Extradition Bill

Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2003.

Standing Committee D

Extradition Bill

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

Good morning everyone. As usual I have no problem with hon. Members taking their jackets off, but that is about the limit.Clause 193 National security

Clause 193 - National security

John Maples (Conservative, Stratford-on-Avon)

My criticism of the Bill from the start has been that it removes a series of protections that have been built into our extradition law over a long period. One of those has been the Home Secretary's discretion to refuse to allow a case to proceed or the extradition to take place at the end of it. I understand what the Government are trying to do. I have to square my comments with my criticism of cases such as that of Rachid Ramda, who has strung out his extradition case for seven or eight years by means of the Home Secretary's discretion. It is right to reduce the number of times the Home Secretary becomes involved from two to one. As I understand it, the clause removes the

initial stage in which the Home Secretary's fiat is required to proceed with extradition. It is also right to narrow down the circumstances in which the Home Secretary can refuse to allow someone to be extradited. However, the Government have gone too far. In narrowing down to this extent, they are removing a protection that is not only valuable, but essential. This is not just a judicial, but an administrative procedure in that the Government would forcibly move a British citizen to another country. People are entitled to expect the Government to be democratically accountable for the way in which they exercise that power. The Home Secretary is responsible to Parliament for the way in which he exercises his powers, and it seems to me that that would be the correct way to provide protection in this system.

If I understand clause 193 correctly, it limits the circumstances in which the Home Secretary can exercise his discretion to cases in which either

''the person was acting pursuant to a function conferred or imposed by or under an enactment, or . . . as a result of an authorisation given by the Secretary of State the person is not liable under the criminal law of any part of the United Kingdom for the conduct constituting . . . the offence''.

The third condition that must be met is that the person's extradition

''would be against the interests of national security.''

That restriction is far too narrow. I reiterate that I understand why the Government want to narrow this down, but I should like to suggest a couple of circumstances in which that should not apply. My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) has tabled some new clauses that deal with cases in which there has been unconscionable delay, an offence could be considered to be trivial or there are political reasons behind the request for extradition. That seems reasonable, but I shall leave my hon. Friend to argue the case for those new clauses.

The national security restriction should be expanded to include two circumstances: first, when it is clearly in the national interest not to extradite someone or when the Home Secretary believes that it is not in the national interest to extradite someone, and secondly when he believes that it would result in a manifest injustice. I do not pretend to be able to draft such a provision. The circumstances should certainly be narrowed down to those in which it would clearly be an injustice to extradite someone. I am not referring to cases similar to that of Mr. Ramda, who claims that as a Muslim he cannot get a fair trial in Paris. He seems to have convinced the House of Lords, but I believe that he would have great difficulty convincing many British and French citizens.

I certainly do not want to close off the avenue of extensive appeals to people whose extradition was being sought. However, there may be circumstances in which there could be manifest injustice and/or it would not be in the national interest to extradite someone. We saw an example of that in the Pinochet case, when a Spanish magistrate attempted to extradite a Chilean citizen from Britain for offences that he was alleged to have committed in Chile. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of General Pinochet's actions, that was an interesting development in extradition law. One

country sought to enforce extraterritoriality against the citizen of another, who happened at the time to be a resident in a third country.

Some of the subsections to clause 63 deal with such situations. I am especially concerned about the possibility of this procedure being applied against British officials, whether they are British Ministers or, dare I say it, the Prime Minister—I mean any future Prime Minister, not the present one. I shall take the Kosovo war as an example. I do not need to go into detail, but I can posit a hypothetical case in which illegal international action has been taken. Most international lawyers would argue that the bombing of Serbia was illegal, whatever the necessity or the rights and wrongs of that humanitarian action. The bombing was carried out without a United Nations resolution, but was sanctioned by the British Parliament and a democratically elected Government. Regardless of whether one thinks that that was the right thing to do or not, I am not arguing for a moment that the Prime Minister was not right to do what he did.

I am concerned about the possibility that, if the Kosovo war became a political issue in a country friendly to Serbia, such as Greece, a Greek magistrate might seek the extradition of the British Prime Minister, the Defence Secretary, a military officer, a civil servant or a diplomat who had been involved in the decision to bomb Serbia, had then retired and happened to be in Romania or somewhere that had become a category 1 country. The Greek magistrate might seek that person's extradition under one of the various international conventions, or even under the international criminal court convention, for an offence committed outside the category 1 territory, which is one of the conditions in clause 63(4), (5), (6) and (7). Those subsections attempt to cover cases in which extraterritoriality applies.

As I understand it, under clause 63(4), if the alleged offence were committed in the UK, it would be up to the UK Government to deal with it by claiming jurisdiction and stating that they would not pursue the case. Subsections (5), (6) and (7) deal with cases in which the conduct occurred outside the category 1 territory and outside the UK, but it would have been an offence if it had been committed in the UK.

In the scenario that I described, British forces took international action that the British Prime Minister sanctioned. I am concerned that the extradition of people in government associated with that action might be sought, not from the UK but from a third country in which they happened to be on Government business, on holiday or for whatever reason, to a third country that was not involved in the initial dispute. I am not talking about a Serbian magistrate seeking extradition, but a Greek magistrate or another magistrate from a category 1 country in which the offence, if it were an offence, did not take place.

The Minister may be able to convince me that this could not possibly happen under the legislation. However, it would be appalling if, as in the Pinochet case, the Prime Minister had retired, was on holiday in Romania, Slovenia, or some category 1 country of the future and had to be extradited from the UK or from

some other category 1 territory because his extradition was sought by a Greek magistrate with Serbian relatives who had been killed in the bombing. There must be a safeguard against such a situation. The Home Secretary would be such a safeguard. He should have the discretion to say that he does not believe it to be in the national interest for the extradition to take place. The only fall-back is the lack of security, which would be very difficult to substantiate in the case of a retired diplomat, Prime Minister, military officer or civil servant. There is nothing else to fall back on, and what worries me is that there will be no defence, either administratively or at law, to such an extradition.

John Burnett (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon)

Is the hon. Gentleman referring to Greece as a category 1 country seeking extradition to Greece rather than to the country in which the offence was committed?

John Maples (Conservative, Stratford-on-Avon)

Yes, I am. There must be many circumstances in which that would apply. I am anxious about what would happen if an event on which an allegation of an offence was based had taken place outside the United Kingdom and would have been an offence in the United Kingdom if it had taken place here. That takes us into clause 63. There are several circumstances in which a person's extradition could be sought either from the United Kingdom or from another category 1 territory to the category 1 territory that seeks that person's extradition.

In the case of the Kosovo bombings, it could be argued that all the decisions were taken in the United Kingdom, so it is not an issue. However, I suspect that some of the meetings, especially those that planned the bombing missions, took place outside the United Kingdom, in NATO headquarters. The Secretary of State was at NATO headquarters on many occasions. At that time, I was shadowing him closely, politically and physically, and I know he was there. I am not discussing the rights and wrongs of those policy decisions. We do not need to concentrate on Kosovo; I use it just as an example of a situation in which Ministers of this Government might be vulnerable. Our Ministers are accountable to Parliament and to the electorate for the exercise of their functions, and not to magistrates in other countries, especially when what constitutes the alleged offence did not actually take place there.

I want the Minister to deal comprehensively with this issue, because if he cannot satisfy the Committee, there is an overwhelming argument for building in a further discretion for the Home Secretary. That might even appeal to some of the Minister's Cabinet colleagues. If I could think of other examples I could stretch the area of national interest considerably further than the provisions of clause 193, which restricts it to national security in two pretty precisely defined sets of circumstances.

The second issue I want to raise is that of manifest injustice, which my hon. Friend's three new clauses attempt to deal with. If the Government are resistant to the idea, is it because of a drafting problem? Do they feel that it would not be possible to define manifest injustice tightly enough to prevent Rachid

Ramda and people like him from spinning out their cases for a long time? If so, it would be worth having a go at it. I cannot believe that it is not possible considerably to restrict the Home Secretary's discretion without eliminating it completely.

The third area, which relates to clause 63 and a point made by critics of the Bill, is the absence of a requirement for dual criminality in a category 1 extradition. The Home Affairs Committee report suggested that in such cases the Home Secretary might be allowed to use his discretion. The summary of conclusions and recommendations on part 1 of the Bill states:

''We recommend that, in order to provide some safeguard against clear abuses of the new procedure introduced under the framework decision, the Home Secretary give consideration to the following proposal: that in each case the district judge should look at the terms of the offence specified in the European Arrest Warrant and make a statement as to whether dual criminality applies. In cases where the alleged offence is not a crime in the UK a separate decision about whether to extradite should then be made by the Home Secretary, who is responsible to Parliament.''

The gist is clear. If a case involving a category 1 territory in which an extradition is sought concerns an offence that falls within the list of offences in the framework decision but which would not constitute a criminal offence in the United Kingdom, the judge could so certify and the Home Secretary would have the final say. That would remove many of our objections to the vague descriptions of offences, such as ''computer-related crime'' and ''xenophobia'', which is not an offence in the United Kingdom but is in other countries. If the Home Secretary had residual discretion in such cases, it would not set my mind completely at rest but would deal with many of the difficulties I have with the removal of the dual criminality requirement.

Will the Minister respond to the shared concern, which the Home Affairs Committee expressed better than I, that the list of offences in the framework document is too vague? I do not want to repeat my criticisms of that list—I have mentioned just a couple of the offences—but merely to point out that the definitions are too vague and could include acts that are not offences in the United Kingdom. There is common ground, as the Minister says that we should be prepared to live with the criminal jurisdiction systems and law of our European partners. I agree up to a point, but a British citizen is entitled to have some concern about being extradited to another country, and we must remember that category 1 territories do not consist of only present EU members, but will include any country that accedes to the treaties. There is a long list of such countries, not all of which have a wonderful record of objective and independent judiciaries or of treating people accused under their criminal law with the respect to which they have become entitled here and in many western European countries.

If the Home Secretary had that discretion it would give people a safeguard. It is a reasonable suggestion, as it is a unanimous recommendation of the Home Affairs Committee, and it would go a long way towards meeting the concerns of people like me who

are worried about the dual criminality requirement being overridden.

I want the Minister to answer three points. The first is about manifest injustice. The second point is that the national security provision should be widened to cover national interest, so that we protect Ministers and officials who have acted in the name of the Government and democratic authority but who might find themselves caught up in the system for alleged extraterritorial offences under the latter subsections of clause 63. The third point is about the Home Affairs Committee recommendation that the Home Secretary should have discretion in cases in which the judge certifies that, although the offence qualifies for extradition under the new law, it would not meet the dual criminality requirement if it were still in force.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

First, I apologise to the Committee. As Members will tell from my voice, I am recovering from a heavy cold. I hope that my voice will hold up, but I may not find it as easy to speak at length, as I would normally do. Having said that, this is perhaps the most substantial debate that we have left in Committee, so I hope that I will be forgiven if I go into a little detail.

I associate myself with every word said by my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples). I agree with each of his three points, and will listen in detail to the Minister's response, although other members of the Committee may want to contribute before we come to that. I want to amplify some of the issues, as well as introduce our new clauses. We tabled the new clauses with great assistance from the helpful Committee Clerk. The new clause on trivial offences would include a de minimis provision in the Bill, and the other two new clauses relate to political reasons, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend, and unconscionable delay.

I must stress the point made by my hon. Friend that we are not trying to damage the Bill. We understand entirely what the Government are trying to do, so I hope that the Minister will not say that we are trying to drive a coach and horses through the Bill. I will be happy if he tells us that our proposals are the wrong way to act, because they would open up the loopholes that Ramda has used, but the Government will examine these issues to see whether there is another way to deal with them. I hope that they will take the proposed new clauses in the spirit in which they were intended, which is seriously, and that the Minister will tell us say that he and his officials will continue to examine these matters. We are not trying to weaken the Bill, but there are substantive points to address, and I agree entirely with everything that my hon. Friend said.

I want to make some points additional to those made my hon. Friend about manifest injustice. Like the debates on part 1, this debate on clause 193 stand part and associated new clauses goes to the heart of the Bill. We are always indebted to individuals and organisations that send us briefing material, and it is particularly helpful when former hon. Members, who

know how Committee procedures work, take an interest and offer advice.

Yesterday, I received an urgent briefing from the former hon. Member for Ludlow, Mr. Christopher Gill, who, after long and distinguished service here, retired at the last election. He is now chairman of the Freedom Association, which has provided useful material relating to the manifest injustice issue. I hope that the Minister and his officials will listen carefully to what I say and reflect further on it before Report. I do not expect a detailed answer today.

This issue affects our new clause because the fairness or otherwise of other jurisdictions could count as a political reason to act. My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon spoke about the possibility of a Greek magistrate attempting to arrest a former Minister or an official. The way in which the procedures of other part 1 countries work is important. We need to assess the risks in order to decide whether to widen the Secretary of State's discretion to act for political reasons.

I shall present a detailed case involving the operation of procedures in Italy. I am indebted not only to Mr. Gill, but to Mr. Torquil Dick-Erikson, an expert on continental legal procedures, and Leolin Price, QC, a distinguished jurist and lawyer. Those three experts point to the Government's genuine misunderstanding of how Italian investigatory procedures work, which bears significantly on the European arrest warrant.

The Government said on Second Reading and in Committee that the European arrest warrant could not operate in Britain for interrogation or evidence gathering. We were assured that a continental jurisdiction would be unable to go on a fishing expedition. However, as laid down in Italy's criminal law, suspects accused of serious crimes are customarily arrested at the start of an investigation before any interrogation takes place. The concern is that, unless we widen the Secretary of State's discretion, the Bill will not prevent the Italians from having British people arrested in Britain and transported to Italy for investigative purposes.

According to the expert jurists, the Bill is currently drafted with a view to English or perhaps Scottish criminal law. In our procedures, if a crime has been committed, suspicions may be formed against an individual or individuals, but the position is not formalised, as the investigators—usually police officers—view the person only as a possible suspect. During the investigation, the gathering of evidence and the questioning of the suspect, witnesses or others, people are said to be helping the police with their inquiries. If, and only if, sufficient evidence against the suspect has been gathered during the first step will a formal accusation, charge and arrest take place. Shortly afterwards, the defendant will appear in a public hearing before a magistrates court, be charged with an offence and the prosecution will have to produce prima facie evidence to assist the court to decide on bail, whether to remand the accused in custody or commit him for trial. Enough evidence has

to be produced to establish whether there is a case to answer.

In English and Scottish procedures, various safeguards, such as rules against hearsay evidence, apply, but they do not necessarily apply in foreign jurisdictions. The procedure in Italy is very different. The first step is to establish that a crime has been committed. A suspicion is formed against someone—or more than one person—who is considered a suspect. That position is formalised and notified to the person concerned. The investigators are not police officers, but members of a career judiciary. The policemen merely carry out the orders of the career judiciary.

