Criminal Justice and Data Protection (Protocol No. 36) Regulations 2014

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Con)]

My Lords, I shall be brief, because I like to be brief. I rise to speak because I have the good fortune to be chairman of your Lordships’ Select Committee on Extradition Law, which is looking at extradition law in a wide context and which is due to report in March. We did, however, because of the very considerable political controversy surrounding the question of whether or not we should opt back in to the European arrest warrant, produce an interim report which was published last Monday. It was based on a debate between my noble friend Lady Ludford and the honourable Member for North East Somerset, who was standing at the Bar a few minutes ago. It was also informed by all the evidence we had earlier heard about extradition more generally. We did it in the expectation that it would help your Lordships and in the hope that it might help Members of the other place.

The conclusion we reached in paragraph 20 of the report was that:

“On the basis of the evidence we have received, there is no convincing case for disagreeing with the conclusions previously reached by the European Union Committee that”,

basically, we should opt back in. The consequences of that conclusion are that the majority of the committee believed that we should opt back in and a minority believed that there was not enough evidence to form a proper view. It is very interesting, and also very significant, that since that date we have had evidence submitted to the committee by the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd—I hope that I have pronounced that properly. Having made it clear that the decision as to whether or not to opt back in is a matter for Parliament and not for him, he said:

“Had I been able to do so, I would have expressed the view that all of the evidence I have seen would lead me to a conclusion similar to that in paragraph 20 of your report”—

that is to say, what I have just read out to your Lordships and the conclusion as reached by the European Union Committee. I must confess, and I hope that it will not upset my noble friend Lord Lamont too much, that I find the authority of the Lord Chief Justice a bit more persuasive and authoritative than his views.

My noble friend raised a number of serious points, but if he had heard the evidence and seen the transcripts of the evidence that our committee received, I am sure he would agree with me that much of the concern that he expressed has, in fact, now become misplaced. We have seen an evolution in the way in which the courts deal with matters of extradition which goes to remedy a number of the shortcomings that I think it is agreed by everyone, not least by the Lord Chief Justice, were there in years gone by. I believe that it is dangerous to extrapolate from past cases what is actually happening now.

Something that I think was very telling about the inquiry that we conducted was that we tried to find a respected and regular practitioner at the extradition Bar who worked in the courts in this area and who advocated this country not opting back in, but we could not find such a person. That does not mean that they may not exist, but we were unable to identify them. If we do not opt back in, I believe that we shall be creating a judicial no man’s land in which for years, not months, there will be no proper legal regime covering the kind of problems that are increasingly prevalent in the world in which we live, where movement, legal or illegal, is ever more prevalent.

Concerns have rightly been expressed about miscarriages of justice, but let us be clear about this: that is a phenomenon that, regretfully and to our national shame, is not unknown in this country. It does not follow that our courts are necessarily not going to carry out miscarriages of justice, although obviously we try not to do it. To suggest that somehow all foreign courts are therefore not going to deliver justice is not true. What we have to do is try to ensure that the system works in the interests of justice as best it can.

As I have already explained, I and the committee believe that the more recent modifications to the modus operandi of the extradition process here in Britain both materially make our system better and what is more—this is important bearing in mind the point that was raised earlier—are compatible with EU law if we opt back in. Most of the objections to our opting back in to the European arrest warrant are matters of constitutional principle, not constitutional propriety, and fundamentally are not based on a concern for justice. I believe that if we do not opt back in, it will be bad for justice, for law and order and for UK citizens.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, I think that tonight’s debate marks the final parliamentary chapter in this tangled tale of Britain’s block opt-out from pre-Lisbon justice and home affairs legislation, and of its aim to rejoin those 35 significant measures. Your Lordships’ House has been closely involved in this matter from the very start. It has been a tangled tale over the past two years, and I suspect that some Members may be heartily sick of a process that has involved two weighty reports from your Lordships’ Select Committee, three full-scale debates and any amount of behind-the-scenes work and consultation. Dry, complex and technical though the process may have been, however, it concerns matters that are crucial to Britain’s ability to maintain our own internal security and to combat effectively the continuously rising tide of international cross-border crime. Whether you are talking about drugs, human trafficking, money laundering, cybercrime, terrorism or child pornography, all these matters are assisted by those 35 measures.

The role that your Lordships’ House has played in terms of parliamentary scrutiny and holding the Government to account has been an exemplary one, and I pay tribute to those others, along with myself, who participated in it and to the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, who led our efforts. We should register tonight that the processes in this House have worked well. It is not part of our duty to intrude on the private grief of another place; suffice it to say that the processes there seem to be a good deal suboptimal.

We are in a totally different position, as the Minister said when he opened the debate, because when we debated and approved the triggering of the block opt-out we also approved the reintroduction of the 35 measures. We decided that in July 2013. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, and others will forgive me for pointing out that pretty well everyone who has criticised the line that the Government are now taking failed to speak in any of those debates.

Now we are where we are. I welcome the fact that the Government adjusted their Motion for tonight’s debate to take into account the fact that the 35 measures needed to be explicitly referred to. It was, I think, a bit of a mistake not to have done that in the other place. I have no hesitation in supporting the Government in the measures they now wish to rejoin. I equally have no hesitation whatever in supporting the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, in the criticism that he has made of the processes that have led us here.

I find it saddening that these European debates descend so much into what I can only describe as ideology, and are not enough concentrated on the substance of the matter—about which the evidence taken by the committee that I and others served on was pretty conclusive. It is a pity. Europe is not religion, it is politics; and in politics you have to make compromises. In this case, I believe that the Government have reached a very satisfactory compromise.