My Lords, in warmly supporting this amendment, I will make only two points. First, crime is now global and international; trafficking, drugs and terrorism know no frontiers. When I was serving on the Home Affairs Committee and we looked into these matters, I was impressed by the way in which one
person after another who had front-line operational responsibility said how important the European dimension was to them, how any diminution in the effectiveness of co-operation with Europe would not be in the interests of the protection of the British people, and that we needed our colleagues in Europe. When asked, “But what about those elements of Europe which might not be as well equipped professionally and in other ways to undertake the tasks as we regard ourselves as being?”, the answer was, on the whole, very firm. They said, “We had better help them to become as effective and not walk away from them because we shall need them”. This amendment is therefore very important and I commend it to the Minister.
10.15 pm