Suspects are considered suspects on the basis of ''indizi'', an Italian word that corresponds roughly to the areas of meaning covered by the English words ''clue'' and ''evidence'', although not strong evidence. For that, the Italian word ''prova'' is used, although it also means ''proof''. Therefore, Italian has only the two words ''indizio'' and ''prova'' whereas English has three, ''clue'', ''evidence'' and ''proof''.

A person against whom the investigators have some ''indizi'' is formally notified that he is ''indiziato di reato'', which roughly means that he is suspected with evidence, ''indizi'', of having committed a crime, ''reato''. The verb ''indiziare'' could be translated as ''accuse'', on the basis of ''indizi'', and consequently the person is to be ''indagato'', which means investigated. The suspect is invited to name a defending lawyer. If he does not, one will be chosen by the prosecutor and appointed for him. However, the defendant will have to pay that person if he wants to be defended properly. That is the opposite of our system, in which the defendant can choose and the state pays under legal aid.

Let us say that the charge on which the person is being investigated is serious—for example, an offence that might lead to a European arrest warrant—and that the ''indizi'' against him are serious and not mutually contradictory. The Italian procedural law says ''indizi gravi e concordanti'', but they do not need to have acquired the status of ''prova'', which is formed at a much later stage. Let us also say that it is considered in an arbitrary assessment, made then and there by the issuing authority, that the person may try to abscond, commit more offences or tamper with the evidence. If all those conditions are fulfilled, the formal notification is given to him, together with a warrant for his arrest, so he will be arrested at this stage and put straight into prison.

In an earlier sitting I talked about the danger of people languishing in Italian prisons for months. Some of us have had constituents who have suffered that in the past, and we have asked the Government to make representations. It is one of the differences between our procedure and the Italian procedure. Someone may be merely a suspect on what is very bare evidence or a bare suspicion. At the point that I have described, the Italian investigating judicial authority will write out an arrest warrant, and if the suspect is in the United Kingdom, the UK will receive a European warrant for his arrest. When the UK receives the

EAW—the request—it will in effect ask Italy, ''Has the prisoner been accused and do you want him in order to prosecute him?''

My next point explains how the Bill is defective and why we may need a wider discretion for the Secretary of State. The Italian judicial authority will translate ''accuse'' as ''indiziare di reato'' and so reply, ''Yes, he has been accused of a crime''—that is, criminal proceedings have been opened against him. As for the aim of prosecuting him, that will be translated as ''perseguire penalmente''. That term covers the whole procedure, from the formal notification to the individual that he is an ''indiziato di reato—a suspect—to his final conviction or acquittal.

This is where clause 193, and the new clauses that we suggest should be incorporated into the Bill as a protection, overlap with part 1, in particular clause 2(3). The experts advising me say that the Italian system will undoubtedly translate and interpret the Bill as drafted in the way that I have described.

In recent Italian judicial history, clues considered sufficient to arrest someone have included the say-so of a confessed criminal who was being questioned elsewhere. However, Italian law says that although that is enough to arrest someone, it is not enough to convict. For that, corroborating evidence—''riscontri oggettivi''—must be found. Sometimes the say-so of a second criminal who has turned state's evidence is considered sufficient evidence to corroborate that of the first.

Investigation, gathering of evidence and questioning of people who may be able to give useful information take place in an attempt to gather sufficient ''prove''—the Italian word for evidence. The major difference from the UK procedure is that that gathering of evidence normally takes place with the suspect already in custody, so that is what would happen to someone who was taken away from this country under a European arrest warrant and put in an Italian prison.

Another major difference is that, before interviewing anyone, the investigating magistrate must tell them whether they are being interviewed as a suspect or a witness, because different procedures apply. That ''freezing in advance'' of the positions of all those involved with a crime makes the investigation much more difficult than it is using British methods.

The suspect, while in prison, may be interrogated again. The Italian legal procedure is based on the hope that the suspect in prison may be persuaded to confess. Italian law schools teach the maxim ''La confessione e' la regina delle prove''—confession is the queen of evidence.

Prison conditions may often be an inducement for a suspect to confess and to collaborate with the investigators. While the suspect remains in prison, the investigation can continue, for six months or more in serious cases, and extensions of that time limit can be requested by the investigators. That period is reflected in the time limit laid down by the original proposals for corpus juris that we discussed at an earlier stage in the Bill. Up till the framework decision that led to the Bill, the UK Government had always

objected to similar proposals. In 1999, a report by a House of Lords Committee rejected the proposals for corpus juris, and the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), who was a Minister at that time, promised to veto any corpus juris proposals as incompatible with British systems and traditions.

As the Italian equivalent of the British charging of a suspect will already have taken place by that stage in the procedure, albeit on the basis of far flimsier evidence, the decision will then be taken as to whether there should be committal for trial. The Italian phrase for that is ''rinvio a giudizio.'' The person responsible for that, the ''Pubblico Ministero'', could be described in English as an investigating and prosecuting judge. That judge continues to collect evidence—''prove''—against the suspect until he thinks that he has enough evidence to try the defendant in a public court.

Unlike in British magistrates courts, the committal decision is taken in a private hearing, behind closed doors, by a colleague of the prosecutor, known as the judge of the preliminary investigation. The investigation is referred to as ''preliminary'' even if it takes place six months after the arrest and imprisonment of the suspect, because it brings to an end the first part of the investigative process. The investigation then continues with what the Italians call a public debate phase, which is what we would call the trial proper. The Italians regard the investigation and the trial as a single procedure—the Italian word for ''trial'' is ''processo'', meaning process—even though that procedure may take months or longer.

Apart from the recording clerk and other attendants, the only other persons present at the preliminary hearing, which is not held in public, are the defendant and his lawyer. The latter belongs to a separate profession from the prosecutor and the judge, but the prosecutor and the judge are colleagues from the same career path and may work in tandem on case after case. They can swap functions, and their offices may be in the same corridor. It is because of such potential for injustice due to the differences between our procedure and that of Italy or other part 1 countries that have different judicial traditions that we stress the need for the Secretary of State's decision to have wider scope.

I am sorry to have taken a little while on this complex point, but it is important for all this information to be on the record. The three commentators who have sent me this brief quote what the Minister said earlier in the proceedings of this Standing Committee:

''We are both clear that in an accusation case, which is a case where a person has yet to be convicted, extradition should be possible only for the purpose of putting the person on trial. It should not be possible for the purpose of interrogation or evidence gathering. Clause 2(3) is drafted to achieve that result. It does not talk about a person being ''suspected'' of an offence or of having evidence to give about the offence. It is quite clear that the person must be accused of the offence.''—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 9 January 2003; c. 054.]

The Italian procedure is, of course, merely one example. My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon points out there are many other countries with procedures that are completely different from ours, and possibly more similar to those of Italy.

The commentators who briefed me say that it is clear that the Minister has not been sufficiently briefed about the details of Italian criminal procedure, if we take that as an example of the 13 current part 1 countries. They say that the current wording of the Bill will not achieve the outcome that the Minister says that he is expecting, and that he wants hon. Members to believe may be expected, when people are taken to Italy from Britain under the terms of the Bill.

The distinction between an arrest ordered by a police authority and arrest by a judicial authority, which members on both sides of the Committee were keen to establish, becomes meaningless when faced with a system such as that in Italy, in which a judicial authority directly carries out police functions in a criminal investigation—in effect, policemen wear judges' robes. We have always had that concern about the Bill, which is why it is essential to introduce the wider discretion to prevent manifest injustice to our citizens, but without driving a coach and horses through the legislation.

I want to deal with the other two aspects of the new clause. Many of us—Liberal Democrats as well as the official Opposition—have talked about the need for a de minimis provision to prevent people from being extradited for trivial matters. Again with great help from the Clerk, we tabled a new clause that would mirror clause 193 but would apply it to trivial cases, which I hope the Minister will be prepared to consider. We talked about the need to ensure that people will not be extradited for offences that carry a sentence or period of detention of, say, only four months.

There are political exceptions. My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon rightly outlined, probably better than I could, the need to ensure that in an equivalent of the Pinochet case, in which Senator Pinochet was—

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

Before the hon. Gentleman goes on to that issue, I must point out that extradition is not possible for offences that do not carry a 12-month sentence, as he knows. Is that not de minimis? Where would he set the threshold? How else would he define triviality other than by the length of sentence carried by an offence that is alleged to have been committed?

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

It is difficult to set a specific limit when we do not know how the legal systems of all the other countries will work. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon just said sotto voce, 12 months is the maximum sentence that someone could receive in theory. The problem is that, even under United Kingdom law, the maximum sentence might be set at 12 months for a defendant who is appearing before the UK courts in ordinary circumstances and who is not subject to extradition. All of us, especially those who practise in the courts, know that people who are convicted of such a crime usually receive no more than a small fine.

I do not believe that the Minister will want to hang his hat on the argument that we will extradite every British citizen who might face a charge just because the

maximum sentence available is 12 months in some foreign jurisdiction. The term should be three years, as the Opposition suggest and as the Labour-dominated Select Committee strongly recommended. That would be our primary approach to the extradition of people from this country, and would be some safeguard. We would also give the Secretary of State the discretion to state that an offence was trivial, even if it carried a maximum sentence of three years under some strange foreign jurisdiction.

I referred to cases that Robert Roscoe, the specialist extradition solicitor, drew to our attention, in which people were extradited under the current law for offences that were later deemed to be so trivial that they were released without charge and were able to return. The Government went through all the expense of arrest and extradition. That was under the current law, so there is concern about the need for a de minimis threshold. We contend that it should be three years in the main part of the Bill, but the Secretary of State should have a residual discretion. We are trying to put that back. I do not think that unreasonable, and I hope that the Government will consider it seriously.

The next point is about political reasons. My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon uses the very good example of Pinochet. That case involved a request not from a Chilean magistrate—a magistrate from the country where the crimes were alleged to have been committed—but from one of our European Union partners, a Spanish magistrate called Garzon. I think it bizarre that someone in another country should request, even under our current law, that the United Kingdom arrest someone for alleged crimes in a third country that is not a European country and that is on another continent.

I was very critical at the time, and have been ever since, of a range of decisions that the then Home Secretary, who is now the Foreign Secretary, took in that case. I think that I know why there was that knee-jerk reaction against this man whom we all demonstrated against as students. Some who are now Cabinet Ministers were student activists, and I remember from when I was at university all the demonstrations led by the left against Chile and Pinochet. Someone said, ''Senator Pinochet is in the UK for medical treatment. We've got to do something about him. He's a bad man.'' That is the reason for the knee-jerk reaction to put him under house arrest. It cost my local police authority in Surrey a fortune, which in the end was taxpayers' money down the drain.

Our concern is that the Bill opens up a great deal more opportunity for people who have been Heads of State, Ministers or even officials, as my hon. Friend said, to be arrested on a political basis. However much I disagree with Labour Ministers, I do not think that any Minister properly carrying out his or her functions should be open years later to the risk of being arrested—[Interruption.] The Minister says, ''Oh, come on,'' but I am trying to protect him. Who knows? In the next reshuffle, he might be transferred

to the Foreign Office. I am sure that he would do a very good job there, hard-working as he is.

We can all smile about that, but there is a very serious point. During the fighting in former Yugoslavia it was suggested by many people, not least Milosevic—he said it again in his war crimes trial—that those who should be put on trial were not people such as Milosevic, but the western leaders. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility for a magistrate or judicial authority, using a bizarre procedure such as the one in Italy that I have described, to request a warrant against a UK political leader, as Magistrate Garzon did against Pinochet. We want to retain a wider discretion.

The Minister must think about how much taxpayers' money could be wasted to deal with a formal request from a Greek magistrate for an arrest warrant against a British Minister. That is not a matter to dismiss with a smile, as the Minister seems to; it is a serious point, and I hope that he will take it more seriously than he seems to have done so far.

My final point is very important: it is about unconscionable delay. Again, I refer to the cases such as those to which the extradition solicitor Robert Roscoe drew our attention and to which I referred earlier. I shall not repeat them, but in a number of cases there have been huge delays. If such delays had affected someone in the constituency of any member of the Committee, they would regard them as leading to manifest injustice. Whether the Italian or the Belgian courts are involved—those two have caused problems in the past under the existing law—if there has been a huge delay in the request for extradition, the Secretary of State should surely have an unconscionable delay discretion. That is what the third of our new clauses would provide.

I have taken time to set out my position, but I hope that I have made an important series of points and that the Minister will take them seriously. I know that he cannot give detailed responses today to all the details that I have given of the Italian procedure, but I hope that he will respond to all those concerns seriously. Even if he cannot accept our new clauses as they stand, I hope that he will at least give continuing thought to whether the Government might introduce something along those lines on Report or in another place, because it is very important to have something like those provisions in the Bill. I rather suspect that, particularly in another place, where there are many distinguished lawyers who are able to comment on this, they will share some of the concerns about dual criminality and the safeguard against abuses that the Home Affairs Committee set out in paragraph 31 of its report. Unless the Minister is able to address all those matters, he will have problems in another place. I believe that by the time the Bill becomes an Act, it will include something to take account of delay, political reasons and de minimis. I hope that the Minister will take that seriously.

John Burnett (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon)

I do not want to dwell too long on this matter, but that is not to belittle its importance. I strongly commend to the Minister the wise words of the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon and the

compelling arguments from the hon. Member for Surrey Heath. None of us in the Opposition—I include my Liberal Democrat colleagues, and colleagues in the Conservative party—are being xenophobic. We seek to bring to bear on the Bill a measure of equity and justice.

I am indebted to an outstandingly good organisation, Fair Trials Abroad, for a briefing on the issue of manifest injustice and on retaining the Secretary of State's discretion, not just in this matter but, as the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon rightly said, for reasons of national security.

I hope that the Minister has read work by Fair Trials Abroad. It is, apparently, a unique organisation concerned with the rights of European Union citizens to due process in the administration of justice abroad. It is particularly concerned with the implementation of current law, and any proposed changes to domestic or international law or practice that might have adverse effects for EU citizens facing trial in a foreign country.

Fair Trials Abroad has years of experience of criminal advocacy through the combined experience of its lawyers. It has accumulated experience from the monitoring of and involvement in many hundreds of cases involving European citizens without access to justice during criminal procedures abroad, and through comprehensive investigations into specific issues of fair trials. It continues to draw on that experience of monitoring and actual involvement in trials. Thus, when Fair Trials Abroad refers to the plight of the foreigner, the plight of individuals sought for extradition, or its experience in trials abroad, it is incumbent on all of us to learn from those experiences.

