Extracts from Parliamentary proceedings - Feb 7
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Extracts from Lords debate on Brexit: UK-EU Security (EUC
Report) Baroness Prashar (CB):...On data sharing for law
enforcement, we were concerned to find that the two data-sharing
tools that witnesses identified as the top priorities for the
UK—the Schengen information system and the European Criminal
Records Information System—were also those for which there is no
precedent for access by non-European Union or non-Schengen
countries. The law enforcement community was...Request free trial
Extracts from Lords
debate on Brexit: UK-EU Security (EUC Report)
Baroness Prashar (CB):...On data sharing for law enforcement, we were concerned to find that the two data-sharing tools that witnesses identified as the top priorities for the UK—the Schengen information system and the European Criminal Records Information System—were also those for which there is no precedent for access by non-European Union or non-Schengen countries. The law enforcement community was emphatic about how absolutely vital those tools were to its work. The National Crime Agency described the Schengen information system as, “an absolute game-changer for the UK”.
We did, however, accept the Government’s argument that the
starting point for the UK in seeking to negotiate access to these
tools was different from that of any other third country because
of the UK’s pre-existing relationship with the EU 27 and the data
it has to offer. Therefore, we consequently recommended that the
UK should seek access to the full suite of data-sharing tools on
which it currently relies, as well as those it is still planning
for, while recognising that this would be a particularly
ambitious objective... “mission critical in protecting … the citizens of the UK”? Or that access to the second generation Schengen information system is described, as the noble Baroness said, as “an absolute game-changer” by our National Crime Agency, which said that access to it by UK police forces, “is essential for mainstream policing … to safeguard the welfare of people across the country”?.. Lord Paddick (LD): My Lords, I am not sure whether this is declaring an interest or providing background information, but I was a police officer in the Metropolitan Police between 1976 and 2007.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, for her comprehensive
introduction to this debate. I welcome this report and
congratulate the committee for isolating what I consider to be
the most important implications for the UK of leaving the EU in
relation to policing and security co-operation. In addition to
reading the report, I have had the benefit of talking to David
Armond, who is leading for the National Crime Agency on these
issues, and to Lynne Owens, the director-general of the National
Crime Agency. This is where I part company at an early stage with
the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman. While he is quite
right about the tenacity of police officers and police
professionals to overcome obstacles, my experience from over 30
years in the Metropolitan Police is that I would not
underestimate the ability of politicians to work in completely
the opposite direction... Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab):...Let us move on to some of the other issues about information exchange between police officers, which is obviously very important. I refer to the Schengen information system, known as SIS II. It was described by the National Crime Agency as, “an absolute game-changer for the UK … It is linked to the Police National Computer so that officers can stop a car with French plates and Hungarian nationals in it, undertake checks and find details of stolen property, wanted people, alerts and the like”. It is clearly an enormously useful instrument for policing which we may be on the point of losing... Baroness Ludford (LD):...The report also says that it would be, “an abrupt shock to UK policing … posing a risk to the safety of the public”, if we were not involved in the data-sharing arrangements. The National Crime Agency was, “emphatic about the operational significance of access to SIS II”. It said that being in SIS was one of its “top three priorities” and, “an absolute game-changer for the UK”.
One could go on... Extract from Westminster Hall debate on Serious Fraud Office Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab): The Prime Minister, when she was Home Secretary, tried in 2011 and again in 2014 to bring the SFO into the new National Crime Agency. The Financial Times reported on 5 October 2014 that she was “to revive plans to abolish the UK’s main anti-fraud and corruption agency and bring it into her new FBI-style national crime force, according to officials familiar with the situation.” I am glad to say that that move was resisted. The director of the SFO from 2012 to the present, David Green, QC, was clear in his statement that it would “distract and destabilise the SFO in a really bad way at a time when” it was “grappling with what” was
“probably its heaviest-ever workload and making real
headway.” |