Extradition (Provisional Arrest) Bill [HL]

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 5th March 2020 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

1: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Report on risk of abuse in Interpol Red Notices
(1) The Secretary of State must, before the end of the period of 12 months beginning on the day this Act is passed, lay before both Houses of Parliament an assessment of the reliability of Interpol Red Notices as a basis for arrest under this Act.(2) The report must include an assessment of the extent to which there is a risk of abuse by territories issuing notices.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a report on Interpol Red Notices.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, Amendment 1 in my name seeks to add a new clause to the Bill that would require the Secretary of State, within 12 months of the Bill becoming law, to lay before Parliament

“an assessment of the reliability of Interpol Red Notices as a basis for arrest”

under the Bill. That assessment must address the extent to which there is a risk of abuse of the red notice system. There are eight different types of Interpol notice, but most of the recent controversy has been over the red notices. My amendment seeks to shed some light on them to ensure that they are used properly; that, where we are complying with a request under a notice, we are more confident that we are working towards getting them to be more accurate; and that the risk of their being politically motivated is drawn out.

We have to recognise that some of Interpol’s member countries do not have as good a human rights record as others. There are allegations of corruption against some and some regimes have been accused of using red notices for political purposes to attempt to capture dissidents and people who oppose them. That is why I want to hear from the Minister how we will ensure that they are not abused.

Amendment 2 in my name, also in this group, is very straightforward. It would require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament, again, within 12 months and every 12 months after that, to provide us with a statement that ensures that what happens under the Act complies with Section 4 of the Equality Act 2010. I hope the Minister will be able to respond positively to both amendments, which are simple, straightforward and attempt to address issues of concern by providing information useful to government, policymakers and Parliament. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

We will get on to my noble friend’s point, but we use Parliament to make law rather than to make points. I hope he will respect the point that I make.

The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, asked about obligation to extradite. He is absolutely right. The Bill creates powers for the police, not obligations to other countries.

Amendment 2 requests the publication of an annual statement on arrests. The NCA already keeps data and publishes statistics around arrest volumes in relation to Part 1 of the Extradition Act. It does it without being required to do so by primary legislation. We have no doubt that it will similarly do so in respect of arrests under this new arrest power, as this is a sensible operational practice. I have sympathy for the amendment, so I have asked officials to look at how we can give the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, some reassurance. I hope he will accept that I will liaise with him between now and Report.

I am not persuaded that the either the Secretary of State or the NCA require a statutory obligation to take these steps. I hope I have been able to persuade the noble Lord not to press his amendments, but we will have further discussions between now and Report.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. I am obviously happy to withdraw my amendment for the moment.

I agree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, has also made some important points, which I know we will come to later.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, mentioned Parliamentary Questions. Sometimes, the Answers we get are not very good, to say the least. That goes across government. I am going to have to start tabling Questions about Parliamentary Answers. I asked one recently of another department. I asked, “What do we here?” and the Answer had no bearing whatever on the Question. I raised that with the Minister concerned and he accepted that. I thought, “Just answer the Question. If you can’t answer it, tell me you can’t answer it.” They had sent back a ridiculous Answer that had no bearing and it is not good enough. Unfortunately, that is a problem across government. Maybe we need a debate in the House about it. I am going to try putting in FoIs and comparing answers between PQs and FoIs. Will the answers be as bad there? We will see. But that is a separate issue. I would love to think that PQs were the answer; unfortunately, in my experience of being here for nearly 10 years, they are not.

Having said that, I am pleased with the Minister’s response, especially to my second amendment. I look forward to further discussions between now and Report. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I tabled this amendment following the speech of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Clark of Calton, at Second Reading. She raised the issue of the time that a suspect—the person who has been arrested—might spend in custody before coming before the court. Someone arrested on the Friday before a bank holiday weekend might not go before the court until the Tuesday, if one excludes weekends and bank holidays. The impact assessment tells us that the legislation is likely to involve only half a dozen people, so without wanting to impose too much on our judiciary—I accept that it is pretty hard pressed these days—I do not see that it would be too much of an extra strain on them or on the police to deal with these matters over the weekend.

