Update on Proposed Fox-Sky Merger Process

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for his observations. That message will be conveyed to the Secretary of State. I would add only this: no final decision has yet been made by the Secretary of State on broadcasting standards. We must bear that in mind.

[Lord Inglewood (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble and learned friend confirm that, with the facts as they are in front of this Secretary of State, it is not open to her—and would not be open to anybody else who might be Secretary of State—to have come to any different conclusion from the one that has been reached?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The Secretary of State is exercising her independent judgment on the basis of the evidence placed before her.

Fox-Sky Merger

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I acknowledge the importance of the point made by my noble friend. Clearly, in the context of broadcasting, one is looking not only at terrestrial broadcasting but at the wider sphere of news and broadcasting across the internet, in the modern age. Those are matters that the Competition and Markets Authority will have in mind when it comes to make its decision following its in-depth review under phase 2, if a decision is made that there should be a phase 2 referral.

[Lord Inglewood (Con)]

My Lords, my noble and learned friend in repeating the Statement of the Secretary of State appears to have omitted that the letter being circulated would come to the Communications Committee of your Lordships’ House. Could he confirm that I heard it right? Secondly, if I did—and I declare an interest as an ex-chairman of that committee—I suggest that the chairman ought to be added to that list. Finally, as an aside, in respect of what my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe said, when I was chairman of the Communications Committee we did a report on precisely how you might deal with the very issue she raised.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

With respect to the query raised by my noble friend Lord Inglewood, I referred to the chair of the committee as being included among those to whom the decision will be intimated, together with the Leaders and Speakers of both Houses.

Digital Economy Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 20th March 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Inglewood]

31: After Clause 81, insert the following new Clause—
“The independence and funding of the BBC
(1) The Communications Act 2003 is amended as follows.(2) After section 198ZA (inserted by section 81 of this Act) insert—“198ZB The independence and funding of the BBC(1) The BBC is to be independent in all matters concerning the content of its output, the times and manner in which its output is supplied, and the governance and management of its affairs.(2) The Prime Minister, the Secretary of State, the BBC, OFCOM, and all other persons and bodies with responsibility for matters relating to the governance and establishment of the BBC must ensure that the BBC is able to operate independently from Ministers and other public authorities in the United Kingdom.(3) The licence fee is to be for the exclusive benefit of and use by the BBC to fund the performance of the BBC’s functions and public purposes.(4) Subject to sections 365 and 365A, the Secretary of State may not transfer to the BBC responsibility, including liability and costs, for any public expenditure.””

[Lord Inglewood (Con)]

My Lords, in the absence of two of the United Kingdom’s leading courtroom advocates, it is left to me to make the case for Amendment 31. The rationale for the amendment—and for a number of others to which I and other noble Lords put our name—is very simple. It is based on the fact that we have here, as your Lordships all know, a state-funded broadcaster: the BBC. It seems to us to follow that, in a democracy subject to the rule of law, its independence from government must be honoured and seen to be respected. At the same time, for very obvious reasons, they have got to have a relationship with each other, and it seems to us that the nature of that relationship is not properly defined.

With many others, not least the Lord Speaker in his previous incarnation, I have felt that establishing the BBC by royal charter, using the royal prerogative, is, in the reality of the world we live in, no guarantee of its independence. Indeed, it is rather the opposite, since we all know that, over the years, there has been a whole series of deals completed in smoke-filled rooms—not least in the case of money, where Governments of all persuasions have seemed to take Dick Turpin as their role model.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for their remarks. In returning to this issue, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, is not here to speak to his amendment as we have debated this issue at length with him as part of the recent discussions on the BBC’s royal charter. We have debated it at Second Reading, in Committee and in other debates and Questions. The amendments that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, has tabled, and my noble friend Lord Inglewood has proposed, seek to constrain future royal charters for the BBC through statute. I should have said that I hope the noble Lord, Lord Lester, makes a speedy recovery and returns not to bring this subject up again but other subjects.

