Police and Justice Bill

I begin by saying how passionately I agree with the last point made by the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson). The principle that we are talking about applies to all British citizens irrespective of where they come from, what constituency they happen to live in or their walk of life. I absolutely agree with him that that applies equally to Gary McKinnon, Barbar Ahmad and everyone else on whose behalf we have been lobbied. I congratulate the Government on finally persuading the US Senate to ratify the treaty—[Interruption.]—or, rather, on persuading it to begin to ratify the treaty, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) says. The situation is better than it was, and that is largely due to the campaign that has been waged to get the Government’s attention. Rather than scorning all those who spoke on behalf of their constituents and scorning the newspapers that took up the cudgels on behalf of those constituents, the Government should give credit where credit is due. Without that campaign, we would not have seen the wonderful spectacle of Ministers scuttling around Washington trying to persuade the Senate to ratify the treaty. The Government should have a little humility on that point. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Joan Ryan), in a not-very-distinguished passage of argument, tried to draw a distinction between two terms—I forget whether they were identity and reciprocity, or symmetry and mutuality, or parity and equality. It was not at all obvious to me what she was trying to say, but it was perfectly obvious to everyone in the House who has listened to our arguments all afternoon that there will be no reciprocity in the treaty, even if and when the Senate finally ratifies it. The brute fact is that if the United States wants to extradite a person from this country to the United States, the American authorities need merely present information at Horseferry Road magistrates court.