Passenger Name Records: EUC Report — Motion to Agree

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 5:21 pm on 17 March 2011.

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Photo of Lord Hannay of Chiswick Lord Hannay of Chiswick Chair, EU Sub-Committee F - Home Affairs 5:21, 17 March 2011

My Lords, I thank all those who participated in this brief debate, which has been extremely useful and has shown a wide measure of agreement. I thank the Minister for her response which, although it may have fallen a scintilla short of what I might have hoped for, nevertheless went quite a long way in the direction that your Lordships' committee wishes to go. I will add on a personal note that she and I, so many years ago that I would not dream of embarrassing anyone by saying how many, dealt with some of the more complex aspects of EU policy, mainly the EU budget. That budget pales into insignificance compared with this system of opt-outs and opt-ins.

Perhaps I may respond to one or two contributions. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, raised the possibility that the directive asks for too much data. I do not have a strong view on that; we do not have to have a view to support the resolution. However, it is only by opting in that we can affect the amount of data that are collected. That is yet another reason to opt in. I and the committee agree with the noble Lord-and here I part company slightly with the Minister, although I accept absolutely her plea that we should help the Government in their negotiating position by standing firmly in favour of the inclusion of intra-EU flights-that this is not a make or break issue. It is not and should not be a sine qua non for opting in. That is a personal opinion. However, the committee does support, without ambiguity, the Government's desire to include intra-EU flights.

One problem that may come up-I hope it does not, and that the Minister is right in anticipating that real progress will be made at the April council to include intra-EU flights-is that it may not be possible by the time we have to take a decision on opting in to be quite sure one way or the other. However, on one thing we can be quite certain: if we opt out, intra-EU flights will not be included, although I do not want to go further into that. I certainly did not mean in the report to criticise the honourable Member in another place, Mr Brokenshire, who gave evidence to us. He gave excellent evidence on our internal security strategy report, for which we are extremely grateful. He was entirely courteous on this matter and there is no reproach. It is, I think, due to the parliamentary timetable that we have had to publish the report and bring this debate forward at a rather early stage in the three-month period. Therefore, it is not a criticism of him in any way.

My noble friend Lord Erroll seemed a little worried about all the details being taken of his credit cards and other things. Of course, the reality is that they are taken by the Government anyway. I think that his objection is mainly that some foreigners might read them. I am sorry-we are in the European Union. There are an awful lot of things that we share with members of the European Union and this will be one of them. In my view and in the view of my committee, it will strengthen the security of this country if we are able to do that. However, as I said, that information is already being collected here.