I note that, following the discussion we had in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Lester, made a number of changes to his amendments proposed tonight in the areas of governance and funding. I appreciate the thought that he put into this and the dialogue that we have had on this so far. However, we still maintain that very serious risks are associated with the amendments and therefore we cannot support them.

As noble Lords will by now appreciate, the disagreement between the Government and those who tabled this amendment comes down, as the noble Lord, Lord Wood, said, to a matter of principle. Is the BBC best governed and protected through a charter or through a charter underpinned by legislation? I accept that there are instances where it is desirable and appropriate for a charter to be underpinned in statute but it is the Government’s view that this does not apply to the BBC.

Noble Lords may be interested to know that this is a discussion as old as the BBC itself—indeed, it is almost exactly 10 years older than the noble Lord, Lord Lester. When the then Postmaster-General announced in July 1926 that the BBC would be established through its first royal charter, he remarked that the new corporation would derive its authority from royal charter rather than from statute to make it clear to the public that it was not,

“a creature of Parliament and connected with political activity”.

In practical terms, noble Lords will appreciate that there is little difference between the effect of the BBC’s charter and its accompanying framework agreement and an Act of Parliament. Both are binding on the BBC and on Ministers. Article 3 of the current charter provides:

“The BBC must be independent in all matters concerning the fulfilment of its Mission and the promotion of the Public Purposes, particularly as regards editorial and creative decisions, the times and manner in which its output and services are supplied, and in the management of its affairs”.


That carries the same weight in a charter as it does in primary legislation, but in my view the latter option carries unacceptable risks to the independence of the BBC. From a practical point of view, amending an Act of Parliament in the event that a change is required—with all the party-political debate and pressure that that would entail and the uncertain legislative timetable—is not the right vehicle to make sure that the BBC can be governed effectively. Who can tell what political pressures will exist entirely unconnected to the detail of the BBC charter when the charter comes up for renewal?

Charter review remains the right vehicle. It affords an ample opportunity for debate and consultation but also allows for full consideration of all the connected and complex key issues, for effective decision-making and, crucially, for a negotiated agreement with the BBC.

Incidentally, I cannot resist mentioning that my noble friend Lord Inglewood referred to the Government as Dick Turpin in this case. I may be entirely unfamiliar with the story of Dick Turpin but I did not realise that he gave £3.7 billion annually to his victims.

Therefore, I submit that a statutory underpinning will leave the BBC under constant threat of change and monitoring what the Parliament of the day sees as the national interest. I fear that fellow parliamentarians, some of whom may not have my noble friend’s pure motives, will find it an irresistible temptation to tweak here and there, and, even with the best of intentions, we cannot expect the BBC to operate effectively and plan for its future in such circumstances.

I believe that this should be a matter for the Government of the day to decide ahead of the next charter review. The charter model has stood the test of time since 1926—through economic depressions, world war and huge technological change—to achieve what has been praised throughout the passage of this Bill as the BBC we have today. Given your Lordships’ ongoing interest and informed views, I am confident that the Government of the day will be minded to consider this carefully. With that explanation, I hope my noble friend will be able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Inglewood]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for his very full response to the remarks that have been made on this amendment. He went to the heart of it at the outset when he said that he was opposed to the suggestion in the amendment because it would constrain the royal charter in the future. But that is precisely the reason why we moved the amendment. The mechanism of the royal charter enables the Government, in practice, to have a huge and relatively unscrutinised and uncontrolled ability to adapt and adjust the framework for the relationship they have with the BBC to their own preferred ends.

As I listened to my noble friend, it occurred to me that it was about 25 years ago that I stood at the Dispatch Box at which he was standing a moment ago, discussing the same issues. It crossed my mind—ignoble though it may be to say it—that almost the same speech could have been given to me to deliver all those years ago.

