Extradition

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I am not in a position to comment in detail on those particular points, but I thank my noble friend for those suggestions. They will be borne in mind as we undertake a review of the process.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

An important point was made by my noble friend on the Front Bench that goes to a matter of elementary competence. Have not the Government put themselves in a quite ridiculous position, announcing that they wish to renegotiate the regime for the European arrest warrant and almost in the same breath that they intend to withdraw from the whole structure of justice and home affairs in the European Union? You do not have any influence on the rules of a club if you have announced in advance that you intend to leave it. As for opting back in, we should then be asking our EU partners to do us a favour. In that position we would have no leverage at all in changing the rules. Is that really the Government’s best idea of how to conduct an international negotiation?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I am not sure whether the noble Lord was in the Government or the Opposition when the then Government introduced this provision within our statute law. It provides us with an ideal opportunity to work alongside our European partners and with the Commission to seek a change in the European arrest warrant, which we are not alone in seeing as very useful and important but none the less deficient. The procedure for doing that is to give notice that you intend to withdraw and then to seek to reapply on the terms of the revised arrangements. That is perfectly straightforward. It was discussed yesterday after the Statement repeated by my noble friend Lord McNally, and I do not see any difficulty whatever. I am surprised that the noble Lord makes the point that he does.

Police: Officer Numbers

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for mentioning the Government’s initiative on crime mapping, which was announced today and which in our view will enable people in their own localities to be much better informed than hitherto of the real state of crime in their localities and to have a direct relationship therefore with the police. It will be helpful to them that the police commissioners will have direct accountability to the localities and not upwards to the Home Secretary.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

Is it not quite fatuous to keep on repeating that there is no relationship between numbers of police officers and good policing? Obviously effective policing depends on efficient deployment of the police and it should be the responsibility of any Government at all times to make sure that deployment is optimised. However, once you have the optimised deployment, surely more police automatically means better policing?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I am sure that the noble Lord will be able to enlighten us as to what the optimised level is. I did not say there was no link; I said there was no simple link. It is very clear that there is no simple link. Numbers of police officers began to decline before this Government came into office and the level of crime continues to decline. The level of crime began to decline in 1995, well before our predecessors came into office, and when police numbers were stable. There is no simple link between these two things.

Identity Documents Bill

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I will respond to the noble Lord’s point. The answer is no. The card does not have value or efficacy because it is no longer attached to a database which would enable it to be a valid document that could prove your identity. It is simply a piece of paper, because there is nothing behind it.

I am not ignoring the fact that the cardholder spent £30 on a card for which there is no further use. During debates here and in the other place opponents of the Bill indicated that the decision to refuse to issue refunds will affect the poorest or the less well off members of society. However, there is no socioeconomic breakdown of cardholders, so neither noble Lords opposite nor the Identity and Passport Service can indicate the economic status of cardholders. I cannot imagine the circumstances in which a person struggling to make ends meet would think that buying an ID card was a necessity. If the ID card scheme was intended to allow travel to Europe or to provide proof of identity to get into pubs and clubs, then, frankly, it is doubtful that we should consider this form of purchase to satisfy the criterion of core household spending.

There is no provision in the Identity Cards Act, which the Benches opposite passed in 2006, for applicants short of cash or on a limited income—

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords—

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, long experience shows that the best way of dealing with this type of business is to allow the Minister to lay out the current situation and update the House. The noble Lord will have plenty of opportunity to make his points. As I have said before, my noble friend will be very keen to answer them.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I have to say that I think it is quite extraordinary that the noble Earl should find it necessary to try to protect his Minister, who is doing her job and defending as best she can the policy of the Government of the day. I hope that no Minister worthy of the name would need protection of that kind. I would be grateful if the Minister will just answer a simple question. Do the Government realise that there is a fundamental moral issue here? It is not a matter of complex socioeconomic categories—it is a very simple moral issue, is it not? Citizens have bought in good faith from the Government a good or a service and a new Government are now proposing not to deliver. Is that not the action of a dishonest trader? Is that the sort of example which this Government believe it is right to set for the nation?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, as there have been a number of interruptions, and we are perhaps following precedents which perhaps should have been challenged before, I shall just read to Members on both sides what the Companion says on this matter:

“A member of the House who is speaking may be interrupted with a brief question for clarification. Giving way accords with the traditions and customary courtesy of the House. It is, however, recognised that a member may justifiably refuse to give way, for instance, in the middle of an argument, or to repeated interruption, or in time-limited proceedings when time is short. Lengthy or frequent interventions should not be made, even with the consent of the member speaking”.

I suggest that we stick to the Companion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I am grateful for the noble Baroness allowing me to respond to the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, on which, although he is my friend, I have to say I disagree. The points being made are not remotely trivial and I really believe that the House will be much clearer in its mind if we deal with this preliminary matter first, because, frankly, to go ahead and vote when a crucial, central and legal matter is unresolved seems to be the worst of all worlds. That is why I would favour an adjournment, as suggested by my noble friend Lord Dholakia.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, does this not go to the heart of parliamentary government as we know it and understand it in this country? The Minister gave a clear and solemn undertaking on a previous occasion that she would seek the law officers’ advice on a specific point. How can it possibly be “inappropriate”, to use her term, for her now to tell the House whether or not she fulfilled that solemn commitment? It is quite clear to me that if the Minister gives a solemn commitment and then refuses to say even whether that commitment has been fulfilled, and the House does nothing about it and simply goes away, we have abdicated our responsibilities as a Parliament.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I am just not in a position to advise what information has been provided by the law officers, but I can confirm that we are satisfied that the provisions of the Bill are compatible with the ECHR. I have an answer on the substance. Could we perhaps turn to the question of financial privilege?

Identity Documents Bill

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I am not sure that I can confirm that. I will seek to do so before Third Reading.

We should not exaggerate the significance of all this. Much has been made of the elderly and the very young. We have no reliable demographic information at all on who the purchasers were. We know that 3,000 of the 15,000 were given free to airside workers for a particular purpose.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

The noble Baroness is getting into the complexities and numbers of this. Is this not a matter of simple principle, irrespective of numbers? If the noble Baroness buys a good or a service and the merchant or other supplier who sells that to her fails to deliver it, she would feel cheated. If that merchant got away with it, she would feel that that undermined the good faith on which the economy and society depend. Is it not a fact that people have in good faith bought a service for 10 years, and after a matter of months, that service is being unilaterally withdrawn? Are people who have done that not entitled to feel thoroughly cheated? Is this not a disgraceful example for a Government of this country to give?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The point I was answering before noble Lords intervened was the inference somehow that we are inflicting great hardship on cardholders. We do not believe this to be the case.

We do not believe that the statutory basis of the issue of ID cards creates a contract or anything akin to a contract in relations between the Secretary of State and the cardholder. Remedies that would be available in the courts if the contract were governed by the law of contract or consumer legislation—which I think is the point raised by the noble Lord—is not available for identity cards.

One or two noble Lords have raised the issue of compromise and of whether it would be a good idea to have one. Could we not, for instance, set the cost of this against the cost of the next passport or, indeed, use the lifetime for which the present card was available? There are associated problems. I do not want to detain the House extensively on this, but the fact of the matter is that the two databases—that is to say, the identity register and the passport database—are not the same. They contain different information, issued for different purposes; their legislative frameworks for what you pay are also different. We cannot therefore simply transfer the one across from the other.

That construction of two differently governed databases with different information on them was the construction of the legislation put through by our predecessors. Unfortunately, in addition to that we are going to destroy the database. We would otherwise have the continuing cost of maintaining it. That is why it cannot be regarded as a valid document for its lifetime; there is nothing behind it against which anybody needing to check your identity would validly be able so to do. There is a problem in that it simply is not a useful document any longer.