We have discussed at length some of the more nebulous offences in the list of 32, and have focused particularly on xenophobia and racism. Not the least of the problems that the foreigner faces in the legal systems of the European Union are xenophobia and racism, which occur all too frequently. There are not many references to the ugly side of criminal justice in a debate on judicial standards. However, I would like to put forward one or two arguments that I believe the Minister should hear. I shall not be anti-French, anti-Spanish or anti-Belgian in the examples to which I shall refer. They are drawn from the experience of Fair Trials Abroad, and I cite them as evidence of the pitfalls to which individuals in this country could be subject.

In Belgium, a young black British mother was travelling with an acquaintance she had met while in Bonn. They had met at an embassy reception, when she had been staying in Bonn on a short holiday as the guest of a kinsman, who was an ambassador to Germany. On passing through passport control at the entrance to the Eurostar terminal in Brussels, her companion was stopped. It transpired that she was travelling on a false passport. The Briton was immediately charged with people-trafficking, and in due course convicted and sentenced to three years' imprisonment.

Kevin Hughes (Labour, Doncaster North)

Does the hon. Gentleman have first-hand personal experience of those cases, or is he just quoting an outside

organisation? I would like to be clear about where he is coming from.

John Burnett (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon)

I think and hope that I made it clear that I was not citing personal experience. I referred to Fair Trials Abroad, which is a unique organisation that is concerned with the rights of European Union citizens in the process of the administration of justice abroad. I have not taken part in such cases: my specialisation as a lawyer was tax, commercial and corporate matters. I have never been involved in extradition matters. I thought that I had made that clear, but I make it clear again. I am citing the experience of what is held to be an exceptional organisation. It refers to a case in Belgium. If the Minister requires me to cite the name of the case, the date and in which court it was held—

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

The citation.

John Burnett (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon)

Yes, the citation. I would be happy to provide the Minister with that information.

I also offer example from France—again from Fair Trials Abroad. A ship docks with more than 20 crew on board and a small consignment of cocaine in a ventilation shaft. A crewman confesses that he was responsible, and he is held with one other member of the crew. In due course, the pair of them are convicted. On appeal, the second man is acquitted with the observation that there was never any evidence against him. He was the only black aboard. In that case, justice was eventually done.

Another important case from Spain was also cited by Fair Trials Abroad. A British tourist was convicted of one of a series of armed robberies. He was not in the country when the other robberies were committed, and the sole Spanish witness against him was adamant that the robber spoke Spanish as a mother tongue. The tourist spoke no Spanish. All six Britons who testified in the tourist's favour were cross-examined by the bench in a xenophobic manner, and that poor man's appeal failed.

I am not suggesting that those cases are examples of the general rule of justice in those countries, but I am saying that justice can break down in such nations, and that we must ensure that there are some safeguards for the British citizen, or for the person in this country whom another country seeks to extradite.

In the cases that I have mentioned—and for the reasons mentioned by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon—where a democratically elected Government Minister acts in good faith with the support of Parliament and the authority of the state, there should be a discretion on the part of the Secretary of State to refuse extradition. In our view, there should be wider discretion, and that discretion should be incorporated in the Bill.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley North and Sefton East)

I had not intended to speak on clause 193 or on the new clauses that are listed, but having listened to the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett), I feel compelled to speak because the third case that he quoted from the briefing that I presume he received

from Fair Trials Abroad is the case of Kevan Sloan, who is a constituent of mine.

In my view, Kevan Sloan was wrongfully convicted. He was arrested, charged, tried and convicted in Tenerife. At the time, although he was a tourist, he was visiting his mother, who is resident there. All the facts that the hon. Gentleman quoted are correct. Fair Trials Abroad is an excellent organisation—it has been trying to establish that the proceedings relating to Kevan Sloan were unfair.

I initiated a debate about the case in Westminster Hall last October, I have met with Kevan's parents and the Foreign Secretary has raised the matter with the Spanish authorities. Last week, his mother and father and some supporters presented a letter to the Spanish embassy in London, and his lawyers in Tenerife have made a deportation application. Kevan intends, ultimately, to take the matter to the constitutional courts in Madrid. I believe that he is innocent, and he intends to establish that. Kevan Sloan was arrested, charged, convicted and is now serving a sentence on what in my view is an unsafe decision of the court. He never came to this country. The whole process has taken place in Tenerife.

The cases that the hon. Gentleman quoted were not cases in which people managed to get to this country and were then subject to extradition application from the country in which the crime was allegedly committed—

John Burnett (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon)

The object of citing those cases was to refer to the fact that there have to be minimum standards of justice in order for us to allow the fast-track procedure relating to category 1 countries to apply.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley North and Sefton East)

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's point. I was merely saying that some cases—certainly the case that he cites—were never the subject of extradition applications because the whole process has taken place abroad. I am coming to his general point. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon made a similar point some sittings ago. I believe that Kevan Sloan is innocent, that he should never have been convicted, and that the legal proceedings on which he was convicted were flawed. To that extent, I go along entirely with the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon and others.

However, we live in the 21st century. I do not want to quote it at any length, but does anyone remember from O-level history the Don Pacifico case in which Palmerston, as Foreign Secretary, was involved? In those days, as an imperial power, if we did not like the legal proceedings in another country, we felt quite at liberty to exercise all our imperial might and to defend the rights of British citizens abroad, sometimes with gun boats. Even at the time of the Don Pacifico affair, other members of the Government of the day were a little unhappy about the lengths to which Palmerston went. Surely, hon. Members of today's official Opposition and Liberal Democrats are not arguing that it is up to us in every case to make judgments about the proper legal proceedings.

When the hon. Gentleman and I had an exchange a few sittings ago, I made the point that while we might not like the legal proceedings in another European country—Spain has been quoted repeatedly—we accept that if somebody has been tried and convicted, there is nothing that this country can do, apart from making representations through our consular services. I wish that we could do more in the case of Kevan Sloan. The hon. Gentleman accepted the point that, if somebody is apprehended, charged, tried and convicted, they should serve their sentence. That principle is correct, even if I do not like the legal system in another European country. Once one accepts that principle, one must therefore accept that there ought to be reasonable grounds on which extradition can take place. The arguments of Opposition Members seem to imply that, although they accept one principle, they refuse to accept the other.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

The hon. Gentleman makes a sensible and helpful point. He talks about a constituency case that, to my way of thinking, supports our argument. Will he consider the point that our job as British Members of Parliament is to safeguard our constituents' interests? The hon. Gentleman is an extremely diligent constituency MP and has quite rightly taken up the case of one of his constituents who has suffered an injustice. By giving the British Secretary of State wider discretion, we would prevent future injustices happening to more of our constituents. I do not think that the matter with Spain has anything to do with our being in the 21st century. I want the hon. Gentleman to consider whether it is right that we, as British Members of Parliament, should ensure that British legislation operates to give the maximum protection to British citizens. Is not that our job?

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley North and Sefton East)

Of course it is. There are approaches that we as Members can take. In respect of the case in question, I think that I have covered all bases as a constituency MP. Kevan Sloan's family and I intend to continue campaigning for him to be brought home as quickly as possible, by whatever means possible. However, that is not the point that I am making. Opposition Members and the official spokesman appear to be saying that the Committee should judge some legal systems to be so defective that there should be almost no circumstances under which we would ever consider it possible to extradite someone.

Mr. Burnett rose—

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley North and Sefton East)

That is the burden of their argument. I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, although I do not want to detain the Committee for too long.

John Burnett (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon)

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The position that he describes is not our position. However, we want to see minimum standards of justice. The hon. Gentleman has helped me considerably, because he has quite rightly said that the legal proceedings under which Kevan Sloan was convicted were flawed. We want to get it through to members of the Committee that we want to see minimum standards of justice before the category 1 procedure can apply.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley North and Sefton East)

The point that I am making is that I also want the principle of minimum standards to apply. However, it is not the Committee's job to design the legal system that applies in Spain. Opposition Members are arguing that we should legitimately be able to say, ''Well, in the case of extradition, there may be some circumstances in which it is unsafe to go ahead.'' I do not believe that it is our job to do that. I accept their right to advance that argument, but it is not our right to do what they describe.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he is putting our case too high in his argument. I passionately believe that, in order to provide a safeguard, we should widen the Secretary of State's discretion, so that in future cases such as that of Kevan Sloan a British Home Secretary would be able to say, ''Let's stop this extradition. I've got a concern. I think there might be a risk of injustice.'' If the Secretary of State had that wider discretion, perhaps hon. Members would not need to have Westminster Hall debates or to keep pursuing every angle as a constituency MP, because the person would not have to be extradited. I realise that the Sloan case was not an extradition case. However, the hon. Gentleman has said that he thought that the foreign judicial procedure was flawed. We should build in safeguards. We are not criticising every foreign jurisdiction, and we are not trying to stop all extradition. The Secretary of State should be given a wider discretion to protect against further cases such as that of Kevan Sloan, in which someone might be unjustly extradited. Surely, the hon. Gentleman can understand that he is putting our case much higher than we are putting it ourselves.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley North and Sefton East)

No. I am making a distinction between the right of sovereign states to make decisions about their own legal systems and our role. Is it appropriate for us to be making such judgments? I have quoted one case, but I would not say that it could never happen. However, that seems to be the hon. Gentleman's point as regards whether one can trust a Spanish or Greek court to reach a proper legal decision by due process. He has repeatedly quoted the Pinochet case. As a junior Minister in the Home Office at the time, I was aware of the lengths to which the then Home Secretary went in order to judge that case. The hon. Gentleman went on to state his concern for the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth), who, at some point in the dim and distant future, might be called upon to account for his actions by some foreign court, when he happens to visit Paris or somewhere else and becomes the subject of extradition proceedings. I cannot imagine that happening, but if my hon. Friend the Minister were to fill Coventry football stadium with political opponents and butcher them, I would hope that he would be extradited at some point. The hon. Gentleman's example is not an edifying one. Although the Pinochet case was far more complicated, it does not serve his argument well.

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

I am grateful for the chance to speak in this debate and apologise for my earlier absence. I want to say how much I agree with

my hon. Friends the Members for Surrey Heath and for Stratford-on-Avon, as well as with the Liberal Democrats, on their lucid exposition of the differences between our judicial system and the Italian system. I plant my flag firmly on all the arguments about Pinochet and the risk to Ministers. I do not know why the hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) underestimates the chances of the Minister acceding to some great office of state in which he might be vulnerable to future prosecution. After all, not only Pinochet but Ariel Sharon and many others have been sought by European magistrates.

All hon. Members on this side of the argument are making fundamentally the same point: the Bill raises difficult questions about what constitutes a crime in this country and abroad and makes conflicting assumptions about what constitutes a fair trial in this country and abroad, in category 1 countries. The Government's answer is that all the problems will be miraculously resolved by adopting the principle of mutual recognition. I want to mount a four-square attack on the use of that phrase in this context, because I do not believe that it can logically be applied to the criminal justice system, and I propose to explain why.

Let us suppose that this side of the Committee is Britain and the other side is Belgium or, as I do not want to be xenophobic, let us suppose that this side of the Committee is Greece and the other side is Germany.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley North and Sefton East)

I do not want to be German.

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

All right; the hon. Gentleman can be Spanish. Let us suppose that the other side of the Committee is Spain. There is an ancient law on this side of the Committee, in Greece, that water should be served to Members gently carbonated. An ancient law in Spain provided that water should be served to members still. The principle of mutual recognition, which those hon. Members who have studied the European Community will know well, is that we will recognise their still water if they recognise our fizzy water. There should be free circulation of both types of water within the great area of this Committee Room. I hope that I am making myself clear.

That is the principle of mutual recognition established by Cassis de Dijon, the famous European court physician in 1971. It is an important law, but we cannot readily transpose that doctrine to the criminal justice system. Nor should we; it would be a manifest absurdity. The Minister wants us to accept that mutual recognition should mean our accepting the Spanish law on xenophobia, but he neglects the corollary, as it is generally understood in the European Union, which is the duty of the Spanish to recognise our law on xenophobia. If we say that something is not criminal, the Spanish should accept it, just as we have to accept it when Spain says that it is criminal. That produces a singularity and a contradiction. Both assertions cannot be simultaneously true. It cannot be true that mutual recognition requires criminality to exist in this country and in Spain at the same time. Mutual recognition cannot therefore be readily transposed to the criminal justice system.

Mutual recognition means that if there are two standards on the same question, both must be accepted—that if the German Government say that something is a vegetable and I say that it is chocolate, then we must both be right. That is the principle of mutual recognition. However, if someone says that something is criminal and I say that it is not criminal, we cannot both be right. It is not possible for both standards to operate throughout the territory of the EU. I hope that my purpose is clear.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

I ask the hon. Gentleman a simple question that goes to the heart of the differences between us. If he goes on holiday to Spain—I know that he often goes to more exotic places, but I shall follow his example—which law should he obey while there? Does he believe that he ought to abide by British law or Spanish law while in Spain? If he believes that he should abide by Spanish law, what huge principle says that he should be immune from prosecution for breaking Spanish law when crossing the border and returning to the UK?

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

There are several obvious retorts to that question. The first, which has been well rehearsed in Committee, is the case of the plane-spotters, who according to a common-sense application of British law were doing something entirely legal. The second is the contention that the person need not be in Spain to do something in breach of Spanish law that might, as I understand the Bill, make him liable to extradition. One could commit a computer crime or a xenophobic offence in this country that had an effect in Spain, and under Spanish law one might be liable to extradition to that territory for an offence that was either not an offence in Britain or not even committed in Spain.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we heard much of that debate when we considered part 1. I appreciate that he was not able to be present for that, but I am reluctant to allow him to spend too long going over what has been thoroughly debated. Clause 193 relates to the powers of the Secretary of State and I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would address those issues.

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

I am grateful to you, Miss Begg. Unless I am much mistaken—you will correct me if I am wrong—I do not believe that the point about mutual recognition has been made. I do not believe that anyone has said that the principle of mutual recognition has been wildly misapplied and is a logical absurdity in this context. It is important to get that on record. Here I am; I am meant to apply my brain to these questions. I do not understand how one can honestly and logically call the concept ''mutual recognition''. We are not invoking mutuality between two systems of criminal justice and saying, ''We'll recognise your law on the age of consent if you recognise our law on xenophobia.'' That is not what mutual recognition means. Mutual recognition means saying, ''We'll recognise your law on xenophobia if you recognise our law on xenophobia.'' It is meaningless when applied to criminal justice cases.

