New Clause 6 - Commencement of Chapter 4
Crime (International Co-operation) Bill [Lords]
3:45 pm
Ms Caroline Flint (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (reducing organised and international crime, anti drugs co-ordination and international and European issues), Home Office; Don Valley, Labour)
To finish the point I was making, before I come to the hon. Gentleman's point, there is no question of states that have not adopted the protocol being able to make requests on the strength of it.
I will seek guidance on the hon. Gentleman's question, and will write to him in due course. I am trying to be helpful in saying that the protocol has to be ratified by different EU member states, but they may not all do so at the same time. We would not want a situation in which we wanted to investigate a certain matter and required disclosure of information, but could not do that with a member state that had already ratified the protocol. That is my understanding of the situation. For clarification, ''ratification'' means that the country has to be ready and able to assist. I hope that that is helpful.