions within parties, which leaders never like. We always want to appear unified, but I think divisions of view and fierce debates are appropriate and essential in a healthy democracy.
I hope the Minister will reflect on the Committee’s view about delays, especially when the scrutiny override is ignored and decisions are debated after they have been made, rather than before. This smacks of possible departmental resistance to some of the views expressed by the European Scrutiny Committee. I think we do a good job, and I applaud the Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), for his strength in leading us through these matters. Other members of the Committee and I were at the meeting this morning. I am not particularly exercised by the substance of the matter, but there should be no delays, and I very much hope that Departments will not be so resistant to debate in future.
9.22 am
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD): I shall briefly add my voice to the consensus and support the measure. I once again find myself in agreement with the hon. Member for Luton North—it does not happen on everything European—in highlighting the importance of timeliness in bringing things before a European Committee. We seem to have this debate in every single European Committee these days. It really is not good enough for Government to introduce things for parliamentary scrutiny after the event. Nevertheless, the measure is good. It is clearly good for the British taxpayer, and member states have reached consensus.
My only slight reservation is that Britain has played an important leadership role in the whole field of European policing, heading up Europol and hosting CEPOL as well. There is a slight concern that the relocation to Hungary might mean that some of that leadership role is slightly reduced. Perhaps the Minister can reassure us that we still intend to play a leading role in CEPOL, and perhaps the implications for British staff who work for the college might be addressed as well. However, the measure seems sensible. It is a good decision for the British taxpayer and also for the European Union.
9.23 am
Damian Green: I thank Members on both sides of the Committee for their contributions to the debate. We have had an extensive discussion about the inadequacies of the process, and I take the points that have been made. I am not sure the hon. Member for Luton North should hold his breath about whether we would wish to repeat this procedure on the Floor of the House in greater numbers. I feel that some of my ministerial colleagues might resist that.
For those who harbour dark suspicions, as I alluded to earlier, this is not an issue on which one would seek to delay and have to have the sort of discussion we have had this morning. There is clearly widespread consensus in support of this sensible decision, so that is the best evidence I can adduce that there is nothing sinister behind the delay in holding the debate in this case.
I shall deal briefly with the substantive points made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington and my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham. On the suitability of Budapest as a site, it was agreed by everyone that what Budapest is providing is more than what CEPOL requires, in terms of size and capacity of the buildings, which are situated in the city centre and are easily accessible from most European capitals. All the facilities and their management are being offered free of charge by Hungary, so there is sense in that.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington mentioned, rightly, the issue of costs. The funding of relocation costs is still to be determined. We will play our part to ensure that the costs involved in the move are met. However, as I said in my opening remarks, our primary concern is to ensure that the process is smooth, so that we can get on with the sale of Bramshill.
Whatever the final detail of what will be relatively small relocation costs, those costs are nothing compared with the benefit to the taxpayer—not just the capital sum from the sale of Bramshill but the removal of the cost of its upkeep. I know that it has great sentimental value to generations of police leaders in this country, but it costs the taxpayer an arm and a leg to keep up.I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham that, partly through the new college of policing which, more than ever before, means that as a country, we are taking a leading role in analysis of policing and the sort of thinking that will feed into CEPOL, we are determined to continue to play a leading role in Europe-wide thinking on the issue. Obviously, we will be looking to the interests of British staff during the relocation process.
I have detected from the debate the view that the Government’s decision to opt in was sensible and pragmatic. It reflects the need both for effective co-operation and for meeting our objectives for the sale of Bramshill. I therefore urge the Committee to support the motion.