As the Minister said, there might be good reasons why we would want to import different standards of

law and make our citizens subject to a higher standard of criminality. However, that principle is not mutual recognition. We operate under the principle invoked by the Bill that if there is a cross-border criminal case and there is disagreement between the two legal systems, it will always be assumed that criminality is present. I do not know whether this has already been demanded—if so, you will have to forgive me, Miss Begg—but I would like the Minister and the Government to produce the following for the benefit of the people of this country who will be obliged to take cognisance of this law: an exhaustive list of the possible offences for which they could be done under the 32 generously drawn categories. That would allow British people to know which law is likely to apply to them, because it is not the law that would have been passed by Members of this House. That is the least that the Government could do.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

Of course.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

Order. Before the hon. Member for Surrey Heath speaks, may I remind him that the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson) has ignored my instructions? We are straying very wide of the clause.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I entirely understand that, which is why I was intervening on my hon. Friend. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is for the reasons he set out that Conservative Members believe we need a wider set of safeguards to protect against injustice for the Secretary of State? That is the relevance to the debate of what he said.

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend who has led from the front throughout our proceedings. He leads me directly to the conclusion of my remarks, something you will be delighted to hear, Miss Begg.

John Burnett (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon)

The hon. Gentleman is also promoting two very important principles: first, the minimum standards of justice; and, secondly, how anyone can know whether they are committing an offence overseas that forms part of the 32 offences because it is almost impossible to define the offences and no one knows what they mean.

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

Hear, hear. The hon. Gentleman puts his finger on it. I hope that the Government are taking note and that they will produce a list of the possible offences. They are taking legal certainty away from the British people, which is wrong. To echo my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath, that is why we need the Home Secretary's final decision in these matters, why it is not enough simply to leave it to the district judge to decide whether to extradite in cases where no dual criminality exists, and why we want the extra safeguard of the people's representative in the form of the Home Secretary who has a democratic mandate. I hope that the Minister will give us the necessary assurances and expunge from the Bill any reference to mutual recognition that has been wildly misconstrued.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley North and Sefton East)

I am greatly entertained by the hon. Gentleman. Does he believe that there have been miscarriages of justice in this country?

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

I accept that there have been grave miscarriages of justice. It is not my purpose to extol our system of justice above all others, but to attempt to preserve the integrity of the British system and to assure the British citizen that the laws under which he or she lives are those made by his or her elected representatives, not by some foreign democracy that may produce laws further to those under the 32 categories.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley North and Sefton East)

I am sure that I will incur the wrath of my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) by continuing to debate with the hon. Gentleman, but I will take that risk. Does he believe that it should be left to the Home Secretary to determine whether allegations of miscarriages of justice in this country are true or false?

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

No. I believe that the ultimate jurisdiction should rest with the higher courts. There is no particular reason to invoke the Home Secretary. I am not sure what the purpose of the question is. This is not a matter of some final appeal, but of deciding prima facie whether the offence is extraditable.

I hope that the Minister will assure us that he will produce a list of all the offences that might fall under the 32 categories, that the Home Secretary will be given final authority in cases where no dual criminality applies, and that he will exterminate the term ''mutual recognition'', which is not applicable in the criminal justice system. I will be interested to know what his officials have been telling him.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I thought I understood what the debate was about, but I am not quite sure now that I have listened to the hon. Member for Henley. I am tempted to try to pick up some of his argument, but I will resist the temptation. In the interests of brevity, if nothing else, I simply make it clear to the Committee that the working definition of mutual recognition and extradition to which I seek to return is the one that we were dealing with up to that point.

Like the hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East, I was not minded to take part in the debate. I do so, however, because I have listened to it with growing unease. It is an old saw that hard cases make bad law. At the risk of offending my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon, I fear that we may lose sight of the point by concentrating on individual cases. From my experience in the criminal courts, with my hand on my heart I cannot say that the Kevin Sloan case could never happen in this country. We cannot exclude the possibility of a capricious judge taking a particular view of the credibility of a witness or witnesses, especially when dealing with summary procedure. Courts of appeal are very reluctant to overturn such judgments.

Other cases that spring to mind include the case of the Birmingham Six. Many people in many parts of the world would say that it was impossible for the Birmingham Six to get a fair trial in this country, but that should not be taken as a criticism of the legal systems within this jurisdiction. It is unhelpful to concentrate on individual examples, because every jurisdiction can produce bad cases. The key point is that we must observe minimum standards, and the

proper assessment of such standards is surely the function of the Home Secretary. The new clauses are not intended to design the legal system in Spain or any other jurisdiction, but to allow the Government in this country to say that if the minimum standards are not met—we should not distinguish between category 1 and category 2 countries in that respect—we should adopt a different approach. That is what the new clauses are about.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

A sobering input from the moderate wing of the Liberal Democrats has brought us back to some issues of real import. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for tabling the new clauses in order to have a wider debate. I shall deal with them in turn before making some more general observations and dealing with clause 193. We are not having a separate stand part debate, and important issues are at stake.

I do not understand why new clause 6 should be added to the Bill. How does an unconscionable delay differ from a bar to extradition by reason of the passage of time? The provision already exists in clause 81 in part 2, and we debated the bar on 9 January when we considered new clause 1. I agreed to consider whether it would be appropriate to mirror the part 2 provisions in part 1. As I said, I see no difference, other than in language, between an unconscionable delay and a bar to extradition based on the passage of time.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I entirely take the Minister's point, and he was right to say that we tabled the new clauses to have a wider debate. He reminded us that he had already undertaken to reflect further on the mirroring of part 2 and part 1, but we felt that the issue should be put before the Committee at this point, together with the other new clauses. We have not detained the Committee on ''unconscionable delay'', so I accept the Minister's point, but I am glad that he is still thinking about it.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

I repeat that it would have been perfectly legitimate, for ECHR considerations, to raise these issues without the import of the part 2 provisions into part 1. We agreed to reflect on the problem to see whether it would make people feel happier about the proposals. I have heard no substantive argument to the effect that the unconscionable delay clause would differ from the import of part 2 provisions into part 1.

New clause 7 would require the Secretary of State to duplicate the decision already taken by the district judge under clauses 13 and 80 as to whether there would be a bar on surrender for extraneous considerations. The new clause states that he must decide whether the request was made for political reasons. I am not sure how that differs from the wording in clauses 13 or 80, under which extradition must be barred if the warrant or the request is issued for the purpose of persecuting or punishing the person on account of his race, religion, nationality or political opinions, unless the argument is that we should have a full-scale bar for offences committed for political motives. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentlemen are arguing for that. If not, I sincerely ask them to consider whether there is any difference between the provisions in clauses 13 and 80 and what is being sought in new clause 7.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I am grateful for the way in which the Minister puts the matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon and I made it clear that we did not want to open up another loophole for people like Ramda to slip through in future. We put the case in a certain way because we think that new clause 7 would provide protection if a Minister, senior official or military person in any Government faced extradition. We think that that is different to the bar on race or political opinions. We were trying to get something into the Bill that would specifically protect people on grounds of national interest.

With the helpful advice of the Clerk, we tried to mirror clause 193, and that may be why we were not able to narrow the matter down sufficiently. As the hon. Minister will understand, we have to be guided by what will make an amendment selectable by the Chairman. I would be quite happy if the Minister said that he would consider the matter and table a Government amendment later. I have said what we are trying to do under the new clause, and that vital protection is different to what is in the Bill.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

Having had that clarification, I can deal with the matter. The hon. Gentleman accepts—and I am glad that he does—that many horrendous crimes that should be extraditable are committed for political reasons.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

Allegedly.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

Yes, allegedly, and that should not be a bar to extradition. On the other hand, seeking extradition for the purposes of political persecution most certainly should be a bar on extradition. The issue that the hon. Gentleman is concerned about was raised by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon. The hon. Gentleman followed up, off the back of a particular case, the matter of whether a Minister or an official in this country could be extradited and persecuted by a magistrate in a third country.

The Bill does absolutely nothing to affect the position on state immunity. International law has established that actions taken by the Heads of Governments or officials acting in that capacity are not extraditable. The Bill could not be used to extradite an official, the Foreign Secretary or the Prime Minister. The State Immunity Act 1998, the Diplomatic Privileges Act 1964 and international law cover those points. Nothing in the Bill affects either international law in that regard or the protection given by those Acts.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

It is helpful to know that, but I vividly recall the matter of Pinochet having to come back before the House of Lords a second time following the embarrassment of Lord Hoffmann having to withdraw because of his connections with Amnesty International. Admittedly, Pinochet was not a British Minister, but international law did not prevent the detention or the issue of whether Pinochet should be extradited to Spain at the request of Magistrate Garzon going as far as our highest court. I do not really think that the Minister can pray in aid international law. I have not had the chance to go into the same detail as he and his officials, and he may tell us that British Ministers are better protected

by existing Acts. However, in the light of what happened to Pinochet, I do not think that the Minister can say that international law protects them from risk.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon raised a serious point in a serious manner. I sought advice rather than answering off the top of my head. I could do no other than report that advice to the Committee. The circumstances that the hon. Gentleman mentioned would be covered, and nothing in the Bill makes the position any weaker than it already is. The hon. Gentleman seems to be arguing that we should strengthen that position by putting a provision into the Bill. However, nothing in the Bill detracts from the protections that already exist. Those protections cover officials who are acting in an official capacity, diplomats who are acting on behalf of the Government, and Heads of State. Nothing detracts from the existing ramifications of international law.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

The Minister wonders about putting a provision in the Bill, and I argue clearly that we should. For the foreseeable future, people in this country will look to this Bill to cover the whole law of extradition. In the light of lessons learned from what happened to Pinochet, the protection available ought to be clearly stated in the Bill, even if other Acts offer greater protection to British Ministers and officials than was available to Pinochet. This Bill, in whatever final form it takes before becoming an Act of Parliament, will be our extradition legislation. Everything to do with extradition ought to be in it.

The Bill already contains provisions to do with the Secretary of State's decisions on national security. It ought also to contain something—perhaps along the lines of our proposed new clause—that sets out what protection is available for people who are acting in the national interest. That ought to be put into the Bill before it becomes an Act. I hope that the Minister will consider that point very seriously.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

The hon. Gentleman is entitled to his view that there is a real danger and that his suggestion is a priority for legislation. However, unless he has supporting evidence, he should not suggest that, with this Bill, we are damaging the present situation and putting British officials, diplomats or Ministers in danger. We are not.

John Maples (Conservative, Stratford-on-Avon)

Of the three points that I raised, I probably consider this to be the most important. I will read carefully what the Minister has said, and I will consider the Bill. However, subsections (6) and (7) of clause 63 specifically refer to offences under the International Criminal Court Act 2001 and to

''genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes''.

Almost by definition, those crimes are committed by officials or functionaries of the state.

If I remember the Pinochet case rightly, the third decision of the House of Lords was that Pinochet's immunity as a Head of State would not have overridden the international convention against torture, had that convention been in operation at the

time of the offences that he was alleged to have committed. The offences with which the Spanish magistrate wanted to charge him occurred before the international convention against torture had been signed. If it had been the other way round, and the offences that he was alleged to have committed had occurred after the international convention against torture had been signed, his immunity as a Head of State would not have protected him from extradition. I seem to remember that that is what the House of Lords said.

I feel that there is a problem in that war crimes or crimes against humanity can be widely interpreted, especially if there is a political motivation for doing so. We may or may not approve of the political motivation in the Pinochet case, but we would not approve if a foreign magistrate were trying to get hold of one of our Ministers or officials. I am concerned that naming those offences in this Bill means that people who are charged with them will not necessarily be protected by the Acts that have been mentioned. I pray in aid, or at least ask the Minister to consider, the judgment in the Pinochet case, which seems to bear out what I am saying and not what he is arguing.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

The hon. Gentleman has made his point well. He has made it in a serious manner and I can only respond to him by explaining what I understand the situation to be. We are not altering that position in the Bill, and that is something for him to consider, as I will.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I am grateful that the Minister said that he will continue to consider the point, because I agree with what my hon. Friend just said and want to add one point. The Minister quoted an Act from 1998 in his first response. The Pinochet case post-dates that, and we should consider how the Bill works in relation to war crimes, which as my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon pointed out are widely defined. The way in which the Law Lords examined the international conventions has to bear on both the Bill's drafting and effects and how the 1998 Act was thought to protect people pre-Pinochet.

We know that the Government do not intend to weaken the protection, but they have included provisions that, as my hon. Friend noted, might cause a problem in the light of the Law Lords' wide interpretations in the Pinochet case. I am glad that the Minister has said that he will examine the point seriously, because we think that it is important. We are not suggesting that the Government intend to weaken the position, but that they might do so inadvertently unless the national interest safeguard with the Secretary of State's discretion is included in the Bill. Even if we might be wrong, the fact that we might be right is a good reason for including it for the avoidance of doubt. I hope that the Minister will consider that.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

The hon. Gentleman should not try to push what I said further than I did. Also, I should clarify that I meant to refer to the State Immunity Act 1978. I apologise if I misread that.

Another point that the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon raised and majored on was the need to include a definition of ''manifest injustice'' in the Bill.

All I would ask is how would we define such a thing? He saw the problem in his presentation to the Committee. He was raging about how a particular case had taken an inordinate length of time, and the argument could be made in such cases that it would be manifestly unjust to extradite. How would we define such an issue? By giving responsibility to the Secretary of State to define such a matter, we would leave the matter open to judicial review and delays.

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman has fully expanded his reasons for his proposal, because in some categories of persons he would like us to go further and be more robust in our dealings, but for others he is extremely reluctant and wants to build in safeguards. He wants to draw the Secretary of State back into extradition proceedings that lead to the delays that he complains about, and I do not know how we could define the law so that it applied more robustly in some cases than in others, which appears to be his desire in pushing for the inclusion of a safeguard of manifest injustice that the Secretary of State could use to overrule some extraditions. He is right to say that it is a drafting problem, but it is an insurmountable difficulty unless we accept consequences that he would not want.

On the de minimis requirements and trivial offences, I rest on what has been said repeatedly in Committee. There is an argument that we have to settle. For someone to be extraditable both under existing law passed by the hon. Gentleman's party when it was in power and operated without a difficulty and with what we are proposing in parts 1 and 2 of the Bill, the offence will have to attract a maximum penalty of at least 12 months' imprisonment in the requesting state. That is a significant threshold.

I know that the Home Affairs Committee said that we should go for three years and asked why we were going further than the framework decision requires us to do. Why? The reason is that under both parties we have been prepared over a number of years to behave in an outgoing and fairly internationalist way. We have been prepared to co-operate with other jurisdictions and to allow them to seek extradition where they thought it was appropriate above a certain threshold. The threshold has been 12 months. In return, we would ask others to be prepared to extradite to our jurisdiction where we thought it appropriate.

