Clause 82 - Foreign surveillance operations
Crime (International Co-operation) Bill [Lords]
9:30 am
Mr David Cairns (Greenock and Inverclyde, Labour)
I do not wish to stray out of order by rehearsing the arguments that we have had frequently in other Committees about the European arrest warrant, but let us say, for example, that British people here are organising to take groups of paedophiles to Spain, where the age of consent is 12, to commit crimes there, or that the situation is the other way round. Can the hon. Gentleman not see the merit in having flexibility to allow such surveillance for activities that might not be against the law in this country? I have posited an example that involves the reverse, but it is an example of a situation in which it could be in our interests to have reciprocal arrangements. We would want them if the situation were the other way round.