It is perhaps a mistake to simply assume that because something gives the impression of having worked reasonably well for 70 years—it may or may not have—it will continue to work equally well in the years to come. I look around the Chamber this evening and see that some of us are perhaps not quite yet 70 years old but heading that way—and that some may even have passed it. I am afraid that it is the nature of the human condition that when you get to 70 years old, you may not be as fit, spry and sharp as you were in years gone by. So it is not good enough to say that because it has worked well in the past—and it has worked only moderately well—it therefore follows, as night follows day, that you can extrapolate that it will work well indefinitely.

However, I was encouraged by the concluding remarks of my noble friend. He said that he was confident that Governments in the future would seriously consider the point that was being made. I think that is important. On any measure, we have just started a BBC charter and there is a bit of time until the next one comes into effect. While I think that it would have been desirable to have placed in the Bill the statutory provisions that are contained in the amendment, not to do so may not be fatal to the underlying project. Certainly this is something we ought to think carefully about in the hours and days to come—not least the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Pannick, who have not had the advantage of listening to the remarks of my noble friend. Against that background, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 31 withdrawn.

Press Regulation (Communications Committee Report)

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Con)]

My Lords, I should declare that for just over 10 years, until earlier this year, I was chairman of the Cumbria Newspapers Group, of which I am still a non-executive director. I am also a member of the advisory board of the Thomson Reuters institute for journalism at Oxford. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Best, on his introductory remarks. He laid out a comprehensive conspectus of the issues of the moment.

I had not given a great deal of thought to this topic for a relatively long period. When I looked recently at the Communications Committee report, I was struck by how much time had elapsed since it was written and, in turn, how much more time has elapsed since the Leveson inquiry and the terrible events that preceded it. Against that background, the Government are right to ask whether Section 40 should be implemented and, if so, how.

The world now is a different place from the world then. While the Section 40 provisions are essentially an integral part of the Leveson scheme, if I can call it that—albeit that the detail cannot be ascribed to Sir Brian Leveson—the detail is a kind of ex-post facto bolt-on to his inquiry and there are, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, said, still a number of important outstanding issues. As the noble Lord said—it is also absolutely clear to me—not much of the press will sign up to the various provisions of Section 40 on freedom of press grounds, if I may put it that way. While the case it has made has been somewhat overstated, it is not right to say that there is no truth in it.

Freedom of the press and responsible journalism are very important, and in Europe at present events in Poland and Hungary underscore that. Indeed, in this country I see signs of some people trying to elbow their way on to the national stage whom, I suspect, do not have much time for it.

If the national press as a whole will not sign up to the arbitration arrangements proposed, those arrangements will not work. What matters is that we end up in this country, de facto, having a universal responsible process that is independent, unbiased and deals with complaints in a user-friendly, cost-effective way, which, at the end of the day, may include levying appropriate penalties.

In this life, there is often more than one way of skinning a dead cat. I have concluded that the system of an approved regulator will not work in its present form and another way of achieving a similar—or at least equivalent—outcome is required. I speak as someone who has been involved in the newspaper industry. The industry needs a system of dealing with complaints. All newspapers have them, after all, for their own internal reasons.

What is at issue is the independence and integrity, or lack of it, of the arrangements in place, whether actual or perceived. It is not a matter of objecting to what is required; rather it is an objection to how it has been “imposed”. We need to be more imaginative and find a system of sticks and carrots that can re-establish public confidence, which has been fractured in the past, and, at the same time, do it in a way that will not impugn the press’s freedom for responsible action in its particular proper activities.

Let me make a suggestion that is illustrative of the way we should look towards the problem. I suggest the following, which both covers the freedom of the press point and is likely to provide a framework around which public confidence might be restored. I may be wrong because I have been thinking about the detail for only a day or two and finalised my thoughts last night. If I am wrong, it makes the wider point about the need to come to the problem from a different direction.

Zero rating for VAT on newspapers should be restricted to those whose complaints procedures meet certain basic statutory requirements embedding the general attributes I alluded to earlier. These would be derived from Leveson but would not necessarily be identical to what he argued for. The detail of zero rating in the VAT scheme is essentially, I believe, a UK competence. Therefore, if you comply with the criteria, you get zero rating; if you fail to, you do not get it. It is a commercial decision, not an author or publisher’s decision.

