Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
Mr Mike Fitzpatrick, Mr Jonathan Sweet, Mr Kevan
Norris and Mr Marek Rejman-Greene
11 OCTOBER 2006
Q1 Chairman: Good
morning, gentlemen. Thank you very much for coming to give evidence
to us. We are on the record and we are being recorded for the
website. We are also being televised. You will of course be sent
later a transcript for you to check that you are correctly recorded.
This is an inquiry into the Schengen Information System, mark
II. You are the first of the oral witnesses we have received but
I would like to thank you also for the written evidence which
your department has provided. Do any of you want to make any opening
statement?
Mr Sweet: I do not think so, thank you.
Q2 Chairman: At a recent European Parliament
meeting there was concern expressed about technical problems and
perhaps other problems which are leading to delays in SIS II.
I am rather confused from reading the papers as to exactly what
the revised timetable is now. An Estonian parliamentarian referred
at a recent meeting to a delay of 15 months. There have been various
dates suggested in Commission papers—the delay may be until
June 2008—and even suggestions that the delay may be longer
than that. Would you like to comment on this delay and in particular
on what problems you think are leading to this delay?
Mr Fitzpatrick: If I may speak to the original
timetable to explain the delays, as originally planned the SIS
II system should have gone live in March 2007 ready for borders
in the Schengen area to be dropped in October. We have been working
with the Commission to understand how that might be achieved and
we have worked with them to develop a realistic plan which now
contemplates delivery and go live for all Member States in, I
think, June 2008. That is the date that we understand to be the
realistic planning assumption. It is a challenging timetable but
we believe it is realistic for it to be achieved.
Q3 Chairman: It has been suggested that
SIS I might be extended meanwhile to cover new Member States.
Would this be possible, given the current technical limitations
on SIS I? Would this require further regulation and decisions?
Mr Fitzpatrick: Given the delay to SIS II and
the border dropping deadline of October 2007, one can understand
the desire for an alternative to be sought. We have seen a number
of proposals from the Commission and Member States to broaden
the membership of SIS I plus but as yet we have not seen something
which we would place a lot of faith in. At the moment, we do not
think that some of the challenges which were pointed out in the
inadequacies of SIS I which required the development of SIS II,
such as capacity, have yet been addressed in any of the proposals
we have seen.
Chairman: If any of the others wish to
chip in, you are of course very welcome to do so.
Q4 Earl of Caithness: On the question
of delay, do you support the claim by Poland, the Czech Republic,
Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia for compensation from the Commission
and, if not, why not?
Mr Fitzpatrick: The claim for compensation would
depend on who was at fault and would in many cases, especially
in the countries concerned—I cannot comment on their particular
state of readiness—require proof that everybody was ready.
This is a collective enterprise and, while there are certainly
some delays which have occurred at the Commission level between
them and the contractor, there are also delays elsewhere in the
delivery of the central system in Strasbourg and also, from our
perspective, some questions as to whether all Member States would
have been ready to connect in March 2007 anyway.
Chairman: Incidentally, if on this or
any other points, when you read your transcript, you think there
is anything that needs to be followed up in writing, we would
of course very much welcome that.
Q5 Lord Avebury: A number of Member States
did ask for a comprehensive explanation as to the reasons for
the delay and I presume that this would have been given to them
in writing. If that was so, could we solicit the copies of the
explanation given by the Commission and have them distributed
to the Committee?
Mr Fitzpatrick: I am not aware but we will check
to see if we have a comprehensive statement from the Commission.
There has been reference to a submission before on the delays
in the provision of the Strasbourg site, air conditioning, flooring
and so forth, and mention of the contracting delays which have
occurred following appeals with the letting of various contracts.
The original SIS II contract which was won by H P Sterio was delayed,
as was the award of the network contract for the S-test network
to run SIS II.
Q6 Lord Avebury: Could you perhaps say
something about the secrecy which surrounds the SIS II documents,
particularly the rescheduling document 12379? Why is it necessary
to conceal from new Member States and from the public what has
gone wrong with SIS II? Why can there not be openness, particularly
under the Finnish presidency which believes so strongly in transparency?
Mr Fitzpatrick: I am afraid I do not know the
document to which you are referring specifically.
Q7 Lord Avebury: It is not the only one.
Mr Fitzpatrick: I am not aware that any documents
are particularly being kept secret from Member States. We have
access, as other Member States do, to the planning approach of
the Commission and the documents they provide. There is no way
in which they are, as far as we are concerned, kept secret or
access restrained from any Member State.
Chairman: I should say that at the meeting
in Brussels, which I think Lord Avebury attended, the statement
by the Estonian parliamentarian reflected considerable concern
both about the delay but also about the lack of transparency.
Lord Avebury: Even the chair of the Finnish
committee which deals with European Union affairs was saying that
she did not get all the papers. It is a pervasive climate of secrecy
surrounding these particular documents which is very harmful to
a complete understanding of the reasons for the delay and the
methods for putting it right, which I think we should protest
against.
Q8 Baroness Henig: I am switching the
focus, if I may, to the United Kingdom's position, and particularly
what is the timescale for the United Kingdom participation in
the current SIS and why has this participation been so long delayed?
Mr Fitzpatrick: As has been previously stated,
our aspiration is to join SIS II in 2009. We think we will be
ready. We have put together a robust and, we think, deliverable
plan to do so. It is obviously subject to proper programme delivery
practices and any particular things that come about in the interim.
