European Union Bill

The hon. Gentleman is furrowing his brow, so perhaps I can help him. We have heard it argued so many times that because a measure has merit we should opt in to it, whether it relates to victims, tackling crime, or this, that and the other. He must come clean and see it, as I have been arguing, as all of a piece, because it is part of a programme of the European Union. It is set out in the treaty of Lisbon as one of the objectives of the EU, and the European Commission is forever coming forward with proposals. It has a whole programme for creating what it describes as an EU area of freedom, security and justice. On the example of judicial procedural rights, the issue is where we determine which judicial procedures should apply in what country. Do we decide that our judicial and criminal procedures should be determined here in this House, or do we hand it to the EU so that it is decided on qualified majority voting and subject to the European Court of Justice? We have heard those arguments many times. I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that this is part of a programme from the EU, and it was set out in the EU's 2011 work programme as one of its five main political priorities. President Barroso set that out in his state of the Union address to the European Parliament on 7 Sept 2010. The third main priority, after dealing with economic matters, was building an area of freedom, security and justice. We must take it as a whole, rather than picking compartmentalised issues one by one and looking at them judiciously because doing so might make an improvement here or there. It is part of an overall programme for building a European area of freedom, security and justice.