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Lord Goodhart moved Amendment No. 170:


On Question, amendment agreed to.

[Amendments Nos. 171 to 174 not moved.]

Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 175:


    Page 35, line 43, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—


"(b) a sentence of imprisonment or another form of detention for a term of 4 months or a greater punishment has been imposed in the category 1 territory in respect of the conduct;"

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The noble Lord said: My Lords, I can be brief. In Grand Committee we gave notice of our intention to table Amendments Nos. 175 and 273, which simply correct a couple of drafting errors in the Bill. I realise that the question of thresholds is somewhat contentious and that there are interesting debates to be had on the point. However, I should suggest that this is not the moment for such debate.

All the amendments do is to make the Bill internally consistent. I apologise to your Lordships' House that the errors crept in in the first place. These things happen even in the best run Bills. I hope that your Lordships will be characteristically forgiving and will agree to the amendments. I beg to move.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

[Amendments Nos. 176 to 178 not moved.]

Clause 67 [Extradition offences: supplementary]:

Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendments Nos. 179 and 180:


    Page 36, line 25, leave out second "an" and insert "a judicial"


    Page 36, line 27, leave out paragraph (a).

On Question, amendments agreed to.

The Deputy Speaker (Viscount Simon): My Lords, before calling Amendment No. 181, I must inform the House that if that amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 182, which stands in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 181:


    Page 36, line 29, leave out subsection (3).

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, Amendment No. 181 has the support of both the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and the Minister. In moving this amendment I shall speak also to Amendment No. 182, giving it qualified support, which will not surprise the House after having heard from the Deputy Speaker about the problem in calling it. I shall speak also in support of Amendment No. 183, tabled in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and to my Amendment No. 329, which is an amendment to government Amendment No. 328.

Noble Lords may think that this is a somewhat strange grouping. Perhaps I may explain to the Minister that I originally expected Amendment No. 183 to be separate from this grouping. I believe that that is what the Minister had expected, rightly, as that is what is on the list. However, at a quarter to two this afternoon an indication was given to me that the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, would appreciate Amendment No. 183 being taken with this grouping. That is why I intend to speak to it. The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, will explain the reason for that when he moves his own amendment. I agreed with him, on further reflection, that it would save the time of the House and make more sense for the whole subject to be aired at the same time.

I did not expect to move Amendment No. 181, which is in its correct place on the list, at this time or, indeed, at any time. It is an unusual amendment. It

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seeks to delete from the Bill the reference in Clause 67 to the intention to refer to the European framework decision without putting on the face of the Bill the list of offences. I have already spoken to this amendment, having tabled it in my attempt to knock out the whole of what I considered to be the obnoxious Part 1. Therefore, it was tabled and spoken to in a group led by an amendment on which I voted and lost.

In the normal run of things, I would expect to be totally and utterly barred from ever bringing forward this amendment. I tried not to have the amendment grouped with the other amendments because I did not want the Government and other noble Lords put into the position of being told that they could not have their amendments. I was trying to be kindness itself. However, I am assured that the House authorities accept that I will not damage anyone by tabling the amendment. The Minister has added her name to my amendment. So the Government can get their way, yet we seem to bend the normal rules of fate.

Although I have lost the amendment once, it seems to have a second chance of life. I shall naturally be content when the amendment is subsequently made. I just wish that I could be as successful with the rest of the group. But there we are; there is another day for that.

On Amendment No. 182, we find the general description of some offences in the framework list unacceptable. We have made that position clear throughout these debates. We do, however, think that if we must have the framework list, it is better to have it on the face of the Bill rather than in obscurity. To that extent only, I support Amendment No. 182.

I do not support the full framework list as it stands. We believe that it is vital that Amendment No. 183 of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, should be accepted by the Government. I leave the noble Lord to present the detail of his argument for that. Briefly, our position is as follows. We support his amendment because it allows the inclusion of racism and xenophobia on the list only when there has been a framework decision on racism and xenophobia between member states. We believe that that would ensure that we all have a harmonised view—I hate the word "harmonised"; I thought I would never say it, but I have—of the offences which we believe constitute racist or xenophobic acts—or, if not a definition, at least a unanimous view.