I am grateful to the Minister for calling me just before we started the Committee stage to say that, basically, I had got the drafting wrong. Okay, this is what Committee stages are about: to raise issues and to see how we can deal with them. The schedule provides that in calculating the 24-hour period before a person is brought before a judge, no account is taken of weekends, bank holidays and so on. Reference is made to provision elsewhere. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, will deal with this matter. I look forward to him explaining this to me because I believe the argument is that that would mean that no one could be arrested on a Saturday or a Sunday. I am not quite sure that I follow that, but no doubt he will put that right.

When the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Clark, spoke at Second Reading on 4 February, she asked, at col. 1743, for some statistics on the number of arrests. I thought I should check on whether those have been made available. It may be that the matter was not pursued, the Minister having spoken to her. But as she said then, if there is a problem in relation to extradition to category 2 territories, the solution might be better co-ordination between the police and the judiciary to enable a warrant to be obtained at an early stage, or the involvement of the judiciary in a screening process instead of the designated authority. This is a useful opportunity for us to consider these points and I beg to move.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I rise briefly to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. If he will now be covering some Home Office matters, we will be spending a lot of time together and will get know each other well, so that will be welcome.

The amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is very sensible and I am happy to support it. She set out the issue clearly: someone can be picked up on the Friday before a bank holiday weekend and potentially wait until the Tuesday morning before being brought before a judge. That is a fair point. If people are arrested, they should be brought before a judge quickly, so I look forward to the noble Lord’s response.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I also support this amendment. Would you believe it, there is a judge on duty all weekend, every weekend, and all night? If the period is reduced to 24 hours and this happens over a weekend, it can be treated as urgent business.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

I think the position is that, as times have changed and we are more modern than we once were, a judge is now available at all times to deal with this matter. Therefore, it is not necessary to leave out weekends or bank holidays because the reason that was put in was that the judge might not be there. Now, under the rules of the system, the person can have his case before the judge in the holidays because a judge is always there. Therefore, it needs to be changed to take account of that. That is my understanding. I hope the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, agrees with me.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, we have just heard from two very experienced former members of the judiciary. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, would be very wise to agree to take this matter away and try to sort it out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Amendment 5 in this group is in my name. It would simply put “National Crime Agency” into the Bill. Throughout the Bill, there are references to the “designated authority”, but there is no mention of a specific agency. I am sure that the Minister will set out why the Bill is framed in that way and I look forward to that explanation.

Other amendments in this group are in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. They are all useful, as they give the Minister the opportunity to explain further the Government’s reasoning in specific areas and to convince the Grand Committee of the protections in the Bill.

On Amendment 4, who will be responsible and accountable if the safeguards fail and we end up complying with a request that is politically motivated? Amendment 11 would take away the uncertainty built into the Bill. I do not like phrases such as “the designated authority believes”. “Believes” is a strange word to have in legislation. I like there to be a bit more certainty than is offered by a word such as “believes”. It seems very loose and open to all sorts of interpretations by all sorts of people.

Amendment 11A raises the circumstance where somebody could be rearrested under a new certificate. I accept that circumstances can change and maybe those powers are needed, but if somebody has been released under one certificate, we need to make clear what would need to change for them to be rearrested under a new one.

Amendment 11C has my full support. In many ways, it is a compromise between what the Bill says and what Amendment 5 says. Doing it through an SI is probably the best way forward, so I fully support Amendment 11C. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for their points on these amendments. They have been grouped together as dealing with the functions of the designated authority and the criteria applied by it in certifying requests.