The issuing state has to decide whether it is worth the candle to seek extradition, because the offence is so trivial. Some hon. Members disagree with us and think that we should not be prepared in any circumstances to extradite people for less than three years. That is not what the Home Affairs Committee argued, by the way, as the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon appears to think. It argued that dual criminality should not be dropped for less than the three-year sentence. He should not misinterpret the Home Affairs Committee report.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

The hon. Gentleman is being quite robust in his response. Will he seriously consider two of the points? He says that there have not been any significant problems under the current legislation where the 12-month maximum sentence applies. With great respect to him, that is not right. I refer

him again to the evidence. I will not go through all the cases again, but experienced specialist extradition solicitors—the firms that deal with these cases day in, day out—advise us through the Law Society that there have been a number of cases where requesting states such as Belgium and the Czech Republic have used the current law in a way that was quite wrong and led to manifest injustice because the offences were too trivial.

The second point is that where one is talking about a maximum sentence of 12 months, even in UK law that can be a minor crime. It can be the kind of crime that none of us in Committee would think would lead to extradition. There is a serious concern here when we are talking about the protection of British citizens. I hope that the Minister, even if he does not do so today, will think quite seriously about that. It would be different if the Bill said that the threshold would be where the normal practice is for a sentence of at least 12 months' imprisonment, but it says it is when the maximum sentence is 12 months.

There are many crimes in UK courts where the maximum sentence is 12 months' imprisonment but where a fine of £50 is normally imposed. Most of us would think that the kind of offence that regularly attracts a fine of £50 should not be extraditable. The Government are in fact putting forward that kind of threshold if we translate UK law into foreign law.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

The hon. Gentleman deviates in one element from what is actual fact. He does so in his last sentence when he refers to what we are putting forward. That is what is already in law and has been in law for some considerable time. We are saying that we have not heard an argument yet to say that we should narrow this. I do not think that that is the drift of needs. There is no obligation on us to do that. As travel becomes easier and more common and as people flow more freely across the borders, the criminal justice system needs to behave in response to that, not the reverse.

John Maples (Conservative, Stratford-on-Avon)

I take the Minister up on the point that this has been the law for several years. He may be suggesting that we introduced it. Surely the difference is the European framework document and the introduction of automatic extradition. If the protections of dual criminality and the Home Secretary's discretion were in place, we would not be making the point so strongly. Because of the European framework document, and the automatic extradition that will now take place, we are looking closely at its terms. That is the difference. I am not saying that it is wrong but there is a difference, and that is what it is.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

The basic difference is that we shall be removing the ability to delay and prevaricate in extradition proceedings to other ECHR countries. The hon. Gentleman appears to be arguing that delay and prevarication have provided a safeguard that is being removed and that we should, therefore, introduce other safeguards. He, more than any other member of this Committee, has railed against prevarication and

undue delay in extradition proceedings. There is a bit of a circle to be squared in his argument.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

The Minister is being unfair to my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon. He has spoken about toughening up in certain respects, but also about safeguards. But it is not just my hon. Friend or me—the Select Committee has also made the point that when one is redrafting the whole of extradition law and making many more things automatic, and removing some safeguards and some of the dual criminality provisions, one needs to look again at thresholds. The Minister does his cause no service by making a simplistic attack on our detailed arguments.

When we have discussed extraditing people back to this country, the Minister has put a lot of stress on making sure that we get back the big villains—the bank robbers, the kind of people who flea to the costa del crime. We agree that there ought to be an easier way to get serious criminals back to this country. However, they are the sorts of people who have committed offences that will attract sentences not of three years but of 20 years or life imprisonment. We do not want situations to arise, as has happened under existing law, in which people are extradited to places such as Belgium and the Czech Republic for trivial offences that attract no sentence. Under pressure from British solicitors such cases are dropped because the offences are so trivial. However, in the meantime, British citizens have wrongly been in custody for lengthy periods. That is what we are talking about.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

This is well-trodden ground. It does not need to be gone over at great length. The hon. Gentleman's rhetoric says that we should be dealing with serious criminals, not with trivial matters. His position on the Bill, as we discussed earlier, would have the effect of imposing a lengthier system on serious criminals unless they are terrorists or can be proven to have a terrorist motivation for the serious crimes that they commit. We have tried to explain the problems of definition, but to no avail; that is his position, even if his rhetoric says something slightly different.

I should like to address one other specific point. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath made a detailed intervention about extradition to Italy. He has had representations from people about the way in which the Italian justice system operates, which is very different from ours. I would remind him that I have already made a commitment to see whether we can find new wording for clause 2(3)(a) to make it clearer, if possible, that extradition can be sought only for an accusation, not for the purposes of investigation or interrogation. We are extraditing people to Italy now and have been doing so for a long time. All the arguments that he puts forward suggest that we ought not to be able to do that, and that we should not do it, because people are treated in an inappropriate way in Italy and it is not a jurisdiction that can be trusted to deal properly with people. If that is so, why have we been extraditing people and why have we dropped the requirement for prima facie evidence to be available in this country? The framework document is clear about the purposes of extradition. We have tried to draft the

Bill to make it clear; we shall look again at the purposes of clause 2(3)(a) to see whether we can pick up on the point raised by the hon. Gentleman's amendment.

I turn briefly to the question of mutual recognition, in response to the hon. Member for Henley. He seems to be saying that British citizens cannot be expected to have detailed knowledge of the law when abroad, and said that we will expose people to legal uncertainty. I have never heard Conservative Members seriously argue, in debates on this or other Bills, that ignorance of the law is an excuse for breaking it. The hon. Gentleman did not give a direct response to my question about whether, when in Spain or France, he should abide by Spanish or French law or whether he ought to ignore it and abide by British law instead. His argument was that he should be able to do exactly that—that he was a British citizen and that he should be obliged only to know the British law—and that those pesky foreigners should not expect him to understand their laws or expect him to abide by them.

We could go into detail about extra-territoriality. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman seemed to suggest that we are able to claim it. We have increased the areas where we seek to claim extra-territoriality—for instance, in computer crime as a result of changes in technology, and in other areas of criminality as a result of a widening in the international nature of crime. However, the hon. Gentleman said that we should be able to claim them, but that other jurisdictions should not; and that we should never have accepted them. He would not even answer the basic question about whether he ought to be subject to another set of laws when in another country, which goes to the heart of the Bill.

Conservative Members seem to be saying that the mere fact of being able easily to cross a border somehow changes the principles of justice. When in Spain, people should abide by Spanish law; but if they can escape back to Britain, we would say that Spanish law does not meet certain minimum requirements, and we are not prepared to extradite people to Spain to face the charge that they had broken the law while there.

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

I do not mean that criminals should be able to flee back to England after having committed crimes in Spain. I mean only that they should understand that the crime is also an offence in Britain. We are asking for dual criminality, and for the Home Secretary to be able to arbitrate in cases where dual criminality does not exist.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

I do not think that that was the purport of most of the hon. Gentleman's argument. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East, he said that he would not expect the Home Secretary to be the final arbiter of what was just or unjust. We would expect the High Court to decide that, yet he is not prepared to accept the Spanish high court as the final arbiter for crimes committed in Spain—or that a French high court should so act for crimes committed or alleged to have been committed in France. I ask the Committee to reject the new clauses, and to agree that clause 193 stand part of the Bill.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

We have had a thorough debate. I do not seek to take up more of the Committee's time. We do not accept the Minister's arguments. We maintain all the points made by my hon. Friends the Members for Stratford-on-Avon and for Henley, which were amplified by the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon and, to an extent, paradoxically supported by the hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East. We shall press for a Division. If I may, Miss Begg, I ask for separate votes on new clauses 7 and 8 and on clause 193 stand part.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 8, Noes 4.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

On a point of order, Miss Begg. May I ask whether the votes that I have asked for on new clauses 7 and 8 start immediately we return in the afternoon?

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

No, they will come in the normal way, at the end.

It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock.

Standing Committee D

Extradition Bill

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

As members of the Programming Sub-Committee know, we have agreed to extend the protected time for Third Reading of the Bill from one hour to two hours. I want to place on the record the reasons for that extension. I am delighted that the Government agree with it. We did not have the benefit of the presence of any Liberal Democrat on the Programming Sub-Committee, but took it that their absence connoted consent for what the Government and the official Opposition agreed.

We wanted to extend the time because both the Government and the Opposition feel that this is a slightly unusual Bill. It involves not a huge number, but a certain number of major issues of principle. The fact that the Committee spent four out of nine sittings debating part 1 on those major issues and one whole sitting debating one clause stand part and two new clauses shows where the burden falls. It is not one of those long Bills with a huge number of issues of principle, and Report takes much longer than Third Reading. Some hon. Members on both sides may not have had a chance to catch the Speakers eye on Second Reading, and may want to contribute on the issues of principle and not just on each individual issue on Report. The Government and the Opposition thought that it would be fair to provide an opportunity for more Third Reading speeches of a general nature.

There is a risk that if there are several statements on urgent matters before the House that afternoon, protecting two hours rather than one hour might result in Report being truncated, but the Government have kindly said that they will use their best endeavours to avoid that, and we recognise that that is all they can say to try to protect Report stage so that we can have a substantive debate on the major issues and still have a bit longer for Third Reading. That is the view of Conservative Members, it is clear that the Liberal Democrats do not disagree, or they would have made their point in the Programming Sub-Committee, and the Government are happy with it. That is why we thought it better to protect a little longer, and I have the approval of my colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench for saying that.

John Burnett (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon)

I did not know that there was a meeting at 2.15 this afternoon, and I regret to say that I was not present for it. However, I am entirely happy that instead of

one hour we should have two hours for Third Reading, not least because a number of hon. Members may want to contribute. Some serious issues of principle need to be discussed, and the more time, the merrier, if that is appropriate.

Edward O'Hara (Labour, Knowsley South)

I should point out that the hon. Gentleman is not a member of the Programming Sub-Committee.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

I was going to encourage the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett) to ring his office more often, but I then realised that the problem was not the Liberal Democrats' internal communication. The hon. Gentleman was not invited to the meeting of the Programming Sub-Committee because he is not a member of it. However, his hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) is a member. We kept the proceedings going artificially to try to facilitate the arrival of a Liberal Democrat Member. We have no desire to make decisions behind their backs. We shall use our best endeavours to avoid statements, although we cannot legislate for what might arise on the day, and the Opposition accept that. We may want to curtail the debate, but in the absence of any argument to the contrary, the points made by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) appear to be eminently reasonable. We thought that we should accept that reasonable request.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

This may not have been a matter for the Programming Sub-Committee, but I should mention that there has sometimes been a short gap between the end of the Committee stage and the Report stage to suit the Government business managers. I hope that the Minister can reassure us, after receiving any necessary advice from his hon. Friend the Government Whip, that we will not suddenly see the Bill going to Report within a week. There is usually a gap of at least a week, and we ask that that is observed, or preferably increased, to enable us to consult outside organisations before Report.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

I cannot comment. It is a matter for the usual channels to decide, which I am sure they will. We will be as reasonable as we can, notwithstanding other business pressures that the Government place on us.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I should, perhaps, make it clear that I was a member of the Programming Sub-Committee and was aware of the change. I expressed certain views this morning, and I am grateful for the offers of assistance. Unfortunately, I had business outwith the House at lunchtime, and was unable to get back in time. I blame the Mayor of London and the current traffic-management fiasco in Trafalgar square. My hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon already made the position clear: it is a matter of supreme indifference to us.

Question put and agreed to.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

On a point of order, Mr. O'Hara. When your co-Chairman, Miss Begg, was in the Chair before lunch, I asked on a point of order whether we should press new clauses 7 and 8 to a

Division then or later as we were running up against the Adjournment. The Clerk advised us that there would be a Division at the end of the sitting, which I accept. However, I want to make it clear that we had had a long debate all morning on clause stand part and new clauses 6, 7 and 8, and we voted against clause 193, because we believe that it should have with it the provisions under our new clauses, not because we disagree with its basis.

I do not want any Minister suddenly to say on Report or on Third Reading that the Conservatives were trying to drive a coach and horses through the Bill and were voting against the national security exemption. I believe that our intentions have been clear during the debates, but it is important to state them for the record. The pressure of time meant that we had to take an instant decision about voting on the clause, and it was logical to vote against it and to try to argue in favour of our new clauses.

Edward O'Hara (Labour, Knowsley South)

The point has been made and is on the record.Clause 194 Reasonable force

Clause 194 - Reasonable force

Angela Watkinson (Conservative, Upminster)

The clause is short, but contains the innocent-looking word ''reasonable''. I know that the word ''reasonable'' has a legal meaning, and doubtless one of the many of lawyers in the Room will tell me exactly what that is. To me as a layman, it is open to interpretation. Bearing in mind the provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998, it is important that the word is clarified for the benefit of the police and others who may exercise the powers under the Bill, and for the people who are being extradited.

I shall refer to a briefing paper from the Metropolitan police. One of the key areas of concern was the need for a code of practice in the exercise of their powers. It said:

''These powers are welcomed by the MPS and we acknowledge the considerable value added to the fight against international crime which these powers permit. In the main these are powers with which police officers are familiar and their existing domestic equivalents are well tested within domestic legislation. We note the intention to write a Code of Practice for these extradition powers and we would ask to be involved in that process in order that our experiences to date with similar legislation can be considered.''

I add my support to the request that the police should be consulted on the formation of a code of practice, to ensure that no loopholes remain.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I agree entirely with the point made by my hon. Friend. Had she not done so, I was planning to refer to the Metropolitan police's helpful brief, but I do not need to repeat what she said merely to endorse it. I look forward to reassuring words from the Minister about codes of practice.

All of us who are lawyers are well aware of discussions about apparently innocent words in short clauses mentioning such issues as ''reasonable force''.

The definition of what is reasonable is often left for the decision of a court, and thus is a matter of interpretation. I was therefore surprised to see that the clause was as short as it is. Will the Minister tell us whether a longer draft, with more explanation of the clause, was contemplated at any stage? I hope that he will also shed some light on the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson).

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

Opposition Members will recall that we discussed this matter last week under part 4 of the Bill. I am not sure whether the hon. Lady was present for the discussion, as I know that she has had other Committee duties to juggle during the passage of the Bill.

In the past, it was thought that the police could carry out their functions in the extradition system under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, or by using their common law powers. However, the Rottman case cast doubt on that. In that case it was initially held that the search and seizure powers in PACE applied only to domestic offences and that, since the advent of PACE, the police could no longer rely on their common law powers in that area. Part 4 of the Bill was drafted to ensure that the police have powers in extradition cases that are modelled on those in PACE. It will therefore be clear to everyone concerned that they can use powers in extradition cases that are as near to the PACE powers as is appropriate.

