European Union Bill

My Lords, the question of whether this clause should stand part of the Bill gives us an opportunity to keep up to date with the Government’s present intentions regarding Article 3 of Protocol 21 of the Lisbon treaty. Perhaps I may remind the Government of their great leader’s statement made in late 2009: "““We will want to prevent EU judges gaining steadily greater control over our criminal justice system by negotiating an arrangement which would protect it. That will mean limiting the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction over criminal law””." That is from the Prime Minister before he became so. The other quote I give the Government in probing this matter is from Mr David Lidington, made on 20 January this year: "““The UK has until 31 May 2014 to choose whether to accept the application of the Commission’s infringement powers and jurisdiction of the ECJ over this body of instruments or to opt out of them entirely, in which case they will cease to apply to the UK on 1 December 2014””." More importantly—this is what I want to check up on—Mr Lidington went on to say that: "““Parliament should have the right to give its view on a decision of such importance. The Government therefore commit to a vote in both Houses of Parliament before they make a formal decision on whether they wish to opt-out””." As I understand it, the provision in Protocol 21 allows the Government to opt out entirely from the whole justice and home affairs proceedings in Lisbon. It is true that if they accept an amendment to any of those provisions in the mean time, that provision then stands. Further, if in the mean time they opt in to anything, the 2014 deadline might not apply. I hope that your Lordships will feel it is helpful if the Government bring us up to date on how their decision is moving on opting out of the whole of the JHA provision. The last time I raised the matter was in Oral Questions, when I was told from the Front Bench by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that this was all very difficult and sensitive and that the Government had not made up their mind. Have they made any progress?