The Criminal Justice (European Investigation Order) Regulations 2017 transpose an EU directive regarding the European investigation order which standardises the way one member state can ask another for help in pursuing cross-border criminality, through gathering evidence, investigating banking information, executing search warrants or taking evidence from witnesses.
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee raised questions about how temporary transfers of prisoners to another member state to help with its investigations are to be handled and what assurances there are that the prisoner will be returned. In its fourth report, published on 7 September, the committee said:
“Regrettably, the Home Office has failed to respond in the seven weeks since we made that request. We shall pursue those enquiries directly with the Minister”.
That the committee did, when the Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service appeared before it on 12 September. I will return to the issue of the Home Office’s failure later.
In its fourth report, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee stated:
“Given that the changes these Regulations make are all recognised as a significant improvement on the MLA system, the House may wish to know what arrangements the Home Office proposes to make for such exchanges once we leave the European Union”.
I therefore ask the Minister for the answer to the question posed by the committee. In addition, what arrangements we would be left with for such exchanges if we were unable to reach a deal with the European Union on Brexit and leaving the European Union?
Turning to the committee’s concerns in relation to the provision allowing a prisoner, with his or her consent, to be temporarily transferred to the custody of another member state, can the Minister confirm that it will be Ministers who have to authorise such a transfer, rather than an official or officials, and that in so doing Ministers would need to be satisfied that it was only through the transfer being agreed that the necessary information or evidence could be obtained by the member state seeking the transfer?
Moving on from that stage in the process, what will happen if the receiving member state fails to return a transferred prisoner within a timescale which the authorising Minister here would presumably lay down clearly when agreeing to the temporary transfer? What is the redress available, how is it available, and how long would it take for that process to be completed successfully? It would not be a very effective process if it took any length of time at all to activate and for a conclusion to be reached which had real teeth, resulting as a minimum in the individual being promptly returned. I have to say that the responses given to the committee on this issue were, to say the least, somewhat vague. I hope that we can have greater clarity when the Minister responds to this point.
I referred earlier to the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service appearing before the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. In its fifth report, published on 14 September, the committee expressed its thanks to the Minister for meeting it and for the fulsome apology he made,
“for the lamentable lapse by his department in failing to answer our queries in a timely manner”.
The report went on to say:
“The Committee pointed out that the reason that they had so many questions was because the EM presented with this instrument assumed the reader had an extensive knowledge of both Directive 2014/41/EU and of the current UK system”,
contrary to the committee’s guidance, which,
“makes clear that we expect an EM to assume the reader has no prior knowledge of the subject and a better-targeted EM could have avoided the need for some of our more basic questions”.
Can the Minister say why the Home Office’s Explanatory Memorandum did not comply with the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s guidance?
The committee went on to say in its fifth report:
“The Minister described the failure to respond to the Committee’s letter as an isolated incident, and the circumstances around it were being considered at the highest level in the Home Office. The Committee however commented that we had been in this position before: Home Office Ministers in July 2015 and November 2016 had both given undertakings to improve the way that the Home Office’s statutory instruments are presented. This case not only raised questions about the Home Office’s mechanisms for
dealing with Parliamentary requests and the priority that they are given but also about the quality of the EM and the clearance process”.
Particularly in the light of the committee’s comments about the EM for this order, can the Minister spell out the changes that were made to process and procedure to deliver the commitments given by Home Office Ministers in July 2015 and November 2016 that the way the Home Office’s statutory instruments were presented would be improved? Can he also spell out exactly what changes have been made to process and procedure following the discussions “at the highest level” in the Home Office on the circumstances surrounding the delay in responding to the committee’s letter and to which the Minister for Policing referred in his oral evidence to the committee?
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When the Minister for Policing appeared before the committee in September, he appeared to be unaware of the previous transgressions by his own department in July 2015 and November 2016. That in itself does not suggest that the department and its Ministers have taken as seriously as they should the concerns previously expressed by the committee. The Minister can help to quash any such thoughts by spelling out the precise actions taken by Home Office Ministers to properly and effectively address the concerns raised by the committee in each of the past two years. Responsibility lies at ministerial level, since Ministers gave the undertakings. He could also help to quash any such negative thoughts by spelling out the actions that have been taken, or will be taken, by Home Office Ministers to address the concerns raised by the committee in September about the failure to respond to its letter in a timely manner.
Finally, can the Minister say whether, first, the Home Office, and, secondly, the Government, accept—and will ensure that they abide by—the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s clear statement in its fifth report that,
“although an increased volume of SIs was to be expected from all Government departments during the Brexit period, that pressure would not be an acceptable excuse for any decrease in the quality of the material presented to the House for scrutiny”?
I beg to move.