The PACE code of practice C allows for reasonable force to be used if necessary to secure compliance with a reasonable instruction and to prevent escape, injury, damage to property or the destruction of evidence. The Bill incorporates the same ability to use reasonable force as is contained in the PACE codes. ''Reasonable force'' is a well known and understood phrase.

We will be issuing a code of practice and we will consult the police on that, as we consult them on the need to update the PACE codes from time to time. When we draft that code, the ramifications of the mirror powers in the Extradition Bill will also need to be consulted on, if any changes are necessary. The police will be an important part of the decision as to whether such updates or changes are required.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

That seems to be entirely satisfactory. It is what I expected the Minister to say. My hon. Friend the Member for Upminster and I agree that that assistance from the Minister was helpful. We will not seek to pursue the matter further.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 194 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 195 to 198 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 199 - Form of documents

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I want to raise briefly an important point about clause 199. The shortest clauses often hide a multitude of potential sins, and I have a nasty suspicion that that is true of this clause, which will give the Secretary of State an extraordinarily wide and unfettered power. It states:

''The Secretary of State may by regulations prescribe the form of any document required for the purposes of this Act.''

The Minister may say that such a phrase is common in legislation, but at least some of the documents required should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Will the Minister say, first, whether those regulations will always be debated in the House? If the answer is yes, there will be some parliamentary scrutiny, but if the clause gives the Secretary of State a general regulation-making power, which means that a document can be set up in the form that he or his officials want, without it coming before Parliament, it is a matter of concern.

We have already discussed the fact that the form of the European arrest warrant—a six-page example was sent to me—does not fit with the traditions of UK law. Will this little clause give the Secretary of State the power to rewrite a document because the authorities in Brussels or Strasbourg decided that they wanted a different kind of warrant, for example? If so, he could decide to sign up to it in the same way as the Government signed up to the original framework decision, without any consideration by Parliament of the form of the document. That worries me. My hon. Friends the Members for Henley (Mr. Johnson) and for Upminster and many others share my concern about the Secretary of State having carte blanche, in the most literal use of that phrase—he will be given a white card.

A future Secretary of State could decide to use a form that was very different from anything in current law on extradition. A responsible Government would not behave in a way that was alien to the traditions of UK law, but I am always worried about open-ended, widely worded clauses, because Governments cannot bind their successors. If a future Government wanted to make some radical changes to extradition law, they could say, ''All we are doing is using the power given to the Secretary of State by the Extradition Act 2003''.

The Minister can reassure us by telling the Committee that any regulations made under the clause will have full parliamentary scrutiny and will be subject to the affirmative procedure, not go through on the nod.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

The clause is necessary. It enables the Secretary of State to devise and issue standard documents such as certificates and part 3 warrants. Without the clause, it would be unclear to what sort of standard documents the Bill refers.

The Secretary of State will make the regulations by statutory instrument, which will be subject to the negative procedure. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath wants every dot and comma to be scrutinised in every instance and every statutory instrument to be subject to an affirmative resolution but the clause refers to the form required for standard

documentation. The negative procedure is used for such measures, and the relevant precedents lead one to believe that it is appropriate.

Clause 199 deals specifically with forms and documents and is purely administrative. No great questions of principle are involved, but we must be able to specify what forms are needed and there should be some parliamentary accountability for the content of those forms. As I said, it is our intention that the negative procedure should be used for the approval of the orders, which is an appropriate level of scrutiny.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

The Minister has come part of the way towards us by acknowledging that there will be parliamentary scrutiny. I do not think that every regulation must go through the affirmative procedure, but any new forms relating to something as major and crucial to the liberty of the subject as extradition should be subject to it.

Having put the point on record, I will not divide the Committee on the clause. The Minister has reassured me to a certain extent, although I hope that he will at least consider what I have said. He has already undertaken to consider whether other provisions in the Bill should be subject to affirmative resolution, and I hope that he will add the clause to his list. He may find that in another place the Government will be looking for matters on which they can offer reassurance to show that they have listened to some of our arguments. Clause 199 could be one such matter.

I do not think that it will be a huge inconvenience, but we are talking about changing forms in relation to a matter of principle as important as extradition. We all know that cases often turn on the documentation, so it is important. I am sure that the Minister, like me, will have seen plenty of cases involving extradition to the Republic of Ireland. When I practised at the Bar, I used to work on such cases, which involved special branch officers sitting at the back of the court. Many cases fell apart because Governments of both parties—I am not making a party political point—failed to provide the Irish courts with proper documentation. As the Minister acknowledges, documentation is important in extradition, so its form is crucial.

I am not making a silly point. There are good reasons why any change in the forms under a general order-making power for the Secretary of State should be considered in Parliament. With the best will in the world and however carefully Home Office officials try to draft something, they might miss a certain point, so the forms should come before Parliament for proper scrutiny. Parliament has many Members of both parties who have served as Northern Ireland Ministers, and they might be able to suggest changes based on what went wrong before. That is just one example. Cases of extradition to other countries will undoubtedly have gone wrong under pre-existing law because of documentation problems.

The point should be considered. I will not divide the Committee, but I hope that the Government will consider it seriously instead of just batting away our objections.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 199 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 200 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule agreed to.

Clause 201 - Commencement

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

We are coming towards the end of the Committee, and we now have the question of commencement. On this occasion, I am indebted to the important organisation Liberty for suggesting an amendment. I tabled an amendment about transitional provisions whose inclusion Liberty proposed in place of clause 201, but I realised that that amendment could not be selected because we wanted to delete the clause and replace it with another. The debate technically has to be on clause stand part.

For the benefit of the Committee and the Minister, in case he did not look at our original amendment, we wanted to say that all the provisions of the Bill up to and including clause 200 would apply only to conduct committed after Royal Assent. We are now into our regular argument about whether legislation should have retrospective effect. I am sure that the Minister will immediately stand up and say that if we do this, there is a great danger that people will slip out of criminal proceedings that they should rightly face. I understand those concerns, but existing legislation will cover any offences committed before the Bill receives Royal Assent.

I quote what Liberty said to us, and, no doubt, to the Liberal Democrats and others:

''We urge the Government to take advantage of the transitional provisions allowed for in Article 32 of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) Framework Decision by making a statement to the effect that it will continue to deal with requests relating to acts committed before the specified date''—

Liberty chose the date of the framework decision, 7 August 2002; I suggested instead going on to the date of Royal Assent to the Bill—

''in accordance with the extradition system applicable before January 2004. There is nothing in the Bill that indicates that it will not be retrospective and we would urge the government to incorporate such a statement in the Bill''.

I have not had the opportunity or resources to check, but Liberty understands that the Governments of France, Italy and Austria have already made similar statements of non-retrospectivity, if I may put it that way. I do not know whether the Minister and his civil servants can confirm or deny that, but I am prepared to take Liberty's word for it because in my experience it always checks matters carefully.

Liberty's briefing continues:

''Retrospective application of the Bill may lead to situations where requests are received which apply to people who may have been involved in past conduct''

which will not be properly covered by the Bill. All members of the Committee are familiar with the argument about retrospectivity. I have placed the issue

firmly before the Committee. Liberty does not necessarily have the perfect wording, but it has suggested a substitution. I do not suggest that I have the perfect wording, but I want to raise the issue because those in another place who are experts on extradition law might want to discuss it in more detail than we have time for this afternoon.

Edward O'Hara (Labour, Knowsley South)

In view of what the hon. Gentleman said about the relationship between clause 201 and new clause 3, I shall now group them together. The hon. Gentleman will have the opportunity to come back on that.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I would be happy to do that. The clauses cover the same point, as your Clerk has realised Mr. O'Hara, so if we can debate them together that would be great.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

That is helpful because the points made by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath will inevitably be raised on the debate on new clause 3. The matter raised by new clause 3 is of no small importance. I shall try to convince the Committee and the hon. Gentleman that it is not necessary to amend the Bill in this way. If he is going to go all the way in terms of retrospective application of the Bill to alleged criminal behaviour, I am not sure that he would want to make this amendment if he thought about it in detail.

New clause 3 would provide that the new powers under the Bill would apply only to conduct that takes place after Royal Assent. That might appear to make sense, but if it is followed through, the conclusion is far from logical. Let us say that a person commits a murder shortly before Royal Assent. Because the conduct occurred before the 2003 Act came into force, an extradition request for the offence could be made only under the former provisions. That might not be too bad if the request comes within a few months, but what if it comes five years from now, because the murder is only discovered five years from now? What about accusations of paedophilia, which by their nature are often made some years after the acts themselves?

If the new clause were accepted, the existing legislation would need to remain on the statute book in parallel with the new regime as long as it might be possible to extradite a person for an offence committed before Royal Assent. That could mean that we had two systems running in parallel for many years.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I take the Minister's point. As I hoped, he is taking this matter seriously. However, I made it clear that I am not saying that we or Liberty have necessarily got the provision exactly right. Does the Minister understand that we are trying to avoid improper restrospectivity? It would be helpful if he at least kept the matter under review to see whether there is a way to address Liberty's concern while not having two systems running in parallel as he described. I understand the Minister's point about paedophiles and murders that are discovered many years after the event. We do not want two systems running in parallel, but equally we do not want improper and unnecessary

retrospectivity. Will he at least undertake to continue considering the issue?

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

Unreasonable lapses of time can be prayed in aid against extradition requests. I should have thought that the point that most concerns Liberty, which the hon. Gentleman has raised on its behalf, would have to be dealt with in that context. We have had lengthy discussions in Committee about how long certain extradition cases can be protracted by determined individuals with legal resources. It escapes me to understand how we could put something in the Bill that defined an inappropriate degree of retrospectivity but that did not allow people to fall through the net or place an obligation on us to keep both pieces of legislation running in tandem for many years.

The hon. Gentleman makes a genuine point about people seeking many years after the event to use a piece of legislation that was not in place at the time, and about the ability to extradite people years after a crime was committed. Such a person would be able to raise that point with a district judge in respect of part 1. Other ways that are appropriate in part 2 would be covered by the time bar for an unreasonable passage of time.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I hear what the Minister says and, as I said, I hope that he will continue to consider the matter. Those in another place who have even greater experience of the way in which the law operates and issues of retrospectivity may want to debate it. I do not wish to push the matter at this stage. We have placed it on the record, and those who look at our proceedings will see what I have said and the Minister's response. I suspect that this will once again be a live issue in another place.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 201 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 202 - Existing legislation on extradition

John Burnett (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon)

I am proud to rise to debate this clause. My hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland and I find it offensive in the extreme—

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

Obnoxious.

John Burnett (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon)

I am grateful to my colleague. This is a classic Henry VIII clause, conferring power on the Executive to make fundamental amendments to primary legislation through secondary legislation. We have been fortunate to have the Select Committee's comments on the Extradition Bill. I refer to page 29 of its excellent report and we have all noted its conclusion. With the backing of my party, which responded to requests to express its views on the Bill, I shall attempt to précis the report. It states:

''The Bill provides no indication of what provisions of these Acts''—

the Backing of Warrants (Republic of Ireland) Act 1965 and the Extradition Act 1989—

''the Government intends should be amended or repealed. Clause 205 provides that any Order in Council made under clause 165 would be subject to the negative resolution procedure, whereby it may be annulled in pursuance of a resolution of either House.''

It continues:

''The Home Office has told us that it considers Clause 202 needs to be drafted in its present form because the Government intends that the Bill will apply to all extradition requests received after the Bill comes into force. Consequently, it intends to repeal both the 1965 and 1989 Acts in their entirety. However, these Acts cannot be repealed until all cases which are in the system at such time as the Bill comes into force have been finally disposed of.''

The Home Affairs Committee makes it quite clear that it considers the clause to constitutionally inappropriate. As I said at the outset, it is a classic Henry VIII clause and it is objectionable because we have no idea, beyond a bland assertion from the Home Office, what parts of the Acts will be repealed, or what the principles or guidelines for appeals will be.

Fortuitously, on 14 January 2003, at the behest of the noble Lord Dahrendorf, a debate on the third report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee took place in another place. The debate centred on the key constitutional question of the limits of Executive power, and Parliament's ability—and its duty—to prevent the unchecked expansion of those limits. The conclusion was that, although Henry VIII powers could occasionally be justified through the negative procedure, the fundamental principle was that there

''should always be a presumption in favour of the affirmative procedure. That means that whenever it is not adopted reasons must be given in the Explanatory Notes accompanying Bills why this should be so.''—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 January 2003; Vol. 643, c. 169.]

We shall press for a Division on these obnoxious, objectionable and unparliamentary provisions. I hope that Labour Members will support our endeavours to ensure that Parliament regains its authority and the principle of parliamentary democracy is retained. We have discussed this before in Committee. This is a slipshod little clause that has no place in the Bill.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has expressed his views in such strong terms, as it has saved me the trouble of doing so. I will not bore the Committee by repeating what he said, but I agree with every word. It is rare for me to agree with every word uttered by a Liberal Democrat, but it is more likely to happen with the two Liberal Democrats on this Committee. The Minister has sought to drive a wedge between them based on their lack of communication. He also described the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon as being the Eurosceptic wing of the Liberal Democrat party, but he is also on its constitutional wing, as is his hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland. They believe in the historic traditions of Parliament, and long may they continue to do so; even so, I wish that their views were more widely shared by their parliamentary colleagues, who so often vote with Labour to undermine our constitutional traditions.

The Conservatives, too, object to Henry VIII clauses. Since he became shadow Home Secretary, and probably for many years before that, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin)

has voted against every Henry VIII provision that the Government have sought to slip in. My hon. Friends and I will certainly support the Liberal Democrats in voting against the clause for all the reasons that the Select Committee set out. I have no doubt that there will be a huge amount of opposition, including from Labour peers, when the provision comes before another place. Often the only way we have managed to preserve our constitutional traditions recently has been when Labour peers have voted with Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers. Long may that continue, as well.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I share the pride expressed my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath says that it is unusual for him to agree with every word uttered by my hon. Friend. I understand where he is coming from. I, too, find myself in that happy position. There is an important constitutional point here which my hon. Friend, in his typically understated way, brings to the attention of the Committee. The issue is well explored by the Home Affairs Committee report on the Bill. The Minister may not be aware that that is a Labour-dominated Committee—[Laughter.]

