Extradition (Provisional Arrest) Bill [HL]

Lord Judge Excerpts

3rd reading & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 15th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judge (CB) [V]]

We need a sensible extradition regime, and at the moment we have one. I strongly support it and nobody can think of a single reason why we should not work in a mutually acceptable way with territories, as the Act calls them—or countries, as ordinary people call them—that we trust: those we trust, those we trust to trust each other and those who we are confident will abide by the ordinary rules when seeking extradition of British citizens and vice versa. We all work together.

In this particular situation, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, just said, we have a Government who would produce a list of countries or territories with which we would all be happy, and, bingo, the affirmative resolution is passed and we all go away happy, and for myself I cannot imagine that a Government led by Sir Keir Starmer would be any different. But the future is long, and the problem is that, undoubtedly, the time may come—I am not saying that it will, and I hope that it never does—when a Government seek a favour from this country or we seek a favour from them. An example might be, “Do you really want our safety equipment? Do you really want our artificial intelligence? Let’s have a mutual extradition arrangement.” I can also envision the possibility, not immediately but not so remotely either, of a Government of the day wishing to associate themselves with a country that shared that Government’s political views but was nevertheless not a desirable country with which to have these arrangements.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has just explained, we have this ridiculous situation where affirmative resolutions cannot be amended—you either take the package or you lose it. Parliament could be faced with this situation: there could be a list of a number of countries with which it was entirely desirable and sensible to have a mutual arrangement plus one other, with which it would be extremely undesirable to have such an arrangement. What would happen then? Do we reject the territory and country that we think it would be totally inappropriate to have such arrangements with and therefore lose similar arrangements with all the desirable countries, or do we simply keep all the countries we think it would be a good idea to have and include the other one, although it is undesirable? That is a ridiculous situation, and the amendment is designed to avoid such an absurdity. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has already said, and I emphasise, the amendment proposes an utterly simple, totally uncomplicated system. It may cost the department a few more pages of paper, but not that many, and it may take a fraction more time, but it would be time valuably used. Statutory instruments should always be limited to one country.

The second reason I support the amendment has already been touched on. Through the passage of this legislation, from the beginning to where we are today, this House has raised this issue time and again. We have never yet been given a single good reason why the proposal in this amendment is unacceptable, would create difficulties for the extradition regime or would be unworkable. The Minister has not invented any spurious reason for that, for which we are of course grateful and unsurprised, but there are no reasons. No reason has yet been given. As a matter of common sense, as well as on a sound constitutional basis, the amendment has never been contradicted by a reasonable argument and should find favour with the House.