It might be necessary—indeed, I am sure it would be—to refine the criteria with care, but that is a detail for further discussion. The important point is that there is no question of imposing any restrictions on the press and its freedom to say or do what it likes. Rather, there is a genuine financial incentive, introduced in the public interest, to have a way of dealing with complaints in a proper manner, subject—this is important—to judicial and not administrative oversight. Cases of dispute would ultimately be dealt with by the judiciary and the courts and not by the press itself, or administered by “state approved” apparatchiks, even at arm’s length.

In totalitarian regimes the judiciary is suborned by the wicked state, as can be seen clearly, for example, from reading Michael Burleigh’s terrifying history of the Third Reich. Ultimately, any country can be overwhelmed by totalitarianism if it is sufficiently supine. Fortunately, we are still a long way from that.

Finally—this point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Best—it is all very complicated. The arguments that are being run about this topic are far too convoluted and esoteric. Occam’s razor should be wielded and everything should be made much simpler, easier, more understandable and effective.

21st Century Fox Takeover Bid for Sky

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, I will respond first to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, on the fit and proper person test. Under the Broadcasting Act 1990, Ofcom needs to be satisfied that a holder of a broadcasting licence is a fit and proper person. That is entirely a matter for Ofcom. On a change of control, Ofcom may consider the issue but will do so only once the transaction has been completed.

With respect to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, of course the process of dealing with this transaction will be fair and will be carried out, as I indicated before, by the Secretary of State discharging a quasi-judicial function. There is no present intention to deal with the matters in Leveson that the noble Lord refers to. As regards his suggestion of a recent meeting between the Prime Minister and Rupert Murdoch, I point out that the only recent meeting was in September, when the Prime Minister was attending a meeting with certain journalists and correspondents from the Wall Street Journal and Mr Murdoch arrived unannounced, as it were, at that meeting. I can advise the noble Lord that there was no discussion at that time of the present transaction.

[Lord Inglewood (Con)]

On the Ofcom adjudication on the fit and proper person, will my noble and learned friend the Minister confirm that the Government will make no recommendation of their views either for or against?

Press Matters

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I entirely concur with the observations of my noble friend.

[Lord Inglewood (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as an ex-chairman and a current non-executive director of a local newspaper. I recognise that there is still considerable disquiet right across the political spectrum about the matters being discussed. I therefore welcome a second look at all these matters. I also declare an interest as a farmer. My noble and learned friend said that during the period of consultation the long grass cannot grow, but the consultation period ends in the spring, when the long grass starts to grow again. I am concerned that it will be allowed to grow and grow. Can he confirm that the matter will be taken forward expeditiously thereafter?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

With respect to the observations of my noble friend, I point out that by the time this consultation ends it will not be spring in Scotland.

Extradition: UK Law and Practice (Extradition Law Committee Report)

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Inglewood]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report of the Extradition Law Committee on Extradition: UK Law and Practice.

[Lord Inglewood (Con)]

My Lords, extradition—the sending of those accused or convicted of crimes across borders to stand trial or serve sentence in another country—is a contentious, albeit often misunderstood topic which on occasion engenders strong comment on account of the apparent poignancy of the facts and circumstances in a particular case.

In a world which is ever more interdependent, and where travel is ever cheaper and easier, extradition’s salience in the administration of justice is ever greater, even though in this country, at least, it goes back centuries—to 1174 and a treaty, apparently now lost, between England and Scotland.

In the 1990s, the United Kingdom’s arrangements were widely discussed following the so-called Pinochet affair, and those arrangements were superseded by the Extradition Act 2003, which has subsequently been amended. It is these arrangements and their effectiveness into which the House of Lords asked its ad hoc Committee on Extradition Law and practice to inquire in 2014 and to report by the end of March this year.