In addition, we believe that it is essential that the Government should accept my Amendment No. 329, which is an amendment to Amendment No. 328, standing in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland. That would remove the word "xenophobia" from the list of 32 offences. Our hostility to including "xenophobia" is based purely on the fact that, as many other noble Lords demonstrated in Grand Committee, no one really knows what the term means. It is certainly not defined as an offence in our criminal law, and we believe that it is open to too wide an interpretation.

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I repeat the undertaking I gave in Grand Committee that I would not want anyone to avoid extradition if he had racially abused, harassed or insulted someone. That is unacceptable. We would want him to face justice. All we say is that it would not be possible to relax the dual criminality rule for any offence of this kind. Dual criminality would have to be satisfied before an extradition could take place. We may come to the matter again at a later stage in the Bill in respect of that amendment.

I return to Amendment No. 181, with some hope for once that an amendment may be made. I beg to move.

7.15 p.m.

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I wish to speak to the amendments standing in my name in the group; that is, Amendment Nos. 182, 184 and 328. As the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has already mentioned, I would like to treat Amendment No. 183 as part of the group because it raises very much the same issue, but in a somewhat different form, as Amendment No. 329, which stands in her name. I have not attached my name to it, nor did I to the equivalent amendment in Grand Committee.

On Amendments Nos. 182, 184 and 328 I can speak briefly. Amendments Nos. 182 and 184 have both been overtaken by government Amendment No. 308. Therefore, I shall not be moving them. The Minister has put her name to Amendment No. 328 in order to put the framework list on to the face of the Bill. We welcome that. I shall be moving that amendment when we reach it.

That leaves Amendment No. 183. It raises the question of xenophobia as part of the framework list. Xenophobia is a word that has a number of possible meanings. We felt that it was desirable to know what was intended by the word xenophobia before we actually approved a list. As I understand it, a framework decision on the subject of xenophobia and racism is currently being worked on. It will contain some kind of definition which can be relied upon by the United Kingdom courts as a guide to what xenophobia and racism mean in the schedule to the Bill.

Amendment No. 183 could, as we recognise, potentially lead to a temporary inconsistency between the framework decision list and the list as contained in the Bill. In those circumstances, we feel that we are placed in some difficulty. We have no indication of when the framework decision is likely to be made. Therefore, ultimately the real decision is whether xenophobia stays as part of the schedule or is permanently removed from it. That is not something to which Amendment No. 183 would provide an answer. It would remove temporarily both "xenophobia" and "racism", but it does not propose that, once the framework decision is out, any further decision in your Lordships' House should be taken on whether racism and xenophobia should remain as part of the list.

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In those circumstances, we do not feel that any very useful purpose would be gained by moving Amendment No. 183 when we reach it, and it is not my intention to do so. Your Lordships will be faced with the real issue in this case when we reach Amendment No. 329—no doubt not this evening.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, although one welcomes these amendments, they perhaps place on the record a number of other crimes in the framework decision list, the meanings of which are far from clear. In that category I mention environmental crime. What is "environmental crime"? We are told that it includes the illicit trafficking in endangered animal species and endangered plant species and varieties. Endangered where? A species of plant can be rare in one place and comparatively common in another. Anyway, we are left with environmental crime.

I understand that we do not really have a definition of "corruption", "swindling" or "racketeering"—all of which are included in the list—in this country. Finally, there is "counterfeiting" and "piracy of products". I am not asking the noble Baroness to prolong our proceedings by answering all those questions tonight, but one is left wondering what that really means. Does it mean when one fashion store copies an expensive original product from another? There are quite a few fashion stores in London doing that at present, with products that have originated elsewhere in Europe. Will that become a crime extraditable under the Bill?

I merely wanted to put those points on record. As usual, we are dealing in European Union double-speak. We do not have the faintest idea how the provision will eventually be used. In the mean time, I support the amendment.


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