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Mr. Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath): As I said earlier, only this week did the Government say that they were prepared to start to climb down in the face of the defeats that they suffered in another place. Even though it was a last-minute concession, or at least a meeting of the Opposition parties halfway, it was nevertheless welcome. I do not hold the Minister responsible in any way. Her predecessor, the hon. Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth) was very intransigent in Committee, but he has now resumed his role as the Government hard man or deputy Chief Whip. Baroness Scotland met my noble Friend Baroness Anelay of St. Johns, who is my party's spokesperson in another place, only on Tuesday afternoon, and discussed the climb-down that the Government were proposing to make.
We have found that the Government are meeting us about halfway on this matter. Even though that is welcome, we have said throughout the proceedings on this Bill and in Committees in both Houses that the warrant relating to the extradition of a British citizen to a category 1 country should include detailed and specific information. Of course, the Opposition still have fundamental objections to the concept of the European arrest warrant and the way in which minor administrative judicial officials in other countries, working as investigators, juges d'instruction or the like, may be able to require the extradition of UK citizens, while the British courts will be unable to look behind the warrant. We maintain that objection.
Yesterday, the Home Secretary referred in his statement on identity cards to the distinguished writer Frederick Forsyth and told us that he regarded him highly as a writer, but not as a political commentator. I regard Mr. Forsyth highly in both capacities, however, and I refer my hon. Friends and those outside the House who take an interest in these matters to his trenchant and accurate comments on this issue. I was reminded of his prescience in looking at the European arrest warrant, as well as the Government's proposed amendments to allow more to be included on the back of it, when I was stuck in traffic yesterday listening to a recording of one of his brilliant Saturday morning Radio 4 essays, which were broadcast before the BBC revealed its bias and took him off the air.
Unfortunately, despite the strong views on this matter that we expressed in Committee and in another place, the rules constraining today's proceedings allow us to debate only the matters coming from the Lords and the way in which the Government are responding to the defeats that we inflicted on them there. The Government's halfway house proposal is an attempt to soften the blow by ensuring that the warrant contains some details about what the requesting country alleges against the UK citizen. We hope that that may enable challenges if requesting countries make inappropriate requests and the warrant is clearly defective because it does not provide what amendment (a) will require.
I should stress, however, that that does not entirely allay our fears, and I wish to refer briefly to what my noble Friend Lord Lamont and some other noble Friends said yesterday in another place in furthering the concerns expressed by distinguished jurists and commentators such as Leolin Price, QC, and Torquil Dick Erikson, who have helped us a great deal. Lord Lamont spoke about the difficulty that may arise if British citizens find that they are being summoned abroad on the basis of code Napoleon and corpus juris-type requirements. At column 1412 of Hansard, he expressed concern about the way in which British citizens' rights may be trampled on by people investigating matters rather than prosecuting them.
None the less, the European arrest warrant will now have to contain the details that we regard as equivalent to the legal classification of the offence in question, as set out in the original Opposition amendment and in the European framework decision. We will discuss the list of offences later in respect of Lords amendment No. 236. I understand why the Government do not feel able to include reference to the degree of participation, as we suggested in the original amendment, on which we defeated them. They believe that there is a danger that the question whether somebody was a ringleader, as the Minister puts it, or one of the hangers-on in an offence might cause confusion and create a loophole.
That is why we have agreed, however reluctantly, to accept the Government's halfway house, but we still feel very strongly that, because extradition cases may now be much more common, as my noble Friend Lord Lamont said yesterday in another place, there may still be occasions on which somebody is arrested and brought before foreign courts without the degree of protection that British citizens have previously been able to expect.
Mr. Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland): We have had confession and forgiveness from the Minister, and now we apparently have repentance, even though it has come at the eleventh hour, as the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) said. None the less, the Liberal Democrats welcome that repentance, which represents a significant improvement. Indeed, it is a tribute to the manner in which business is done in another place. I should like to observe in passing, however, that it is regrettable that one sometimes has to debate such matters in this place four times before the argument is finally accepted and that it is sometimes not the force of argument, but the force of timetabling, that seems to carry the day.
