Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, in order to understand the context of the noble Lord's amendment, we should look at how this matter is dealt with in practice. The first point to make about Clause 76 is that there is currently only one court in England and Wales that hears European arrest warrant and extradition cases. If a person is arrested in Durham, for example, that person is currently required to travel to London for both the initial hearing and any subsequent remand hearings that there may be. In the vast majority of cases, the initial hearing is very short and looks only at whether the person is in fact the person sought by the request, and whether the offence for which the person is sought is an extradition offence. Those are the two matters addressed at the initial hearing. It is also important to note that Clause 76 will not apply to the substantive hearing, where the subject of the request will be able to make detailed representations in relation to the extradition request in person. The second point to make is that a live-link direction will be made only where the judge decides that it is in the interests of justice, and that there is a specific power in the Bill pursuant to which a judge may rescind a live-link direction before or during a hearing. Although I understand the noble Lord’s concern that there could, in a given case, be a problem with interpretation via a live link, in the unlikely event that that occurs, the judge would have the power to rescind the live-link direction where it would not be in the interests of justice to continue. The hearing would then be adjourned to take place at a later date in person, and the person would be driven from wherever they happened to be in the country to London to be heard. It is important to understand that the noble Lord’s amendments would have two principal effects. First, they would further limit the kinds of hearings that can take place via a live link by excluding initial extradition hearings from the scope of the provisions. I hope that he will accept that live-link connections are advantageous and that good evidence is heard through that medium. Furthermore, the amendments would mean that live links could take place in any case where an interpreter is required. Therefore, the effect of his amendments would be to drastically limit the use of Clause 76. We are satisfied that there are sufficient safeguards to ensure that the provision works fairly and in the interests of justice. Most importantly, the provision will remove the need for lengthy and unnecessary journeys frequently made to the City of Westminster magistrates’ court in London and ensure that the public’s money is not wasted in paying for those journeys, especially when the two issues that we want to understand are, first, whether the person arrested is the right person and, secondly, whether the offence for which the EAW was issued is an extraditable offence. Those are the only two matters decided in the initial hearing, and we think that the judiciary can be trusted to identify any injustice in the matter continuing by live link. If the judge is alerted to that being unfair, he or she can stop it and the matter can proceed on an adjourned basis. The suggestion that Clause 76 would allow the main extradition hearing to be by live link is simply not correct. I invite noble Lords to read new Section 206A(1)(a)(i). Your Lordships will see that we anticipated that that might be a concern. We have restricted the provision narrowly to focus on the initial hearing because we absolutely accept that the initial hearing can properly be done by live link. The substantive hearing could be by live link, as the noble Lord said, if the individual consented and thought that it was more convenient, but Clause 76 does not apply to the substantive hearing. It only lets us get the case in order in a way that is cost-effective, as opposed to just cost-efficient. I know that noble Lords will think that Her Majesty's Treasury right now needs to be appropriately jealous about how it spends money, especially on travel.