I am quoting verbatim from ACPO’s evidence given to the House of Lords. I will share it with my hon. Friend afterwards, but it is verbatim, so I am afraid that he has misdirected himself or misremembered the evidence that ACPO submitted. I am pretty old and gnarled but I can remember from when I practised at the Bar as a prosecutor that it was a nightmare to return foreign offenders overseas using bilateral agreements—it could sometimes take years with multiple applications. I recall application after application at Horseferry road magistrates court as we ploughed through various procedural points to get people deported.
I go on to quote verbatim, so there is no possibility of misunderstanding for my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), from ACPO’s evidence to the House of Lords. It says that the European arrest warrant is
“an efficient system, built upon mutual recognition of criminal justice systems between member states and an obligation to comply with a properly constructed warrant. Barriers which previously existed have been removed. The nationality of the person sought can no longer be a barrier to affecting an extradition request. Under the previous arrangements many European states, such as Germany, France and Poland, did not allow their nationals to be extradited to stand trial and required them to be tried in their home state…Prior to the introduction of the EAW, extradition between European states where it did occur could, and often would, take many months in uncontested cases and many years in contested cases.”
I can testify to that, having been involved in some of those cases. The evidence continues:
“EAW data from the Commission to the European Parliament show that across the EU it takes an average of 17 days to surrender a wanted person”.
Thames Valley police gave me just two very recent examples in which the European arrest warrant had made my constituents safer. Under a recent European arrest warrant, they arrested a Polish individual wanted for armed robbery and burglary in Poland, clearly safeguarding the local community as the Thames Valley police had no intelligence that there were individuals residing in our area who had been assessed as high risk. The warrant was received, processed and executed within 24 hours, removing a potential offender and providing reassurance to the community. Another individual wanted for taking part in the murder of two youths in Milton Keynes was also arrested in Holland under a European arrest warrant. He The European crime unit extradited him to the UK, where he now awaits trial, and two other suspects were sentenced in an earlier trial to more than 30 years’ imprisonment.
It is said by some, including my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton, that we should rely on deportation and other extradition proceedings, but we need only contrast the speed of those cases with what happened with Abu Hamza. Fourteen years after his
arrest on behalf of the USA under legal conditions largely identical to the 1957 treaty, he was finally extradited to the USA to face terrorism charges there. Do we really want to see repeated Abu Hamza-type situations in our extradition processes? These are not isolated examples of where the European arrest warrant has been of benefit. Numerous other examples could be cited.
The European arrest warrant is cost-efficient. If we relied on a 1957-type mechanism we would commit ourselves to footing the legal bill for extradition processes that went on for years and cost the public purse hundreds of thousands of pounds. The public and the judiciary are frustrated that the extradition of terrorists is often delayed for years. The return to the 1957 process could make this long, drawn-out process the norm. That might not have been such a problem 20 or 30 years ago when criminals rarely crossed borders, but nowadays that is routine.
ACPO concluded in its evidence to the House of Lords and Parliament:
“The view therefore of ACPO is simple. The EAW works very effectively and increases the safety of the UK public. It is for this reason that ACPO strongly supports the EAW.”
I hope that before we next debate and vote on this issue in the House, chief constables and police authorities will write to every right hon. and hon. Member making clear the position of local police forces and drawing Members’ attention to the benefits that the European arrest warrant has had in their own areas.
I fully appreciate that Members of this House oppose anything that has the word “Europe” in it. I genuinely love my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills, but I have heard that speech now about 50 times during the 30 years for which I have been a Member of this House. The fact that one is opposed to the European Union is not sufficient to jeopardise the safety of our constituents or our national interest. The Home Secretary, by opting back into a number of these measures, particularly the European arrest warrant, is, in my view and judgment, doing something sensible, proportionate, in the national interest and, most importantly of all, in the interests of my constituents.
3.5 pm