My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It has been remarkable for the self-discipline exercised by speakers in dealing with complex matters that raise strong feelings on various sides. It is not the first time that we have visited these issues in this House. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, in July the matter was dealt with in some considerable detail.
At the outset, I pay considerable and very well merited tribute to the House of Lords committees, which have scrutinised and re-scrutinised with great rigour the complex mechanism and the pros and cons of the opt-out and the opt-in. If that has not been made sufficiently clear beforehand, I make it clear now. The House is greatly in the debt of those committees, their chairmen and members. The process has been extremely thorough, and the House of Lords, through those committees, has done its job very well.
11 pm
Of course, I am aware of the many criticisms that have been offered throughout these debates, which I think could largely be said to be criticisms of process rather than of the final decision taken by the Government to opt in to the 35 measures. I appreciate that there are those who think there should not have been the possibility of opting out, so that this problem would not have arisen. That power was given to the Government by the previous Government, and the Government decided quite some time ago that they were going to exercise it, to opt out and then to opt back in.
In July 2013 the Prime Minister exercised the opt-out. Let me be clear: if we had not exercised the opt-out in July last year, on 1 December the court would have had jurisdiction over every one of the measures that we are concerned with. This is not something the Government were inclined to accept. Of course, due to the process agreed in the Lisbon treaty, we have no choice but to negotiate re-entry into measures we want to participate in, to protect our citizens in the fight against international crime, together with our European partners.
With respect, I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke. All we are seeking to do is to continue the arrangements, not to enter into some new arrangement which will enlarge the capacity of the European Court of Justice.
As my noble friend Lord Bates told noble Lords earlier, the Government are pleased to be able to inform the House that following detailed negotiations in Brussels, the Government have now completed the process and reached a deal to rejoin the list of 35 measures we published in Command Paper 8897 in July of this year. I know that there was anxiety in previous debates as to whether this was something by way of brinkmanship and that we might not be able to conclude matters in time. I was unable, in my brief involvement in those earlier debates, to give details of the negotiations that went on but I am glad to say that they have come to fruition.
My noble friend Lord Bates set out the minor changes that have been made to the list of 35 measures that this House approved in July 2013. I can confirm that there have been no further changes from the list we brought to the House in July 2014, and the Government are now delivering what they promised they would, with the agreement of the Commission and the Council. The package of measures which we say—and I think many noble Lords would agree—are in the national interest for the United Kingdom to rejoin includes the European arrest warrant. It also includes a number of important measures on the justice side, such as the prisoner transfer framework
decision, which provides for non-consent-based transfers throughout the European Union, enabling us to remove foreign criminals from our jails without their consent. This not only frees up a place in our prisons but avoids the cost of holding a foreign criminal in our prisons.
I was asked to give some idea of the number of British nationals who have been surrendered between April 2009 and March 2014. I can tell the House that a total of 5,072 people were surrendered by the UK using the arrest warrant. Over 95% of these were foreign nationals. Of the 217 British nationals surrendered, 18 were wanted for murder, three were wanted for rape, and 17 were wanted for child sex offences.
The vote today is on the draft regulation that will provide for domestic implementation of a number of specific elements of the package. It is also a vote to remain part of these 35 vital measures. In answer to my noble friend Lord Bowness, I confirm that there is nothing further that your Lordships’ House has to do to complete what has perhaps been a rather protracted process.