The issue of delay, by which I take it you mean to be the lack
of connection to SIS I, was caused by several factors. There have
been some acts of God. Fire destroyed some equipment, but this
was a complex programme put together between a number of agencies
and when I joined the project last October it is fair to say that
our assessment was that, at that point, SIS I connection for the
UK would not have been achieved by the time SIS II would have
been delivered for the rest of the Member States. We consulted
with ministers who took the decision that we should concentrate
our efforts now on delivering SIS II to a properly robust programme
and timetable.
Q9 Chairman: Can I ask the legal adviser:
do you have any comment on the progress of the case in the European
Court?
Mr Norris: Do you mean the case that the UK
challenges?
Q10 Chairman: Yes.
Mr Norris: These are the two cases where the
UK has brought proceedings because, although we sent opt-in letters
in relation to the European border agency regulation and the passport
regulation, that opt-in was not accepted and we were excluded
from participating in those two instruments. The written procedure
has now finished in relation to those proceedings and we are waiting
for a hearing date but at the moment we have no hearing date.
I am unable to say when we will get a hearing or in fact a judgment.
Q11 Baroness Henig: You say you are aiming
for 2009. In view of the almost certain slippage in SIS II coming
on stream and the problems that newer states have come across,
is that not likely to slip as well? Presumably, the slippage in
the programme in terms of the European Commission point of view
must affect your planning as well?
Mr Fitzpatrick: At the moment, we do not believe
that further delay in SIS II being delivered by the Commission—i.e.,
the central system—will affect our timetable. It is true
to say that given the history of this project one cannot rule
out the fact that there will be such delays that will affect it,
but we believe that the programme now to deliver in 2008 is reasonably
robust, if challenging, and all Member States will be connected
at the point when the UK will join in 2009.
Q12 Baroness Henig: It is optimistic
but deliverable?
Mr Fitzpatrick: The word I used was "challenging".
Q13 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
Precisely which UK authorities will have access to data in SIS
and SIS II?
Mr Fitzpatrick: We have a list of 80, mostly
constabularies. They are the established authorities who are able
to access information on the police national computer and we will
be using the same protocol for that. We will provide that in written
evidence.
Q14 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
There seems to be disagreement over SIS immigration data, between
what the UK is hoping to have access to and what the rest of the
Council legal service thinks we should have access to.
Mr Norris: Yes, there has been a dispute. I
have referred to the two cases where our participation in measures,
described as Schengen building measures, have been disputed. In
this case, it is slightly different because we did not purport
to opt into the SIS II regulation and we accept that generally
it is to do with providing information for Schengen immigration
purposes. We do not participate in Schengen in relation to immigration.
We are in a different position here. What we were pushing for
in relation to the SIS II instrument was that, in so far as the
asylum authorities of other Schengen Member States were being
given access to Schengen immigration data for asylum purposes,
the UK asylum authorities should be in the same position. Although
we were not participating in the SIS II regulation, so it was
not for that regulation to provide for our access to this information,
nevertheless arrangements ought to be made to put UK asylum authorities
in the same position as other asylum authorities for asylum purposes.
Unfortunately, that was not accepted during negotiations but there
was some sympathy for our position and we are now going to look
to see whether there are other ways that our asylum authorities
can get access to this data—for example, under the arrangements
for the exchange of information in the Dublin II regulation, a
regulation dealing with asylum and determining which authority
is responsible for determining asylum applications.
Q15 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
That is being pursued?
Mr Norris: We are looking into that.
Q16 Chairman: That is what is described
as access to alerts, is it, for the purpose of refusing entry?
Mr Norris: Yes. It was felt that that information
would be relevant when determining which Member State had to determine
an asylum application.
Q17 Earl of Caithness: Has there been
an external audit to justify the cost effectiveness, efficiency
and added value of SIS I and, if so, are there any lessons to
be learned for the UK authorities with regard to SIS II?
Mr Fitzpatrick: A cost effectiveness study for
SIS II is being done at the moment. We are compiling a business
case to analyse the benefits both in terms of law enforcement
operation into the UK generally and in terms of arrests. We have
very useful information from other Member States about the number
of alerts and the number of arrests that they are able to make
through having the system in play as SIS I.
Q18 Earl of Caithness: But nothing about
the efficiency and added value?
Mr Fitzpatrick: That work is ongoing at this
time, before we commit finally to a contract for delivering the
system.
Q19 Viscount Ullswater: Mr Norris, I
want you to help me with a sort of conundrum which I see in this
particular area. The UK has access to information on Eurodac which
is for asylum application. That does not cause a problem in the
Schengen sense, or it does not seem to. Why is the other immigration
information which is part of Schengen causing such a problem to
the Commission, to the Schengen countries, that they will wish
to deny the UK access to this information?
Mr Norris: My understanding of their position
is that they were reluctant to allow the UK to have on-line access—i.e.,
a SIS II terminal in the UK—to this data, even though we
would only be accessing that data for asylum purposes and not
immigration purposes. I think they have made it clear that if
we enter into bilateral arrangements under the Dublin II arrangements
to get access to this data they are not objecting to that indirect
access, but what they are objecting to is the idea that the UK
should have direct, on-line access to the immigration data part
of SIS II.
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