Committee discusses post-Brexit law enforcement agreement with UK security practitioners
As part of its brief inquiry into post-Brexit security cooperation, the Security and Justice Sub-Committee holds a public evidence session with practitioners on the law enforcement agreement within the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Treaty.
The evidence session follows on from the public meeting with experts on 12 January, which discussed how the new agreement will replace the EU databases and agencies to which the UK made key contributions when a Member State.
Meeting details
On 17 December 2020, the Committee launched an inquiry into the outcome of the UK-EU future relationship negotiations, in respect of its remit. A week later, those negotiations reached agreement on future law enforcement and criminal justice cooperation between the UK and EU, as part of an overall Trade and Cooperation Agreement.
On 26 January, the Committee will be taking evidence from security practitioners on the detail of the law enforcement and criminal justice cooperation agreement in the Treaty. The session will focus on how the provisions of the agreement will affect the operations of UK law enforcement agencies, including the possible impact of the loss of real-time data sharing between the UK and EU Member States. It will also examine the likely effectiveness of the new surrender agreement in the Treaty.
Possible questions include:
- Does the agreement represent a good deal for the UK’s law enforcement community?
- Will the new surrender agreement be an effective substitute for the European Arrest Warrant?
- How significant to UK law enforcement agencies is the UK’s loss of access to the Schengen information System (SIS II)?
- As a third country, will the UK lose influence under the agreement in EU agencies such as Europol and Eurojust?
- Under the agreement, how quickly will UK law enforcement agencies be able to access EU data on fingerprints, DNA, vehicle registration, passenger name records and criminal records?
- What will be the effect on UK law enforcement agencies if the European Commission does not award UK data adequacy?