Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

The conventions on torture to which this country is party exist, and we should comply with them irrespective of legislation that this Government may or may not thrust upon us. Unless a measure such as that which we are considering expressly dissociates this country from a convention, that convention should be adhered to. The memorandums of understanding that the Government have entered into with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Libya and, possibly, Syria—I am not quite sure, but a number of middle eastern countries are involved—have proved to be rather ineffective, as they have not necessarily been accepted as workable by the courts when they have been tested. I may be corrected on that; I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has followed the detail of their progress more closely than I have. It is important that these measures are properly understood as regards the transfer of foreign national prisoners from our prisons back to their home states. We have 11,300 or so foreign national prisoners in our prisons; from our point of view, that is 11,300 places that should be freed up for use by English, or British, prisoners who can be imprisoned closer to their families, homes, jobs and communities, while the foreign national prisoners can be imprisoned closer to their families and so on. The problem that we face is that the Government, while arranging for these people to go to prison, have failed to make proper arrangements for their repatriation once they have completed their sentences. As a result, the Government have had to re-role HMP Canterbury and HMP Bulwood Hall as being dedicated entirely to the purpose of dealing with foreign national prisoners awaiting deportation, some of whom have been waiting well beyond their official release date. That is yet another example of the incompetence of this Government's management of the prison estate. The hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) will be concerned particularly about matters such as unlawful rendition—the taking of individuals from one jurisdiction to another, some of whom may have come via this jurisdiction on their way to Guantanamo Bay and other interesting places. The new clauses do not deal precisely with that issue, but they remind us that it is an important one to bear in mind, and one that we should keep a careful eye on. The Minister told us that the new clauses are designed to bring us into compliance with other existing international obligations. We do not have time to discover from him in any detail what those international obligations are and where they are to be found, so on this occasion we will just have to take his word for it. In normal circumstances, I would be happy to take his word without question, but I enter a note of scepticism into my voice because these new clauses have been sprung on us in the past few days. It is a pity that some other aspects have not been available for further discussion, such as new clause 11, which deals with extradition. We had a brief debate about it in Committee, but unfortunately it has not been selected for discussion this afternoon. None the less, I urge hon. and right hon. Members who are concerned about the unbalanced arrangements we have with the United States of America to look at new clause 11. That having been said, I bring my remarks to an end. I remind the House of my complaint about the way in which the Bill has been constructed. This is yet another example of the cack-handed legislative doodling that the Government seem to have entered into. I trust that at some stage the House of Lords will have the opportunity to deconstruct the Bill and turn it into something resembling a proper Act of Parliament.