1.45 pmAs I said, the safeguards that are being introduced are important and should be included in the Bill. The one significant change that the Government seek to make to the Lords amendment is the exclusion of the reference to the degree of participation. I agree with the hon. Member for Surrey Heath that that represents an improvement to the amendment, which strays from what we wanted the warrant to include and relates to what is properly a matter of evidence. It is important that such distinctions are maintained.
I commend the Government for having taken the point that was made and improved on it.
Caroline Flint: I welcome the support of the hon. Members for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) and for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael). We try to show that we are a listening Government and ensure that the process of scrutinising legislation—in the case of extradition, it is very detailed legislation—is seen to work, and I commend my noble Friend Baroness Scotland for all her endeavours in that regard.
Obviously, we want to introduce legislation that clearly respects the rights of British citizens while recognising that the European arrest warrant has huge benefits in terms of securing effective arrests and a more open and transparent way of ensuring that nobody who commits a crime can escape the consequences by crossing a border. The measures in the Bill and the tightening up provided by the amendments will further reassure people about the way in which the European arrest warrant, and consequently extradition, will be applied.
Government amendments (a) to (d) agreed to.
Lords amendment No. 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 20
Lords amendment: No. 26.
Caroline Flint: I beg to move, That this House disagrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take Government amendment (a) in lieu thereof, Lords amendment No. 111, Government motion to disagree thereto and Government amendment (a) in lieu thereof.
Caroline Flint: I invite the House to disagree with the amendments made in another place, and to agree to the amendments in lieu tabled in the name of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. I shall seek to demonstrate that we have accepted the substance of the amendments made in another place.
The Bill contains detailed provisions to cover a situation in which we receive an extradition request for a person convicted in absentia. They reflect the approach that the UK has always adopted, although I should add the rider that in absentia cases are very rare. The Bill provides that, where we receive a request in respect of a person who has been convicted in absentia, the judge, after considering all the main bars to extradition, must decide whether the person deliberately
absented himself from his trial. Clearly, if the person deliberately absented himself by not turning up for the trial or escaping from custody, he should not be entitled to any special treatment. However, if the judge concludes that the person did not deliberately absent himself, he can order extradition only if the person will be entitled to a retrial or a review amounting to a retrial. The reference to a review is intended simply to reflect the fact that not every other EU country uses the same terminology as we do. However, a review has to have the same features as a retrial in order for extradition to be permissible in those circumstances. A retrial differs from an appeal. An appeal starts from the basis that the original verdict stands unless the court finds to the contrary. A retrial, by contrast, begins with a blank sheet of paper with the case against the person having to be proved afresh.That is the background. Let me now say more about the amendments. In another place, the clauses dealing with in absentia convictions were amended to specify more precisely the features that a retrial or a review should include. Three particular features were specified—the right to be present at the trial, the right to call and cross-examine witnesses, and the right to legal aid. There can clearly be no objection of principle to those important features of any fair trial. We think, however, that some improvement could be made to the wording. That is hardly surprising, since the Government, unlike opposition parties, are able to call on the services of our expert parliamentary counsel, who are always there to serve us.
Accordingly, the Government amendments achieve broadly the same results—but they do so in a slightly different way. They provide that the judge cannot conclude that that which is on offer amounts to a retrial or a review, and therefore cannot order extradition, unless the person has the right to legal assistance or legal aid—if he lacks means—and the right to cross-examine witnesses and call his own witnesses. The wording that we adopted is drawn straight from article 6.3 of the European convention on human rights, so it has an impeccable pedigree.
On the third right that was dealt with in the amendment passed in another place—the right to be present at the retrial or review—we simply do not believe that we can create an absolute right of that kind. As hon. Members will be aware, no such absolute right exists in this country. A judge at a trial has the power to order a person to be removed from the court if he is being abusive or disruptive. Exactly the same is true in other countries. We have to respect that, which is why the Government amendments in lieu do not refer to the right to be present.
With that explanation, I hope that hon. Members will feel that the Government have gone as far as possible to meet the concerns that were expressed in another place. I therefore invite this House to agree to the Government amendments in lieu of those that were made in another place.
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