The Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper wrote to the Home Secretary on Friday 7 November to ask for confirmation that a vote on the European Arrest Warrant would be taking place in the House today (Monday 10November). Theresa May responded on Sunday 9 November promising that today’s vote would be on the “whole package of 35 measures, including the Arrest Warrant”.
Reply from Theresa May MP, Home Secretary to Yvette Cooper MP, Shadow Home Secretary sent on Sunday 9 November:
Dear Yvette,
Thank you for your letter of 7 November. Let me be absolutely clear: Monday’s debate and vote in the House of Commons will be a debate and vote on the whole package of 35 measures – including the Arrest Warrant – which the Government wants the UK to remain part of in the national interest.
These 35 measures are vital tools in the fight against cross-border crimes like terrorism, human trafficking, fraud, and child abuse. That is why, after careful consultation with our law enforcement agencies, and with committees of both Houses of Parliament, the Government embarked on its negotiations with the European Commission and other Member States to allow us to remain part of a smaller package of measures after exercising the UK’s opt-out under the Lisbon Treaty. We fought hard for this deal in Europe – resisting demands to join other measures, and persuading other Member States to lift their initial reserves – and have brought back a very good deal for the United Kingdom.
Under the Lisbon Treaty which your party negotiated – and which Gordon Brown skipped the official ceremony to sign in private – there is no requirement to bring this deal before Parliament. That, we believe, is wrong. That is why the Government has been clear throughout that Parliament should have the opportunity to vote on the final package before we before we formally notify Europe of our desire to remain bound by it. No legislation is required to allow us to apply to rejoin it – but, if the package of 35 measures is approved, we have international obligations to transpose these measures fully into our law. The Statutory Instrument includes all measures that will require transposing into UK law in full or in part. We could wait until after 1 December to do this, and deny Parliament the chance to see how we will implement these measures – but again, we believe that would be wrong. That is why we have chosen to bring the Statutory Instrument which transposes these measures forward now, so that Parliament can vote on the package in the full knowledge of the necessary legislation.
I shall be making very clear in the House on Monday – and am happy to do so now – that Monday’s vote is a vote on the entire package of 35 measures. As you know, members usually debate the underlying policy when debating a Statutory Instrument under the affirmative procedure, such as this. And in this case a whole day is being made available for the debate rather than the usual 90 minutes. The package includes the Arrest Warrant and other tools which are vitally important to our police and law enforcement agencies. It helps us to tackle cross-border crimes, deport foreign criminals, track down those who seek to evade the law, and bring them to justice. We are proud to bring it before Parliament on Monday as a package of measures which are in the national interest, but if Parliament rejects it, we will not join them. The Government will be arguing loudly and clearly why it is so important that we do so.
Yours sincerely,
Theresa May
Home Secretary
Letter from Yvette Cooper MP, Shadow Home Secretary to Theresa May MP, Home Secretary, sent on Friday 7 November:
Dear Theresa,
Last week the Prime Minister said there would be a vote on the European Arrest Warrant before the Rochester by-election. The Government then told the media this would be scheduled for Monday. For clarity I include the excerpt from Prime Minister’s Questions:
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab): A vital tool that has helped to bring murderers, rapists and paedophiles to justice is the European arrest warrant. Why is the Prime Minister delaying having a vote on it?
The Prime Minister: I am not delaying having a vote on it. There will be a vote on it. We need, in order to have a vote on it, the small matter of a negotiation to take place within Europe, which up to now the Spanish have been blocking. I think the Spanish will shortly remove their block, and at that moment we will be able to have a vote.
Edward Miliband: We all know the reason why the Prime Minister is not having a vote: it is the by-election in Rochester and Strood. He is paralysed by fear of another Back-Bench rebellion on Europe. So I want to make an offer to him. We have a Labour Opposition day next week. We will give him the time for a vote on the European arrest warrant, and we will help him to get it through.
The Prime Minister: There is only one problem with the right hon. Gentleman’s second question: we are going to have a vote, we going to have it before the Rochester by-election—his questions have just collapsed.
You have also promised in the House of Commons that the package of 35 opt-ins, including the European Arrest Warrant, would be put to a vote:
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con): These are serious matters. Nobody wants to protect criminals. However, there is a lot of concern about these matters in the House of Commons, not least because it is difficult to argue to our people that we want to take powers back from the European Union if we are giving it powers. Will my right hon. Friend give the House an assurance that although this is effectively an Adjournment debate on a one-line Whip, there will be a substantive vote after a proper debate so that the House of Commons is able to vote on these matters?
Mrs May: My hon. Friend causes me to progress to another part of my speech. I want to make the situation absolutely clear. As he knows, we have had a number of debates on this matter in the House, and the Justice Secretary and I have made a number of appearances before various Select Committees, including the European Scrutiny Committee. We had hoped and intended that by this stage we would have reached agreement on the full package that we are negotiating with the European Commission and other member states. That has not happened. The package was discussed at the General Affairs Council towards the end of June, but some reservations have still been placed on it, so we do not yet have the final agreement. However, we believed that we had sufficient knowledge to make it right and proper to have this debate in the House today.
The House will have the opportunity to vote on this matter in due course, but having said that we would bring the matter back to the House before the summer recess, I thought it right and proper to give the House the opportunity to have this debate.
However, the motion to be voted on in Monday’s business – published today – makes no mention of the European Arrest Warrant, instead referring only to a document that includes 11 of the 35 measures requiring further transposition into domestic law in order to meet the UK’s obligations – again not including the European Arrest Warrant, or indeed the 23 other measures being opted into by the Government.
The motion reads: “That the draft Criminal Justice and Data Protection (Protocol No. 36) Regulations 2014, which were laid before this House on 3 November, be approved.”
As you will know, I fully support your decision to opt back into the European Arrest Warrant. It means 1,000 suspected foreign criminals are removed from our country each year. We were looking forward to supporting the UK’s continued involvement in the EAW.
However, it appears you and the Government are too ashamed of your position to include it in the motion being put before the House – which is far from a ‘vote on the European Arrest Warrant’. You are running away from your backbenchers instead.
The Home Affairs, European Scrutiny and Justice Committees are also rightly outraged. They have said: “The form of debate and vote proposed by the Government on Monday falls far short of the Committees’ expectations and, once again, demonstrates the Government’s cavalier approach to Parliamentary scrutiny of this important matter. The motion to be considered by the House of Commons concerns a Statutory Instrument… It has no direct relevance to the European Arrest Warrant, the most contentious of the 35 measures, or to UK participation in EU Agencies such as Europol and Eurojust.”
I am seriously concerned that your decision to vote on a motion which doesn’t mention the European Arrest Warrant, simply to try and avoid a Tory party rebellion, may endanger the UK’s continued use of this vital tool. You have committed to a vote on this before the opt-in in process is finalised. The deadline for that is December 1st 2014 – when the ‘opt-out’ you enacted will come into effect. If you have not opted back into the Arrest Warrant by then, it will cease to function in the UK. Surely we must be voting on Monday to authorise its continued use, as you pledged to do?
You must urgently amend the motion to ensure all 35 measures being opted back into are voted on Monday – these vital crime fighting tools, as you have said yourself, are too important to lose.
Yours sincerely,
Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP
Shadow Home Secretary