Exclusive: £2.4m unit set up after warnings over loss of access to EU policing tools

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A “no deal safety net unit” is being rushed through by Scotland Yard at a cost of more than £2.4m after police chiefs warned the home secretary that losing EU tools would make it harder to track sex offenders and terrorist suspects, according to internal police documents.

The initial cost to the taxpayer was subsequently inflated by £250,000 to allow the new unit to rent an office near parliament after the Metropolitan police said it did not have the space given the large size of the team. Discussions are ongoing about the extent of the running costs to the taxpayer should the UK crash out in March.

The development comes as the British negotiating team and the European commission’s taskforce, led by Michel Barnier, prepare to enter a secretive phase known as the “tunnel” this week, amid warnings that the competing red lines remain incompatible in key areas.

Brexit: EU and Ireland will never accept time-limited backstop, says Dublin - Politics live Read more

EU officials have told the Guardian that the chances of such a breakthrough stand at “50/50” with serious differences remaining over how to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland in all circumstances.

It has been suggested that it might be possible as a backstop for a UK-wide customs union to replace the Northern Ireland-specific text, which would have left open the chance of a customs border in the Irish Sea.

The price to be paid would be an admission on the behalf of Downing Street that this customs arrangement would be open-ended rather than time-limited, in a move that would enrage Conservative Brexiters.

On Monday, the Irish deputy prime minister, Simon Coveney, tweeted: “The Irish position remains consistent and v clear⁩ that a ‘time-limited backstop’ or a backstop that could be ended by UK unilaterally would never be agreed to by IRE or EU. These ideas are not backstops at all + don’t deliver on previous UK commitments.”

The EU’s deputy chief negotiator, Sabine Weyand, retweeted Coveney, adding: “Still necessary to repeat this, it seems.”

Jacob Rees Mogg, the chairman of the Eurosceptic European Research Group, tweeted that the government’s pledge to leave the customs union was “a promise that must not be broken”, adding: “Is the government about to abandon Brexit?”

The Home Office approved the funding for the new safety net unit after asking the National Crime Agency and National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) in September to draft plans for a “no deal, no implementation period” scenario, in which the UK would not secure a transition period in which to prepare for the consequences of Brexit.

A report from Scotland Yard’s deputy assistant commissioner, Richard Martin, seen by the Guardian, says police urgently need to “mitigate the impact of UK losing access to EU tools such as a database that monitors the movements of sex offenders and suspected terrorists.

Martin, a senior Met officer who leads on Brexit for the NPCC, writes: “On a Brexit no-deal scenario, the UK will lose access to European measures, tools and mechanisms. These instruments are used on a daily basis in operational policing and unless the UK can negotiate continued access to them we will no longer be able to use them.

“Similarly, EU member states will not be able to use them to work with UK law enforcement to help protect their citizens.

“The loss of one or more of these measures will have significant implications for policing. Frontline officers will be less connected to alerts from EU partners about suspects they encounter and it will be harder to monitor the movements of sex offenders or terrorist suspects if we lose the Schengen Information System II (SIS II).”

British police officers checked SIS II about 539m times in 2017 alone.

The Met was unable to find large enough accommodation for the new unit, and received agreement last week for extra funding given “the size of the team and the requirements of the unit”.

The internal document reports that the ‘safety net’ unit need has to be implemented “in readiness for exit day”.

“The process to recruit and set in place the infrastructure to create the model would have to begin immediately as the time to get the resources in place, develop communications, national guidance, and deliver training will require a significant lead time”, the paper says.

The cost of the lease for the new building in Old Queen Street in Westminster, due to end in December 2020, is £266,355.

A document says: “The unit will be hosted by the Met police but will be a national resource under NPCC governance.

“It will be staffed by officers and staff from police forces, the National Crime Agency and the National Criminal Records Office with a central coordination team and a network of regional single points of contact (SPCOs) who will advise and help forces to use alternative mechanisms.”