It is always a privilege to follow the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). It is an unusual experience for me to be able wholeheartedly to support an Labour party Opposition day motion and a unique opportunity to support such a motion that entirely and in every detail endorses Government policy. It thereby makes two things clear: the success of the Home Secretary’s negotiating skills in arriving at the right package of measures into which we need to opt back to keep Britain’s streets safer; and the success of the Government’s policy of maintaining a pragmatic and sensible use of European Union institutions and powers to help the people of this country. The overarching issue before us today is why we are opting back into these 35 measures, particularly the European arrest warrant.
I am conscious that many of my hon. Friends have detailed objections to the way in which the warrant has worked in the past, and to the alternatives. But it is worth starting with the overriding point that if we set the word “European” aside for a moment—I know that that is difficult—this is an international arrest warrant.
As such, what it does is simply speed up the work of the police and the courts. It means that criminals and terrorists, once they are caught, can either be brought back to Britain for crimes committed abroad or be removed from this country to face justice elsewhere in Europe, so saving time and money in our prison system.