This is not the only recent parliamentary inquiry. There have been a number of others by committees of the other place and Joint Committees, which have looked into some aspects of the topic. In addition, of particular relevance and help to the committee was the report of the committee chaired by Sir Scott Baker to review the UK’s extradition arrangements, which was published in the autumn of 2011.

The committee comprised Members who had great specialist expertise, and some, like the Chairman, who were new to the topic. Some were lawyers, and others were not. A clear overview emerged that extradition is based on comity and co-operation between states, and that this requires, within certain important limits, the acceptance of the criminal justice systems of others.

The boundaries defining the limits of acceptability are founded on and derived from the European Convention on Human Rights, which is recognised widely across many jurisdictions outside our own. Furthermore, extradition is essentially a judicial, not a diplomatic, process.

The law relating to extradition in the UK is divided into three parts, which have many similarities. Part 1 relates to countries that are members of the European Union; Part 2 to countries with bilateral or multilateral treaties with the United Kingdom, 90 non-European arrest warrant countries which are signatories of the European Convention on Extradition, and Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. The third part comprises other countries with which we have no standing arrangements.

Although many of the characteristics of the arrangements with Part 1 and Part 2 countries are similar, they are not identical. Finally, the committee is clear that extradition is an instrument of last resort, and that every effort should be made by administrative and other measures to limit its use. This of course entails both domestic and diplomatic considerations. Nevertheless, that may not always be possible.

However, I shall begin by considering matters which are shared by Part 1 and Part 2 countries. As already mentioned, human rights, quite properly, are at the heart of our extradition law. While we concluded that the courts, in the handling of human rights considerations, are working effectively in an area of law which is evolving all the time, we were not satisfied that post-extradition services were followed up and monitored as they should be. In particular, in individual cases it often happens that assurances are put in place to enable extradition to take place when otherwise the courts would not allow it. Clearly, it follows that such assurances must be adhered to.

The Home Secretary told us in her evidence that the Government are conducting an inquiry into the matter. We concluded that this report ought to be debated by both Houses, yet in their response the Government merely undertook to put a copy in the Library when it is completed this autumn. When does the Minister anticipate that the report will be concluded and made public, and, given that this may well affect many UK citizens, why are the Government so coy about the matter being debated in Parliament?

In considering possible extradition, there can often be real questions about where, in cases of cross-border crime, it is appropriate to prosecute. We started from a conclusion that the existing arrangements give the Crown Prosecution Service the necessary discretion to enable prosecutors to reach sensible conclusions. However, the Government appear to have dismissed our concerns that an extension of the so-called interests of justice test might better serve the system taken as a whole. Can the Minister spell out the reasoning for that?

We were also concerned that the courts should be especially astute in ensuring that a number of general principles of extradition law and practice are adhered to in this context. Although this is clearly a matter for the courts, I would ask the Government, who have responded in an apparently lukewarm manner, to urge the courts to be especially punctilious in this respect.

The committee also concluded that it was wrong that a person facing extradition be unable to present sensitive information to the courts in order to resist extradition without prejudicing others. We recommended that the Government should therefore amend the 2003 Act to provide for an independent counsel procedure, in order to enable sensitive material to be used in extradition hearings. The Government’s response does not commit to legislating to address this problem but describes the recommendation as,

“helpful in providing a foundation for further consideration of this issue”.

What have the results of this further consideration been?

We also received some evidence about the links between extradition law, family law and trafficking, which we were unable to follow up in the time available and which, in our view, merit serious further consideration. I am very glad that the Government have said they agree, and I would be interested to hear what might be done to take this matter forward.

