I agree with the Prime Minister and with my hon. Friend on that point.
The Prime Minister recently told the “Today” programme that he wants to pursue a relationship with our European partners based on “trade and co-operation” and on being “an independent nation state”. I have to say that I cannot find any strand of consistency between the measures in this Command Paper and the aspirations expressed by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
May I remind my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who is not in her place at the moment, of what we said in the House about the European arrest warrant when we were in opposition? My right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary, as shadow Home Secretary, said in 2009 that it “undermined civil liberties”. My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General, as shadow Justice Secretary, said in 2008 that
“once such things are subject to the European Court of Justice and the Commission…the Government will lose all control over standing up for United Kingdom interests in these areas”.—[Official Report, 29 January 2008; Vol. 471, c. 176.]
He also pointed out that the European arrest warrant
“is very different from…an international treaty obligation that the United Kingdom could decide not to follow if it infringed the human rights of those affected. We will be surrendering the final say about that entirely to a supranational body.”—[Official Report, 29 January 2008; Vol. 471, c. 175.]
The Foreign Secretary, as shadow Foreign Secretary, chided the previous Government for not keeping their promises on the EU when he said:
“Time and again they have made promises that they would not hand over powers to Europe, particularly on justice and home affairs, and time and again they have done exactly that, not least through the treaty.”—[Official Report, 4 March 2008; Vol. 472, c. 1684.]
My right hon. Friend now has to eat those words.
The Conservative party manifesto of 2010 promised
“three specific guarantees—on the Charter of fundamental rights, on criminal justice, and on social and employment legislation—with our European partners to return powers that we believe should reside with the UK, not the EU.”
Why have we abandoned that? It was based on a speech the Prime Minister made when in opposition, in which he promised to negotiate the three guarantees, one of which was
“limiting the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction over criminal law to its pre-Lisbon level, and ensuring that only British authorities can initiate criminal investigations in Britain.”
Why have we abandoned that?
Much more recently, the Prime Minister wrote in The Sunday Telegraph on 16 March 2014 that one of the key changes he would seek in a renegotiation with the EU was:
“Our police forces and justice systems able to protect British citizens, unencumbered by unnecessary interference from the European institutions”.
Why have we abandoned that already? What did he intend to convey to voters in advance of the European elections? Surely not that he intended to do exactly the opposite a few weeks after the close of poll.
This year’s Conservative European election leaflet stated:
“We stand for a new relationship with the EU, bringing power back to Britain and away from Brussels”,
by, among other things,
“taking back control of justice and home affairs”.
If the UK intends to bring powers back in our renegotiation after the next election, it is a strange way for the Prime Minister to begin setting out his stall by giving up the very powers he said he would not give up.
That raises the question about the pressure on Ministers to continue supporting the process of EU integration because of coalition politics. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary’s blank denial that there could be any alternative to the European arrest warrant underlines that she may well have fallen prey to such pressures. Notwithstanding the fact that the main party in power has a different policy and was elected having opposed Nice, Amsterdam and Lisbon, Whitehall appears to be continuing to implement those treaties according to a policy of business as usual. More powers are being transferred from the UK to the EU, with EU legislation encroaching ever more on our justice system, as though there had been no change of Government.
I do not doubt that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is acting on advice and with complete integrity, but it may help if I, as Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, remind the House how advice to Ministers works in a coalition. The civil service is enjoined to serve the Government as a whole, not individual party agendas or the different agendas of individual Ministers. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that no serious consideration has been given to any
alternative policy of negotiating a permanent bilateral agreement on these matters, like the 170 or so sovereign states that are not members of the EU.
If my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary had been minded to ask for credible submissions to support such a policy and then to act on them, it is not only the status quo in her Department, the Foreign Office and elsewhere that she would have had to fight. She would certainly have had the support of the Conservatives in that—if we were a majority Government, I doubt she would have had the support to act in the way she is acting now—but in this coalition, the quad would have vetoed that policy. It is, therefore, hardly surprising, four years since her appointment, that little work has been done on any alternative policy.