Amendment 4 proposes a new criterion for certification. This would require the designated authority to be satisfied that the request is not politically motivated. Making consideration of political motivation a precondition of certification for the designated authority would reverse the present position for arrests under the Extradition Act 2003. Presently, the courts are required to consider during the substantive extradition hearing whether any of the statutory bars to extradition apply. These statutory bars include whether the request for extradition is made for the purpose of prosecuting or punishing an individual on account of their political opinions—that comes under Section 81 of the Extradition Act 2003. The Government’s position remains that it is right that the judge considers these points based on all the evidence before him or her during the substantive hearing and not the NCA prior to arrest. It is the judge who is ultimately accountable.

Furthermore, we are all aware that the Extradition Act contains substantial safeguards in respect of requests motivated by reason of the requested person’s political views. These safeguards will continue to apply, and we fully expect the courts to continue to exercise their powers of scrutiny as usual.

Arguments of political motivation are of course not usually simple. It is right that the question of whether an individual extradition request can be described as politically motivated should be assessed by a judge before an open court. It is vital, of course, that the requested person should be able to put their arguments on this basis to a judge, but it is also crucial, in the fulfilment of our obligations under the international arrangements on extradition that give rise to such proceedings, that the requesting authority should be able to respond to such arguments and put their own case as to why the request is not politically motivated. This should be openly and fairly arbitrated, so importing this consideration into the process for determining whether an individual may be arrested would be at odds with existing extradition law. Noble Lords will be aware that judges and justices of the peace are not required to consider such factors when deciding whether to issue an arrest warrant under Section 71 or Section 73 of the 2003 Act.

Were the designated authority to make such a deliberation in effectively, it would need to be able to invite representations on the point from both the requesting authority and the requested person in each case before certification. Not only would this be hugely resource-intensive, it would also advertise to the wanted person that they are wanted. I should note that the designated authority, as a public body, would already be under an obligation to act compatibly with convention rights under Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998. At the point of certification, this will include consideration of whether an arrest is ECHR-compatible.

I bring the attention of noble Lords to the types of territories proposed as appropriate specified territories. These are democracies whose criminal justice systems are rooted in the rule of law. I am certain Parliament would not accept the addition to the schedule of territories that we believed would send the UK politically motivated arrest requests. I hope I have been able to persuade the noble Baroness that there is no gap in safeguards here and that, consequently, she will be content with withdraw her amendment.

She also asked what is meant by the “seriousness of the conduct”. The language mirrors the test in Part 1 of the Extradition Act 2003. As she thought, there is indeed case law on the point. The intention is to capture only conduct sufficiently serious to ensure that the power is used only where proportionate. For example, the minor theft of an item of food from a supermarket or a very small amount of money is unlikely, without exceptional circumstances, to be sufficiently serious. Only when the designated authority decides that the offence satisfies the test will it be able to certify the request.

I turn now to Amendment 5, which seeks to define the designated authority as the National Crime Agency in the Bill. Our approach here mirrors that of the designation of the authority responsible for certification of European arrest warrants under Part 1 of the Act. The Government consider that the designation of the authority responsible for issuing a certificate is an appropriate matter to be left to secondary legislation. A regulation-making power affords the appropriate degree of flexibility to amend the designated authority in light of changing circumstances, including alterations to the functions of law enforcement bodies in the UK. To future-proof the legislation, the Government believe that the current drafting leaves an appropriate amount of flexibility. As I said, the Government’s intention is initially to designate the NCA, which is the UK’s national central bureau for Interpol, as the designated authority. I hope I have persuaded the noble Lord that we have got the balance right and that he will be content not to press his amendment.

I turn finally to Amendment 11, on requests made in the “approved way”. My noble friend’s amendment suggests that a request should be considered to have been made in the approved way only if it is made by an authority that has the function of making such requests in the territory concerned, rather than an authority which the designated authority believes to have this function.

Perhaps I may momentarily be a bit philosophical. The amendment attempts to base the assessment of the authority’s function on an objective truth. That is admirable from the point of view of legal certainty, but the designated authority does not have a monopoly on truth. The best it could do in practice, when making the assessment described in the amendment, would be to decide, to the best of its ability, whether the authority in question has the function of making such requests, arriving at what I think we would characterise as being a belief that it does so. Of course, the designated authority, as a public body, must take decisions that are reasonable and rational.