A frequent concern put to us in evidence was the difficulty in ensuring that appropriately qualified solicitors were available to assist those subject to extradition requests, because bad advice at the outset can harm individuals and waste the court’s time and public money. A ticketing system exists for district judges to ensure that those undertaking extradition casework are appropriately qualified. In a bid to be helpful, the committee recommended that such a system should be introduced for the rota of duty solicitors. It was disappointing that the Government’s response was fairly dismissive of this suggestion, saying that the costs of having such a system would be disproportionate to the concern. Rather, we believe that the committee’s recommendation could actually save money by making court proceedings shorter and more efficient. Was any form of impact assessment carried out before the Government came to their decision? More generally, the committee’s position was that, in any event, where the cost-benefit analysis was thin, the interests of justice should take priority. We heard persuasive evidence of people being badly represented at the early stages of extradition, and we believe that a ticketing system would have helped to prevent that. Can the Minister set out how the Government plan to tackle this problem?

I now turn to the vexed issue of the availability of legal aid. The Baker review asked for a cost-benefit analysis of the effect of removing means testing for legal aid in extradition cases. The committee concluded that the analysis provided to the review was,

“neither a sufficient nor a credible response to the concerns raised”,

and asked the Government to,

“conduct and publish a full and detailed cost-benefit analysis”.

We wanted this analysis to include the potential savings made by having matters resolved by lawyers in the issuing state—and again, within the analysis, the interests of justice ought to take priority. In the mean time, we felt that the Government should do what they can to make the current process more efficient, and noted that practical improvements are under way. In their response, the Government state that they have “no plans” to undertake a “more detailed” analysis and reject,

“any assertion that the means testing of criminal legal aid is fundamentally inconsistent with the timely progress of extradition hearings”.

However, this response has missed the point of the committee’s recommendation. We were not criticising the processing of legal aid applications by the legal aid authority but the earlier, initial hurdles that many requested people faced in even making an application. These could be, for example, a lack of paperwork, poor legal advice or even their having no legal advice at all until the legal aid came through. In passing, I note that the response says that legal aid issues could not justify an automatic three-month delay. The Government may be right, but this was not our assertion; it was the explicit evidence of the district judges, which we believe deserved a better response.

I turn to Part 1 countries and start with the European arrest warrant. This ad hoc committee was somewhat unusual in that we were allowed by the House to publish not one but two reports. With the House’s permission, we were able to produce a short interim report on the European arrest warrant, which was timed to enable the inquiry to contribute to the high-profile debate at the end of last year on whether the UK should seek to opt back into it. The committee concluded that,

“the EAW is a vital tool in fighting crime across the EU”,

but we recognised that it had in the past been overused by some states and, on occasions, misused. It seems to us that the Government are therefore to be congratulated on some of the changes they made to the 2003 Act to address those concerns, and that they should continue to work with the European Commission and other EU member states to ensure that European arrest warrants are an instrument not of first, but of last resort.

As just touched on, one criticism of the extradition system in the case of Part 1 countries is that there has been no sense of proportion in its use, in that it has been deployed in trivial and minor cases. While in the past certain technical reasons have accounted for some of this, a proportionality bar—which has in turn engendered quite a bit of comment—has been introduced into our legislation in respect of Part 1 countries. We agreed that it did not appear appropriate in the case of Part 2 countries. Furthermore, a number of other countries—I single out Poland—have adapted their domestic jurisprudence to constrain the number of requests. We believe that this looks like a step in the right direction, but why in their response do the Government not consider it disproportionate to extradite in conviction cases when less than four months of a sentence is left to run?

I turn to the position of Part 2 countries. As I said, these are the countries designated in the 2003 Act with which the UK has either bilateral or multilateral treaties that are not covered by the EAW, and are signatories to the convention on extradition; they also include Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. The Government are in the second phase of a review of the designation of these countries, the results of which are still pending. We nevertheless felt that it was important that the review should include the status of signatories to the convention, even though we took the realistic view that we are where we are in the real world and that ultimately, it may not be practical to redesignate them. I have to say that I was unclear from the Government’s response what the focus of the current phase of their review might be. Perhaps the Minister could shed a little further light on what their considerations have been so far.