The extent of the discretion that the clause gives the Government is quite unnecessary. Unless there is some compelling reason why the provisions could not be achieved by some other way, perhaps by specification of sections in a schedule, which might be brought into force by order at a later date, I can see no reason why we should be asked to give the Executive a power of this sort.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that we are seeing more and more of these Henry VIII clauses in more and more Bills? If the Government simply adopt a Henry VIII clause mentality on every Bill—

Edward O'Hara (Labour, Knowsley South)

Order. We are considering the Extradition Bill.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I have a great deal of sympathy for the sentiments that the hon. Gentleman expresses. Of course, one can refer only to the clause as it is drafted, but it is legitimate that we all express some disappointment in the Minister. I am not angry with him, simply a little sad and disappointed that he should seek to usurp the proper functions of Parliament.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

The hon. Gentleman says that he is disappointed in the Minister, but we should bear it in mind that it is not necessarily this Minister's fault. He may have been immortalised on celluloid as the aggressive Whip in ''The Project'', with fellow former Labour Whips accusing him of being a bully, but I cannot believe that of him. I suspect that he is an old softy at heart, and that it is those behind him—the forces of darkness, about whom we have read so much—who are responsible.

Edward O'Hara (Labour, Knowsley South)

Order. The clause has nothing to do with whether the Minister is soft or hard.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

I can add nothing that would be in order. I conclude my remarks.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

The attempts of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland to heal the rift that has opened up in his party are fairly transparent. He tries his best to row in behind his hon. Friend, but instead of using the scolding language of the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon, his remarks are so reasonable that he completely undermines what he is trying to do.

John Burnett (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon)

Will the Minister give way?

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

No. I would be out of order if I were to do so, and the hon. Gentleman would be out of order regardless of what he said. We should get on with discussing the substance of the debate, although I know that that is a dreadful imposition and undermining of parliamentary democracy.

The clause allows the Backing of Warrants (Republic of Ireland) Act 1965 and the Extradition Act 1989 to be amended or repealed by an Order in Council, as we will need to get rid of our existing legislation once the new arrangements for dealing with extradition requests are in place. I realise that there has been criticism of our taking powers to repeal the existing legislation by order rather than repealing them under the Bill. I acknowledge that the Labour-dominated Home Affairs Committee—and initially the Joint Committee on Human Rights—expressed concerns about the matter, and that the Home Affairs Committee report suggested that the clause should be deleted and that the Bill should include a provision to repeal the Acts.

I take the opportunity to explain why we drafted the clause in this way. The provisions and procedures will replace the existing legislation—

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

Will the Minister give way?

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

I want to put this on the record so that the hon. Gentleman will see what draconian measures I am introducing, and what I am not introducing! We clearly intend to repeal the 1989 and 1965 Acts—

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

The hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon did not refer to the final paragraph of the Select Committee's report, which relates to warrants to and from the Republic of Ireland. Will the Minister also deal briefly with the Select Committee's final recommendation 29, which states that

''central statistics on extraditions to and from the Republic should henceforward be maintained''?

That is relevant to one of the Acts, and it would be helpful if the Minister could confirm that that will be done. It is a small point, but one that the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon did not mention.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

Yes, it would be helpful, and we intend positively to respond to that point, just to prove that we do not ignore everything that Labour-dominated Home Affairs Committees recommend, if for no other reason.

The important substantive issue was misunderstood in the scolding that I received from the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon. He will obviously vote

against the clause if I do not manage to satisfy him. When the Bill receives Royal Assent and is enacted, there will still be a number of outstanding extradition cases that will be governed by the 1989 Act. It will therefore be necessary to keep the new and the current systems operating in tandem until every extradition request that has been started under the existing procedures or the backing of warrants legislation has reached its completion. Once that has happened, the 1989 and the 1965 Acts will be repealed in their entirety. I am sure that hon. Members will understand that it is not possible to predict when will then happen. It therefore seems reasonable to repeal those Acts by Order in Council.

As I have explained, the Joint Committee on Human Rights questioned us about the matter, and considered our explanation. I heard the hon. Members for Orkney and Shetland and for Lewes (Norman Baker) talk extensively about the weight that they give to the Joint Committee, whereas the hon. Members for Surrey Heath and for Torridge and West Devon do not seem to be that bothered about human rights.

John Burnett (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon)

The Minister cannot get away with that. Does he not recall that, in one of the first amendments that we discussed, I sought to incorporate in the definitions of any country to be classified as category 1 that such a country should be, among other things, a signatory to the European convention on human rights?

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

I am glad to have lured the hon. Gentleman out on that. I hope that his commitment to human rights is complete and absolute and that his support for the Joint Committee is as substantial as that of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland.

We were questioned at length by the Joint Committee, and that Committee's conclusion is contained in the ''Scrutiny of Bills: Progress Report'', which was published on 20 December. I quote from paragraph 60 on page 21 of that report:

''On the relationship between the Bill and the Extradition Act 1989, we were told that the 1989 Act would be repealed in its entirety, together with the Backing of Warrants Act 1965. However, this cannot be done until the last cases to be brought under the Act have been finally disposed of. The power to repeal by Order will be used to repeal the earlier legislation when that time comes. In our view''—

that is the view of the Joint Committee, on which I believe that the Liberal Democrats are represented, in which they play a full part, and in which the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon has great confidence—

''this is a satisfactory explanation of the power.''

I would hope that at least some weight would be given to the considered view of the Joint Committee by the hon. Members who are members of the Home Affairs Committee—a Labour-dominated Select Committee—and that this Committee will also give some weight to those views. I therefore hope also that any further scolding that I receive from the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon will be toned down.

If there is another approach that does not present any problems, being the reasonable man that I am—not the one that is portrayed in a disgraceful television

programme—I will consider it. I do not think that Opposition Members want those who have been in the queue for extradition for a long time to be able to escape justice. We need the powers to run in tandem and to continue for an indefinable period until all the cases have been disposed of. Having considered the matter, it seems to me, and to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, that what we propose is a sensible way forward; the measures will removed in their entirety at the appropriate time. I hope that that will soften the assault from Opposition Members, and that they will withdraw their scandalous remarks and support the proposal, unless they can offer an alternative, to which I shall give due consideration.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

It is proper that the Joint Committee on Human Rights should have regard to the provision from a human rights perspective, but the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon and others is more far-reaching than that. It is a fundamental constitutional principle that primary legislation should not be amended by secondary legislation other than in the most exceptional circumstances. That goes beyond human rights considerations, and it would fall only narrowly within the ambit of debate in the Joint Committee. The proposal is not the trump card that the Minister seems to think it is.

It is possible for the Bill to include a proposal to repeal the relevant measures. I am no draftsman, but I believe that it could be done by the construction of a schedule, which could be brought into force at a later date by a separate commencement order.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

I was not using the Joint Committee on Human Rights as the only trump card; I was using it to damp down Liberal Democrats' outrage about the powers. If the Joint Committee shared that outrage, it would have said so clearly in its report on 20 December. I am happy to consider hon. Members' suggestions if they do not create major problems or introduce loopholes that would prevent our taking the appropriate action against those who are currently in the system. It should be acknowledged that we are discussing exceptional circumstances that might justify withdrawing primary legislation by secondary legislation. However, I do not want to impose on Parliament a ludicrous procedure that does not make sense, nor do I want to provide loopholes that enable people to escape due process and justice. If another way cannot be found, I ask the hon. Gentleman to accept that these are exactly the exceptional circumstances that justify primary legislation being withdrawn by secondary legislation.

The hon. Gentleman appears to be happy to do that if we can satisfy him that there is not another way. Everyone knows what principle I am talking about, and if the great minds in the other place or anywhere else can come up with a proposal I will be happy to consider it. I do not have a closed mind on the matter. I hope that we can proceed, without allegations of unconstitutional practice, to try to find a sensible way to bring the old arrangements to a conclusion and the new ones into being.

John Burnett (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon)

I was interested to hear the Minister's comments. I detected a flower of reason and embryonic capitulation, and I am glad to hear that he will consider the matter further. Amendments will undoubtedly be tabled on Report and in the other place. However, it has always been my view that one should not negotiate from a position of weakness. I believe that the Minister's card should be marked, and he should be given a yellow card.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland mentioned, it is a matter of principle. That was also the view of the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, and the Minister should heed the wise words of the Members of the other place who spoke in the excellent debate on 14 January 2003. He should read the debate and take cognisance of the wise words of those learned Lords. It is not good enough. We will negotiate from a position of strength and vote against the clause.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 8, Noes 5.

Clause 203 - Channel Islands and Isle of Man

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

The point that I wanted to raise has been expanded by a briefing that I received during our lunch break. The Minister will remember that when we served on the Proceeds of Crime Bill for many months last year, he and the right hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) used to poke fun at the then shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), and me for the number of lunchtime and dinner briefings that we received. Those briefings were helpful and shed light on the debate, and today's briefing was the same.

The Minister knows that I have a particular interest in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. I have raised that in Committee before, and it is a personal, long-standing interest, which also falls within the Home Office remit. There are shared responsibilities between the Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth office for our overseas territories. If I recall correctly, I made some brief points in our debate at the beginning of part 5 on British overseas territories, which are also referred to in clause 178. I shall ask specifically about the interlinking between

clauses 203 and 178.

I hope not to go out of order, but I want to mention a case that was drawn to my attention this lunchtime. It is not an extradition case but, like other cases that Members have referred to, it has overtones that could cause concern for the future development of extradition law. We have sensitivities with cases involving international funds—funds that travel across borders—and the Government wanting to extradite large-scale crooks who are involved in money laundering.

My attention was drawn to the huge embarrassment caused to some parts of Her Majesty's Government and the Cayman Islands Government over the recent collapse of the Eurobank case. I shall not take up the Minister's time today, because that would not be in order, but I ask him, when he is considering the Bill's impact on extradition involving overseas territories, to undertake to examine with his officials and those who work with his noble friend Baroness Amos, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister, the implications that the Eurobank case may have for extradition law.

I read one or two brief press reports over the weekend. I gather that the trial was going to cost many millions to prepare, and that it has now collapsed in disarray because it is thought by the Cayman Islands court that one of the witnesses was working for the security services in this country. That could also happen with money laundering to the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man. If I had known about that case before we debated clause 178 I might have raised it then, but the collapse happened since that time and before today, so this is the first time that any member of the Committee could have drawn it to the Minister's attention.

The Minister and I share a desire to stop money laundering. The issues that we debated at such length on the Proceeds of Crime Bill are raised under this Bill, because international criminals who are involved in money laundering are among those who need to be extradited out of this country to face justice elsewhere or extradited back to face justice here. It is a matter of concern whenever a money laundering case collapses after the expenditure of a huge amount of taxpayers' money—whether it is our money or the Cayman Islands' money does not matter; it is the principle. I hope that the Minister will examine the matter and write to me and other members of the Committee, if they are interested. This serious matter has apparently caused a huge rift between the Cayman Islands Government and the UK Government, of which I am scratching the surface. If I went any further, Mr. O'Hara, you would rule me out of order.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

The hon. Gentleman or any other Member of Parliament has the right to raise such matters in whatever forum he chooses and to write to Ministers to seek an explanation. I do not see what the case has to do with the Bill, let alone the clause, so I am not sure that it would be appropriate for me to write to him in response to his remarks. If he is worried about the issues, I would encourage him either

to table questions or to write to Ministers seeking an explanation.

Clause 203 provides for the Bill to be extended by Order in Council to cover the UK's Crown Dependencies; the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Such an order would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure by virtue of clause 205. I trust I am, unusually, at one with the hon. Member for Surrey Heath as regards that.

Clause 203 allows for modifications to be made as appropriate to ensure that differences in the islands' legal systems are catered for. The Crown Dependencies do not, for example, have a district judge, or operate the High Court and the House of Lords in the same way as the UK. The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are not part of the EU and so will not operate the part 1 procedures. Clause 178 applies to overseas territories while clause 203 applies to the Crown Dependencies, but the Bill does not provide for extradition between overseas territories and the islands. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will raise the issues in another way.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

The Minister has responded as I hoped. I understand the interlinking between clauses 203 and 178 and that one needs slightly separate provisions. The Minister has set that out helpfully. I will take up his invitation to table questions or to write to him. I thought that it was helpful to raise the matter because it has recently been drawn to my attention and because anything to do with money laundering may have common implications for the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and overseas territories such as the Caymans Islands. It was worth briefly drawing attention to the issue.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 203 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 204 to 208 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

New Clause 4 - Compatability with Crime

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Edward O'Hara (Labour, Knowsley South)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 5—Annual report—

'The Secretary of State shall publish, and lay before both Houses of Parliament, an annual report on the operation of this legislation.'.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I can be brief. The new clauses are important and if the Minister does not accept them, we are likely to press for Divisions. We will, of course, listen to what the Minister has to say.

New clause 4 is designed to build into the Bill an essential requirement for compatibility between two pieces of legislation going through the House of Commons at the same time. I referred briefly to the problem earlier, and my discussions with our helpful

Clerk about how best to deal with it in the Bill resulted in the new clause.

The issue was important enough for my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset to refer to it on Second Reading. In response to an exchange between my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier), the former shadow Attorney-General, my right hon. Friend said:

''I agree with my hon. and learned Friend''—

the former shadow Attorney-General.

''Furthermore, the Government have presented the Crime (International Co-operation) Bill as a tiny amendment that would for the first time allow foreign policemen—whom the Minister tells us he means not to authorise, but who will be authorised under the Extradition Bill—to enter the country to pursue a villain across our borders. In short, we find ourselves surrounded by a set of minor incursions that are centripetal in their intent. There is a move towards the homogenisation of systems of justice in the EU''.

There was then an interruption, as Hansard politely describes it, by the Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety, the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), expostulating from the Treasury Bench. My right hon. Friend responded:

''The Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety suggests that I do not believe what I am saying. I do not think that I have ever in my life said anything that I believe more strongly. If he is sufficiently naive as not to believe it—if he is a fellow traveller rather than a willing enthusiast—he will be sorely disillusioned as the measure progresses. ''—[Official Report, 9 December 2002; Vol. 396, c. 58–9.]

As ever, my right hon. Friend puts the matter far more eloquently than I could.

The Government cannot be allowed to get away with having two Bills proceeding through Parliament—one starting in another place, the other in the House of Commons—both of which chip away at our historic freedoms. One allows foreign policemen to hot pursuit in this country for hours. The other says that foreign policemen cannot act without the authorisation of UK courts, but allows arrest warrants issued by a foreign judicial authority to be executed here by British policemen. Both measures, as my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset said, are chipping away at our policing and judicial system. We on the Conservative Benches passionately object to that.

The Minister may say that the Crime (International Co-operation) Bill allows a hot pursuit only for a few hours. He has said that the Bill does not involve a massive extension of foreign judicial power to the United Kingdom, but if we allow all this chipping away, we will end up losing all our freedoms. We will end up as a tiny administrative region of the European Union.