As such, we expect there to be no difference between how the assessment would be made in practice under the amendment and how it would be made under the existing text. The benefit of the text, as we have proposed it, is that it mirrors language elsewhere in the Extradition Act—for example, when the designated authority under Part 1 may issue a certificate in relation to a warrant and when the Secretary of State may issue a certificate under Part 2.

On the perceived risk implicit in Amendment 11A—that an arrested person could be rearrested for the same thing, having been discharged by a court, perhaps because they were not produced at court on time or for some other failing—I reassure the Committee that this is neither the intention nor the effect of the new sections in the Bill. New Section 74A(8) makes clear that an arrested person may

“not be arrested again in reliance of the same certificate”

if they have previously been discharged. The intention of this drafting is to stipulate that an individual may not be arrested again on the basis of the same international arrest request once a judge has discharged them. This mirrors Section 6 of the Extradition Act 2003, which provides for the same thing, where a person provisionally arrested on the basis of a belief relating to a European arrest warrant may not be arrested again on the basis of a belief relating to the same European arrest warrant.

On top of that, new Section 74B(3) requires that a certificate has to have been withdrawn before any arrest takes place to allow a new one to be issued relating to the same request. This again illustrates that a further certificate cannot simply be issued on the basis of the same request once an individual arrested under this power has been discharged by a judge.

Of course, it is vital that a certificate can be issued on the basis of a new request, or on the basis of a wholly different request, so that an individual wanted for another crime is not immune to any further arrest because they were once arrested and discharged for a different crime. Organised transnational offences, such as people trafficking, often involve offences in different countries, on different dates, with different victims, and no individual should be able to avoid answering for more than one serious crime using a legal loophole. The amendment would create that impunity. For that reason, I hope I have been able to persuade the noble Baroness and that she will be happy not to press that amendment.

Amendment 11C would require an affirmative resolution procedure to apply to any statutory instrument that designates an authority as a “designated authority”. Given that the framework and criteria for the issuing of a certificate are provided for in the Bill, we consider that the negative resolution procedure affords an appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny. We have plainly set out what the designated authority will do and how they must do it. Which particular body exercises that function is not, in our view, a matter that needs to be subject to debate in both Houses. The use of the power to designate an authority is necessary to accommodate any changing circumstances, including alterations to the functions of law enforcement bodies in the UK, and we consider it appropriate that we can respond to this promptly. The application of the negative procedure is also, again, completely consistent with the procedure for designating an authority for the purposes of issuing a certificate in respect of a European arrest warrant under Part 1 of the Extradition Act 2003.

I am sorry for my long-winded response to these several amendments. I hope the noble Baroness and the noble Lord are happy not to press their amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Inglewood]

My Lords, I add my general support to the proposition and arguments that have been made. When I had the good fortune to chair the ad hoc committee looking at the workings of this legislation three or four years ago, this was one issue that the committee spent a long time discussing. Our concern throughout was essentially—and, I believe, entirely properly—about injustice. We must have an extradition system that is just at its heart. If there is any risk or probability of people being extradited into circumstances in which their human rights will be abused or ignored, or in which injustice will be meted out to them, we should not be party to it.

I was particularly grateful for the remarks by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. He has touched on a point that I will come to when I move my amendment later on in the proceedings. I will not say that he has stolen my thunder—he has made the point a lot better than I might have.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, Amendment 6 is a very good probing amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. As I raised on the previous group, the words of the Bill need clarifying. This amendment gives the Minister the opportunity to do that and to explain why the word “vary” is in new Section 74B(7)(a). We have to be very careful with the words that we use in legislation. I can see why we would want to add or remove a territory, but why vary it? Is it to address a name change? I am sure that the Minister will tell us why. Amendment 7 allows the Minister to explain the need for this power. It may be perfectly sensible, but to make that clear would be most welcome.