Finally, I want to turn to the extradition arrangements between the United Kingdom and the United States, which have been subject to high-profile criticisms and comment in recent years. We recognise the potential validity of some of the concerns about the US justice system. In particular, there have been difficulties with sometimes lengthy periods of pre-trial detention and in obtaining bail. That said, it is important for everyone to remember that the courts have found that the US justice system complies with the European convention. Despite its high profile, we did not consider the US to be in a category of its own outside that of other Part 2 countries. We concluded that the Government should make representations to the United States authorities with a view to agreeing the treatment of those extradited from the UK, with particular regard to transfer, pre-trial detention and bail, but they should also make similar representations to any other country where there are concerns about conditions. We felt it was important that, were that to be done, such representation should be documented in a memorandum of understanding. The Government appear to have declined to do this, citing the centrality of the role of the courts in determining such assurances and the likely conditions to which requested people will be subject.

Extradition is, of course, a judicial process, but the committee’s intention was to propose some sort of middle way to address the complaints and concerns about treatment which may or may not fall below ECHR thresholds, but still undermines the UK’s extradition arrangements with the United States and vice versa. Self-evidently there is a problem, even if only one of perception. It is a pity that the response has been so unimaginative.

An inevitable feature of an ad hoc committee is that it has no means to follow up its reports, particularly concerning the way in which the world has or has not changed in the light of its recommendations, and whether the Government have honoured their commitments. This sort of follow-up work would be an essential part of the job of any diligent permanent committee doing its job effectively. The Government would be foolish to feel that they were getting off the hook because of that structural issue, or that today’s debate would be the last word.

The Liaison Committee will, I know, return to our report next year—having recently, I understand, conducted its own follow-up exercises on the reports of ad hoc committees from the 2013-14 Session. Equally, the issues covered in our report will not go away, and will certainly remain of high interest to those in your Lordships’ House, and to many outside.

In conclusion, I thank the members of the committee, the clerks, James Whittle and Cathryn Auplish, and our splendid special adviser, Charlotte Powell, for all the work they have contributed. I would also like to put on record our gratitude to all our witnesses, in particular the judges at the extradition court in Marylebone and the Extradition Lawyers Association, for the help they have given us in trying to get a true understanding of how our extradition system actually works. I commend the committee’s report to the Committee, and I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Inglewood]

My Lords, the debate draws to its conclusion when my noble and learned friend sits down, but I want to make just two points arising out of his remarks to us, for which I am grateful. First, talking about certification and legal aid, he emphasised economics. But a lot of the evidence that we heard suggested—I would not want to put it higher than that—that doing what was advocated might well save money, and I have always understood that one of the themes of this Government is that they want to save public money. If that can be substantiated, it seems to me to justify adopting the suggestions we have put forward—and it would seem worth substantiating it one way or another.

Secondly, turning to assurances, it was good of my noble and learned friend to say that he would write to me about this, but then he said, “Of course, one has to remember that I am a Scot, and autumn comes early in Scotland”. Well, I am a Cumbrian, and I know that the further north you go the earlier autumn comes, but I draw to his attention the corollary of that—spring comes late, and we are in London here.

I thank all the speakers who have taken part in this debate. In the words of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, they have “jollied it along”, because they have—very helpfully—amplified the tone of the discussions we had in the committee as we were writing the report. I would also like to say that, as your Lordships all know, we had very late notice of the changing of the time of this debate. A number of people who wished to take part, and had put their names down to speak, found that they were unable to do so. On a personal level, I seem to be plagued by this particular problem: it happened to me just before the summer break. I make a plea to the business managers of the House—the big beasts, who are here all the time: it is difficult for those of us who are always being told that we are part-time Members simply to drop everything and change our plans at the last minute. Surely it is not beyond the wit of man for them to make their timetabling a trifle more precise than may have been the case of late.

Finally, it seems to emerge from our work that there are two key aspects of extradition. The first is that the rule of law, both in our jurisdiction and outside it, is of very real importance to everyone. The second is that extradition deals with real people who have real families, and just because someone is accused of a crime or convicted of one, that does not mean they become a non-person, with no rights at all. A proper extradition system has to ensure that there is no conflict between the two.

Motion agreed.