Conservative Members think that many Government Members want this country to be just a minor region in the EU. The current Secretary of State for Wales was pretty honest and open about it when he was Minister for Europe. I have always thought that as the right hon. Gentleman, who represents Neath, is not British but South African—and should not

therefore play any part in our Government—he does not understand how British people feel about their historic freedoms. How could he? He did not grow up in Britain.

The current Minister for Europe comes from the former eastern Europe; he did not grow up in Britain either. We refer to him as ''the hon. Member for Geneva, Central'', because he spent most of his career working for the World Bank in Switzerland. I am worried about the Government. The past two Ministers for Europe have not been British and do not understand our historic freedoms. If we allow the two pieces of legislation to which I have referred to trundle away through our legislative procedures—

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

I hesitate to interrupt my hon. Friend, but I wonder whether he is being a little too alarmist about the effect of foreign policemen coming to these shores. I watched a programme with my children the other night in which Inspector Clouseau was allowed to come here with no judicial authority whatever to investigate important crimes with the co-operation of the Government, so that seems to have been well tested—[Interruption.]

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

As my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster says from a sedentary position, that sounds like a dangerous precedent. The last thing that we want is for Inspector Clouseau to come out of the realms of fiction and into fact.

Despite this levity, I am making a serious point, which my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset made on Second Reading. My noble Friend Baroness Anelay of St Johns proposed a provision in Committee in another place on the Crime (International Co-operation) Bill that would require this Bill to be compatible with that one. We do not want two pieces of legislation going their separate ways without referring to each other, so that we make it clear to those who follow our proceedings and the public that we are alive to what the Government are really up to. We think that that has serious implications and we want new clause 4 in the Bill.

I can deal with new clause 5 much more briefly. We are talking about big changes in extradition law; even the Minister accepted that. The framework decision introduces 32 new categories and corpus juris, as we have said. The part 1 provisions are very significant. Concerns have been expressed by a range of organisations, from Liberty and Justice, which are traditionally regarded as on the left of politics, through the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, who are in the centre, one way or another, to the Freedom Association and the Democracy Movement, which are on the right of politics. The fact that all those organisations and parties express concerns shows that the changes that the Bill makes to extradition law should be kept under review by Parliament.

The framework decision makes such major changes, especially in respect of part 1 countries—as I think the Minister accepts when he is being frank—that there should be a report to Parliament by the Secretary of State on how all that is working. If the Minister chooses to adopt that proposal, he could say that it is part of the Government's modernising agenda. I am normally the bitterest opponent of anything called modernisation; I am a traditionalist. I believe that when the Conservative party returns to its rightful place in government, we should have a Traditionalisation Committee, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), whose mandate is to reverse each and every one of the so-called modernisations that this Government have introduced.

Despite that, I would like to think that the Government would give a fair wind to the idea of keeping the legislation under review. That is a serious point; I do not say any more than that.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

We should have a public inquiry into the problem of all these foreigners who are infiltrating our political system. Apparently they have been doing so for some time, and it is not just the Labour party that is responsible.—[Interruption.] I understand that Bonar Law was a Canadian, yet the Conservative party allowed him to climb to the very heights. God knows what damage he did to the British parliamentary system as a foreigner with his hands on the levers of power, courtesy of the Conservative party. So that sort of thing has been going on for some time, and is very dangerous indeed.

Whatever we do, we are scolded by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath. Both Bills are in Parliament at the same time. We have obligations that we have entered into that we must try to enact in a reasonable period of time. However, the Government wanted to ensure that both Bills went into Parliament at the same time so that nothing would be hidden.

If we had delayed the Extradition Bill until we had dealt with the Crime (International Co-operation) Bill, the hon. Member for Surrey Heath would have stood up and said that we were doing it in that way because there was another train coming along the track that would be far worse, and would have serious ramifications. If we had done it the other way round, he would have suggested that the Crime (International Co-operation) Bill would contain some appalling measures of which he had not yet had sight.

Both Bills are published, both are in Parliament and both can be scrutinised at the same time. There is nothing hidden, as the hon. Gentleman tried to imply. I reiterate once again the cast-iron, copper-bottomed commitment that we have repeatedly tried to give.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

It cannot be cast iron and copper bottomed. That is a mixture of metals.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

If the hon. Gentleman can expostulate on the centripetality of the issues, I can do what I like.

The Government have no plans to designate anyone other than a British law enforcement officer to execute warrants under the Bill. Arrests will be carried out

only by British police officers, by British law enforcement officers such as members of Her Majesty's Customs and Excise, or by members of the services' police forces. My hon. Friends and I have made that clear repeatedly.

Unlike the corresponding powers enacted by the Conservative Government, we are giving Parliament the fullest possible say in the matter. No one other than a constable will be able to execute a European arrest warrant unless there has been a positive vote in both Houses of Parliament. The hon. Gentleman has no grounds for his suspicions.

Under clause 83 of the Crime (International Co-operation) Bill, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 is amended with a new clause 76A. That new clause states:

''This section applies where—

(a) a foreign police or customs officer is carrying out relevant surveillance outside the UK which is lawful under the law of the country or territory in which it is being carried out;

(b) circumstances arise by virtue of which the surveillance can for the time being be carried out only in the United Kingdom; and

(c) it is not reasonably practicable in those circumstances to request a person in the United Kingdom to apply for an authorisation under Part 2, or the corresponding Scottish legislation, for the carrying out of surveillance.''

That is a clear statement, which concerns surveillance in very limited circumstances, and does not cover stop and search, seizure or arrest. The hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have tried repeatedly to raise a scare that this is the thin end of a wedge that will give powers to foreign police officers to operate within our country. All such powers, where they are sensible and operate at the margin, will be scrutinised by Parliament. If Parliament comes to the conclusion, in the case of the Crime (International Co-operation) Bill, that it is unreasonable to allow foreign surveillance to continue for a short period of time to affect a changeover, Parliament can strike that down. If Parliament chose to do that it would not have the support of the police, as they think these powers are eminently sensible and necessary. They enable them to pursue criminals who escape across jurisdictions and to co-operate with our European partners. They are limited powers. The Bill is before Parliament and available for scrutiny. Nothing has been hidden. The hon. Gentleman should not have suggested that it had.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

The Minister has restricted his remarks almost entirely to new clause 4. We gained an interesting insight into the workings of a Conservative Front-Bench Member's mind as to what constituted the thin end of the wedge. Although it was a fascinating exposition, some substantive points were made on new clause 5 which I thought had some merit. I should be grateful if the Minister could address them.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I was waiting to see whether the Minister would respond to the hon. Gentleman. I was going to say that he not responded to me either.

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

I got a bit carried away in my enthusiasm to knock down the hon. Gentleman's outrageous allegation.

New clause 5 would require the Secretary of State to produce an annual report to Parliament on the operation of the Bill. Given that we do not believe that the Secretary of State should perform the roles assigned to him by some of the amendments, it will not surprise the Committee to know that I do not share the hon. Gentleman's enthusiasm for his new clause. Home Office Ministers are and will remain accountable to Parliament. They are obliged to answer parliamentary questions on the operation of our extradition legislation and on every other part of their responsibilities.

It is not necessary to go further and to add a requirement to give an annual report to Parliament on the operation of extradition procedures. There is no need for a formal annual report. Annual reports on the operation of legislation are not a common feature. There is no such requirement in relation to our existing extradition arrangements. Why should the Bill warrant such treatment? The Opposition would probably reply that it is a radical departure.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

The Minister provides my response. Is it not therefore appropriate, as we have an exceptional measure in the Bill, to have an exceptional measure to monitor it and to report back to Parliament?

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

It is a clear change from what has gone before. Most Acts of Parliament are. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath repeatedly complains—occasionally a Liberal Democrat will join in—that this is draconian legislation, but that does not prove that it is. What they are calling for is unusual. The Bill will be subject to the same ongoing scrutiny as other legislation. Home Office Ministers will be accountable to Parliament in the usual way. I see no justification for an annual report.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I am not satisfied with that. I am glad that my passionate speech on new clause 4 got the Minister so carried away that he forgot about new clause 5. They are both equally important. When the Minister says that this matter will get the same level of scrutiny as normally occurs, we all know that in practice that means none at all. Once something is on the statute book, the temptation is for Ministers to forget all about it and move on to the next thing. That is the nature of Government: Ministers and officials always have more problems to deal with and new Bills to examine.

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat, Orkney and Shetland)

That is what we are afraid of.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

Indeed. Problems may arise with the Bill's implementation. For example, the police may find that things are going wrong or my hon. Friends and I may see the dangers that we mentioned arising. We may go down the slippery slope that we warned against or problems may arise from the interaction between this legislation and an international police co-operation Bill. That could form the thin end of a large wedge. If that happens, Parliament will not have a chance to scrutinise the operation of the Bill, other than when Ministers tell us that we can have a half-

hour Adjournment debate on it, which often happens. I regularly go to business questions, and when concerns are raised about the operation of legislation, the Leader of the House frequently says that the Member can raise it on the Adjournment. If we agreed to new clause 5, there would be proper scrutiny. The Bill is a major departure, so we should have exceptional measures to deal with it, as the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said. I will press the Committee to a Division.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 8.

New clause 5 - Annual report

New clause 7 - Political reasons

New clause 8 - Trivial offences

Bob Ainsworth (Labour, Coventry North East)

It remains for us to say a few words at the end of our consideration of the Bill, and to thank you, Mr. O'Hara, and your colleague and co-Chairman, Miss Begg, for the way in which you have conducted the proceedings. I also thank the Clerk and the Staff of the House, who assist us in dealing with the legislation, and Hansard for hanging on to every word and trying to make sense of what we say. I want to thank the Home Office staff for the support that they have given me and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills), and all members of the Committee on both sides for the way in which they have dealt with matters.

One of the highlights of the Committee was that the fact there was time for only one outburst from the hon. Member for Henley. It is a shame that he did not return earlier from his break in India, as we might have had more demonstrations of his intellect imposed on us, as is his usual style.

We discovered a little about the past behaviour of the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon with his brawling abroad with the Royal Navy, or was he merely condoning the brawls with the Royal Navy during the Trafalgar cup many years ago?

The ultimate highlight was the disclosure of the secret discussions that take place between my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, North (Mr. Hughes) and certain Members on the Opposition Front Bench, the taxis travelling across London and all the serious ramifications that that has for all hon. Members.

I have enjoyed the proceedings and, on balance, am glad that they were shorter than the proceedings of the Committee that considered the Proceeds of Crime Bill. That Committee certainly was a one-off. We have attempted to expose all the issues, and I hope that we will be able to report the Bill to the House for further consideration.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

May I extend the Opposition's thanks to you, Mr. O'Hara, and to the Clerks, the Staff of the House and all members of the Committee. This has been one of the most good-humoured Committees on which I have ever had the pleasure to serve. It has been enormously helped by the relaxed approach adopted by you and your co-Chairman, Miss Begg. My hon. Friends and I have been grateful for the latitude that you showed us in this afternoon's sitting, which has been especially good-humoured—we may all be a little demob happy. That latitude is especially helpful when dealing with arcane and technical matters on the law of extradition, and with serious issues that are difficult to deal with in brief interventions. We benefit greatly from those senior Members who are prepared to sit on the Chairmen's Panel and chair our proceedings.

I share the Minister's view that this was, to some extent, Proceeds of Crime Bill mark 2. No doubt it would have been longer and we would have needed

more Committee sittings under the programme motion if the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. Davidson) had served with us on the Committee. The battles between him and my hon. Friend the Member for Henley have passed into parliamentary legend, and will doubtless feature in many of our memoirs in years to come.

The Whips—the hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) and my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster—also managed to work in a good-humoured way. Although the Minister tried hard to drive a wedge between the Liberal Democrats, he did not succeed. I had hoped to tempt the hon. Members for Doncaster, North and for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) to support us on certain Divisions, and there were a couple of times when the Government might have been in serious trouble. Some votes were only seven to six in the Government's favour. The Minister's Parliamentary Private Secretary was the missing Member on one Division, and the Division had to be delayed to enable him to rush back in. Otherwise, it would have been six all, and we might have had an Opposition victory.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley North and Sefton East)

The hon. Gentleman should not delude himself about my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, North and me.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was with us when his hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, North strongly supported our concerns and raised serious issues with the Minister. It is recorded in Hansard that he voted with the Government only because of the Minister's reassurances. We came quite close on occasions, and the other place will examine the voting figures carefully.

I sincerely thank members of the Committee and also the outside organisations that provided the Opposition with briefing material to help us at least try to match the army of civil servants that backs the Government.

John Burnett (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon)

I want to join the Minister and the hon. Member for Surrey Heath in thanking you, Mr. O'Hara, and Miss Begg for your relaxed and tolerant chairmanship, which was much appreciated. The Committee has been free of rancour, and we have had some well-humoured sittings. It has been reasonably enjoyable.

We are immensely grateful to the Clerks, who help us enormously. Briefings from outside are also enormously helpful. Liberal Democrat and Conservative Members do not have a thousand civil servants—armies to prime, rehearse and assist us—so we have to work hard to call the Government to account.

As well as the Clerks, I want to thank those who record our proceedings and the Attendants, several of whom I had the privilege of serving with in Her Majesty's Royal Marines. They may have had an inkling of what I meant when I mentioned the Trafalgar cup in 1966. It remains to thank the police and members of the Committee, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland. From

the far south-west to the far north, we have launched a combined operation and fought a valiant fight. To the Minister, I say that more is to come, not only here, but in another place.

Edward O'Hara (Labour, Knowsley South)

It is my turn to express my appreciation. The Attendants have served and protected us extremely well, and I thank the Hansard reporters who always ensure that the occasional solecism from the Chair, which may not be noticed by the Committee, turns out correctly in the Official Report. I made one not long ago and the Hansard writer would have noticed it and ensured that it came out right. The Clerks are an unceasing source of efficient support and guidance.

No one has mentioned those on my right, who are traditionally seen but not heard. I have been impressed with the discreet way in which advice has been extradited to the Committee. Finally, members of the Committee—

John Burnett (Liberal Democrat, Torridge and West Devon)

In fairness—I am sure that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath will confirm it—the Minister did convey his thanks to his colleagues.

Edward O'Hara (Labour, Knowsley South)

I was coming on to members of the Committee. I congratulate the Minister on conducting proceedings with great panache, and the same applies to the chief spokesmen for the Opposition parties. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath was absolutely right when he said that our proceedings have been unfailingly courteous, which is important when such serious matters are being debated. When not dripping with courtesy, our proceedings were at least good-humoured, which made my job much easier.

At the end of our proceedings, I do not know whether we have a cast-iron, copper-bottomed commitment, which sounds like a masterpiece of the tinker's craft, but it is time to conclude.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill, as amended, to be reported.

Committee rose at fourteen minutes past Four o'clock.