My Amendment 8 is fairly simple. It seeks to improve the Bill—as do all my amendments—by requiring the Government to report changes before adding, removing or varying a reference to a territory. What is the process for adding a country? How will additions to the list be approved? What would the parliamentary scrutiny be? What is the process for the talks?

I also have my name to Amendment 9, which has been referred to in a number of contributions. The Government would have to add territories one at a time; I very much agree with that. Parliament could reject a specific country or territory, which seems very sensible and proportionate. However, this came out in Second Reading: is this Bill also a back door to some sort of protection from the loss of the European arrest warrant? I know the Government said that it was not, but this would allow them to add the European Union straight away and in one go. That would be an interesting thing for the Government to do. When I thought of that, I was reminded of the interesting PNQ that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, recently asked about the European arrest warrant. I also recalled the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Robathan. He asked a question of the Minister:

“My Lords, is it not the case that not all European arrest warrants are the same? A European arrest warrant from France or Germany, with whom we share the same respect for the rule of law, is one thing, but a European arrest warrant from one or two other countries—here I particularly mention Romania—is not the same because often political interference has taken place in the judicial system.”


The Minister replied:

“My noble friend makes a very good point about political interference. In fact, that is one of the safeguards within what we are seeking. He is right to make the point that not all EU states are the same.”—[Official Report, 2/3/20; col. 398.]


If the Government decide to put in the European Union in the future, that point could not be addressed. It is a valid issue—or, of course, it may not be an issue at all. It would be useful to have a response on that.

Amendment 10 should cause the Government no problem at all; I look forward to the Minister’s response on that. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, makes a valid case in Amendment 11B. “Levelling up” is the new buzzword in the Government. I think that we need a bit of levelling up in our special relationship with our friends across the pond as far as it applies to extraditing suspects who are wanted for crimes committed in this country. They must be very serious crimes which need to be investigated. Questions need to be asked, and potentially the evidence test is made and the matter is put before a court in the UK. The noble Lord cited two cases to illustrate that, which is very important in this respect. We are seeking a bit of reciprocity here, so I strongly support what he said and I hope that the noble Baroness can give a full response to these points because he has made the case very well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I feel very strongly that although we may have disagreed on the subject of the United States, that should not stop us recognising the wider argument to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has referred. Far too much legislation going through both Houses ends up leaving everything to be decided in secondary legislation where it is almost impossible to make changes, and this is another example.

I want to underline what my noble friend Lord Inglewood has said, which is that extradition is far too important a matter to leave basic, material decisions merely to secondary legislation. This is part of the freedom that people in this country rightly feel they have and I do not believe that we should allow the Government to have the powers that this seems to allow. I hope that my noble friend will recognise that this is a matter of real principle, a principle that the party to which we both belong is supposed to believe in above all things—constitutional propriety. This is not constitutional propriety, but sleight of hand.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I do not have many remarks to make on this and I could not think of a quixotic quote. However, I really like Shakespeare because he is connected with the borough I grew up in, so I will remind you of this quote

“haste is needful in this desperate case.”

Some of the points which have been made are very important and should be taken on board. What are we doing here? We support the legislation in principle, but we have asked for reasons why we are doing this and we have gone through some of the wording before.

I look forward in particular to the Minister’s response to Amendment 12 because when you look at the wording it seeks to take out, it is quite worrying that it is in there at all. It may well be that there is a perfectly understandable explanation and I will be able to get up in a moment and say, “I fully support what the Minister intends to do”, but as it reads now, I am worried about what we are passing here. Perhaps she will say that it is fine because it talks about further consequential provisions in the sub-paragraph above and the Government will do nothing. However, there is an issue about the powers we are giving to the Executive and our ability to scrutinise or change them at a later date. That point has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, so I want this to be looked at.

