The great thing about the hon. Gentleman is that he sometimes achieves that to which he does not even aspire—and on this occasion he did precisely that.
Let me start with what we all agree about. International criminals co-operate; they commit crimes in many different countries; they travel and they can commit crimes in one country from another country; and they try to get away with it. Crime does not stop at the channel, which is why co-operation on justice and home affairs across the European Union is a vital part of ensuring national security in the modern era. It is why I think Members of all parties have long supported the position of leadership that the British Government have taken in trying to improve these standards across the whole EU.
We also agree, I hope, that it makes sense to review that co-operation. That is precisely why Labour secured an opt-out—the one we are talking about using at the moment—in the first place. It is a Labour opt-out available to a coalition Government. I therefore suggest that question before us now is really fairly simple. Is this motion right—the original Government motion, notwithstanding the intervention that the Justice Secretary
was forced to make earlier when he suggested that he might accept an amendment that has not even been moved—is it necessary, and is it necessary now? Let me start with the “necessary now” question.
I suggest to hon. Members that we have heard no argument to say why the Government want this vote today. They signalled months ago that they were provisionally minded to opt out—fair enough—but their decision to seek to opt in to any measures, let alone the measures listed in the Command Paper, was announced less than a week ago. The Select Committees have been clamouring for more information for months, as has already been said by three of the Select Committee Chairs, begging for a list of potential opt-ins so that they could look at the matters in hand. They asked for explanatory memorandums and never received them. True, there were briefings to the media, particularly to The Daily Telegraph , but not to the Committees about how the Government saw each of these measures. The Government expected the House to endorse opting out and opting in, including the precise list of measures, without a single word of evidence from any outside body being taken by any Committee of this or the other House.