As I believe I said last week during my statement in response to a similar question from the hon. Lady, I am aware that concern has been expressed about the European arrest warrant because of the importance—I intend to refer to this a little later—of the operation of that arrest warrant between the United Kingdom, and particularly between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. A lot of concern expressed previously was when it was thought that the Government would not propose to try to opt back into the European arrest warrant. Of course we must have further discussions with relevant Ministers in Northern Ireland on this matter.
I turn now to the substance of the debate. The Government will exercise the opt-out, but as I announced last week and have said today, we propose to seek to opt back into 35 measures where we believe it is in the national interest to participate. My right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Justice, the Minister for Government Policy and the Minister for Europe and I have listened to the views of the law enforcement agencies, have considered the civil liberties of British subjects and have been mindful of how the European institutions, particularly the Court of Justice, operate, and to borrow a phrase coined by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), who has particular knowledge of and expertise in these matters, we have pursued a policy of seeking “co-operation not control”—for example, it is not for Europe to impose minimum standards on our police and criminal justice system. There are therefore more than 20 minimum standards measures that we will not seek to rejoin.
Likewise, we should not pretend that all these measures facilitate cross-border co-operation; they do not. Where they do not—as with the measure on counterfeiting, for example—we will not seek to opt back in. Furthermore, the last Government signed us up to the Prum decisions on the identification of DNA, fingerprint and vehicle registration documents, but then did nothing to implement them. Rejoining now would leave the UK open to a fine that would run into millions of pounds, so we will not rejoin those measures. Lastly, I want to make it absolutely clear that we will do nothing that leads to the establishment of a European public prosecutor or anything akin to a European police force .