Amendment 13 seeks to remove regulations about “saving” or “incidental” provision. What is that about? We could make all sorts of changes by saying that something is a saving. We could get rid of whole swathes of stuff, so what are we agreeing to? We do not want to find ourselves saying months or years ahead that we did not realise when we agreed to this that we were giving those powers to the Executive. I will leave it there and look forward to the Minister’s response, but I may intervene at some point for further clarification.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank noble Lords for the points they have made and I hope to be able to allay any fears around what Amendments 12, 13 and 14 seek to address.

As noble Lords have said, paragraph 29(1) confers a power on the Secretary of State to make further provisions that are consequential on the amendments made by the Schedule to the Bill. This is a standard power which is commonplace in legislation and is naturally constrained. It can be used only to make provisions that are consequential and it is not a power to make substantive policy changes. Rather, it will allow the Government to make small, technical amendments for good housekeeping to ensure that that statute book is consistent and functions well.

As we implement the new arrest power, it is in everyone’s interests to ensure legal continuity for law enforcement partners and those subject to arrest for extradition purposes. While many of the amendments required to other enactments are made by Part 2 of the Schedule to the Bill, it is anticipated that further consequential amendments may be identified as part of the implementation process. That is why the standard power is taken to provide the flexibility to ensure that the new arrest power can operate smoothly and efficiently. Placing a timeframe such as 12 months on the use of the power would unnecessarily frustrate the aim. In any event, as noble Lords will know, the power cannot be used to amend future legislation.

As to the scope of the possible amendments, the Bill is narrowly focused. Its purpose is to provide a power of provisional arrest for specified category 2 territories for extradition purposes. I stress the point that it does not affect or relate to the subsequent extradition process. The purpose of the consequential power is to deal with the consequences of those changes to the statute book. As such, just as wider amendments to the Extradition Act 2003 fall outside the Bill’s ambit, so amendments to effect wider extradition policy would fall outwith the consequential amendments power. The power extends to provisions that amend, repeal or revoke any provision of primary legislation. As I hope I have made clear, this is not unusual or exceptional. It is standard practice to take such a power to provide flexibility for smooth and efficient implementation.

Similarly, the power to make saving or incidental provision by regulations found at paragraph 29(3) of the Schedule is a standard power commonly given in legislation for the purposes of smoothing the introduction of a change to the statute book. Incidental provision would include only amendments that are necessary or expedient to make the Bill’s substantive provisions work. Saving provisions are required where it is necessary to preserve existing law following a change to legislation —for example, to ensure fairness or consistency in court proceedings in progress at the time of a change to legislation. As I have stated, these are standard clauses. Any amendment by regulations that amended, repealed or revoked primary legislation would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure by virtue of paragraph 29(5), as befitting a Henry VIII power of this type. I hope that I have allayed noble Lords’ fears about that.

As a final point to my noble friend Lord Inglewood, the power in this Act would not allow us simply to move countries from Part 1 to Part 2 of the Extradition Act, nor to substantively amend Part 1. Those are not consequential amendments. With those explanations, I hope that noble Lords will feel happy to withdraw their amendments.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I thank the Minister very much for explaining that. I am reassured to a large extent by what she said. Would it be possible to give an example of one of those little technical things that would be changed so that we are clear what we are all talking about? If she cannot now, maybe she could write to us.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am very happy to do that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the Government have laid Amendment 15 to reflect Section 2 of the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Act 2020, which changes the name of the Welsh legislature to “Senedd Cymru or the Welsh Parliament”. This amendment is a technical consequential amendment. It follows the new practice of using the Welsh name when referring only to the Welsh legislature. I hope noble Lords will be able to join me in voting for this amendment.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I am very happy to support this amendment. While looking at it, I was thinking that Members of the Welsh Parliament are called Assembly Members. What will they be called in future? They are in a Parliament and are called AMs—will there be some consequential change there? Maybe someone could clarify that at some point.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I will try to do that. It is a technical point to which I do not know the answer.