I confirm that the Opposition support the motion before us, and I echo the Minister’s thanks to the European Scrutiny Committee for bringing forward this debate, because the motion raises some important questions about our national security and the consequences and potential implications of Brexit.
Our security, and the apparatus on which it rests, is utterly dependent on co-operation with our European partners. The UK should be rightly proud of the role it has played in establishing and developing our shared security through Europol, the European arrest warrant and the Schengen information system. As the Minister says, SIS II is already proving its worth, helping to underpin the operation of the EAW and delivering 12,000 hits on suspected criminals and terrorists since its introduction in 2015. It has been a game-changer for policing leaders and for day-to-day policing.
We know what the Prime Minister makes of the SIS II system from what she told the House of Commons in November 2014, when she also said that support for it is vital
“to stop foreign criminals from coming to Britain, deal with European fighters coming back from Syria, stop British criminals evading justice abroad, prevent foreign criminals evading justice by hiding here, and get foreign criminals out of our prisons”.
However, without an agreement and a commitment that this will be foremost in the Government’s negotiating priorities, this apparatus will all fall away the second we Brexit.
Quite frankly, it is astonishing that the Government have given no guarantees that we will seek to retain full access to SIS II on our departure from the EU. Despite underlining its importance in the position paper earlier this year, in a letter to the European Scrutiny Committee, the Minister said it was “too early to say” whether
SIS II will be one of the measures that the Government will seek to include in a new post-Brexit agreement. The Committee has noted that
“there is no justification for this reticence.”
Our security depends on it, but we know why Ministers are showing such reticence. It is because of the role of the European Court of Justice and the EU charter of fundamental rights.
The Prime Minister has made it abundantly clear that there will be no permanent role for the ECJ, and the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill has explicitly dumped the EU charter. However, there is no precedent for a country to operate within SIS II—nor to operate the European arrest warrant, for that matter—without accepting that the ECJ will play a leading role. Indeed, the regulations before us explicitly prohibit third-country access to SIS II data. In his letter to the European Scrutiny Committee, the Minister attempted to suggest areas where countries do not submit directly to the jurisdiction of the ECJ, but in the case of SIS II, the precedent is clear: whether direct or indirect, the determinations of the European Court are final.