Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Committee (3rd Day) (Continued)

Amendment 100

100: After Clause 36, insert the following Clause— “Requirement to produce an annual report on cooperation with Europol(1) The Secretary of State must, within one year of the passage of this Act, lay before Parliament an annual report on cooperation between UK law enforcement agencies and Europol.(2) A further report must be published and laid before Parliament at least once per year.(3) An annual report under this section must include—(a) actions taken during the previous year to cooperate with Europol,(b) progress in reducing people smuggling and human trafficking, and(c) planned activities for improving future cooperation with Europol.”Member's explanatory statement This new clause would require the Government to provide an annual report to Parliament detailing the UK’s efforts to cooperate with Europol, its progress in reducing levels of people smuggling and human trafficking, and its plans to improve future cooperation.

My Lords, Amendments 100 and 101 are in my name and that of my noble friend Lord German. I will also speak to Amendment 206, tabled by my noble friend Lady Hamwee, with me and the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, as signatories.

These amendments are all about co-operation with Europol in various ways, and I hope they are pushing at a very open door with the Government. They try to put some flesh on the bones of various aspirational texts of the last five years and to give some practical and operational content to what has remained a bit declaratory so far. Maybe the Minister will be able to give some information about what is going to happen to implement the reset document of 19 May.

Amendment 100 asks for the Government to produce an annual report on co-operation with Europol, the idea being that if the Secretary of State is required to produce an annual report on co-operation between the UK’s law enforcement agencies and Europol, that will provide an impetus to have something to report on. New subsection (3) in Amendment 100 suggests that the annual report should include actions taken during the previous year to co-operate with Europol, progress in reducing people smuggling and human trafficking, and planned activities for improving future co-operation with Europol. It would not just be a report for its own sake—I am sure Home Office civil servants have quite a bit to do as it is—but it would be in order to say, “Oh golly, we’ve got to produce that annual report, so let’s do something”.

Amendment 101 would require the Secretary of State to seek to establish a joint taskforce with Europol for the purposes of co-operation, which are set out: disrupting trafficking operations, enhancement of law enforcement capabilities, specialised training for officials involved in border security and immigration enforcement, and of that ilk. It takes two to tango, so obviously the amendment does not expect the UK Government to establish a joint taskforce with Europol on their own, so it says “seek to” establish a joint taskforce.

Part 3, Title V, is on co-operation with Europol, of which the objective is to

“establish cooperative relations between Europol and the competent authorities of the United Kingdom … in preventing and combating serious crime, terrorism and forms of crime which affect a common interest”.

That is good; that is the objective of co-operative relations, but there is not an awful lot of concrete specification there. Perhaps one of the most concrete is

“the provision of advice and support in individual criminal investigations as well as operational cooperation”

in Article 567. Article 568 says:

“The United Kingdom shall designate a national contact point to act as the central point of contact between Europol and the competent authorities of the United Kingdom”.

I imagine that that has been done and that it is the National Crime Agency. Then,

“the United Kingdom shall second one or more liaison officers to Europol”,

and vice versa, with Europol sending liaison offices in this direction.

The TCA is over five years old, but then there was an agreement in December 2023, which took nearly four years to be produced and then be updated. It was the Working and Administrative Arrangement establishing

“cooperative relations between Europol and the competent authorities of the United Kingdom”—

everything is a bit long-winded in its wording. That again talks about liaison officers, with the parties agreeing that