My Lords, the debate draws to its conclusion when my noble and learned friend sits down, but I want to make just two points arising out of his remarks to us, for which I am grateful. First, talking about certification and legal aid, he emphasised economics. But a lot of the evidence that we heard suggested—I would not want to put it higher than that—that doing what was advocated might well save money, and I have always understood that one of the themes of this Government is that they want to save public money. If that can be substantiated, it seems to me to justify adopting the suggestions we have put forward—and it would seem worth substantiating it one way or another.
Secondly, turning to assurances, it was good of my noble and learned friend to say that he would write to me about this, but then he said, “Of course, one has to remember that I am a Scot, and autumn comes early in Scotland”. Well, I am a Cumbrian, and I know that the further north you go the earlier autumn comes, but I draw to his attention the corollary of that—spring comes late, and we are in London here.
I thank all the speakers who have taken part in this debate. In the words of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, they have “jollied it along”, because they have—very helpfully—amplified the tone of the discussions we had in the committee as we were writing the report. I would also like to say that, as your Lordships all know, we had very late notice of the changing of the time of this debate. A number of people who wished to take part, and had put their names down to speak, found that they were unable to do so. On a personal level, I seem to be plagued by this particular problem: it happened to me just before the summer break. I make a plea to the business managers of the House—the big beasts, who are here all the time: it is difficult for those of us who are always being told that we are part-time Members simply to drop everything and change our plans at the last minute. Surely it is not beyond the wit of man for them to make their timetabling a trifle more precise than may have been the case of late.
Finally, it seems to emerge from our work that there are two key aspects of extradition. The first is that the rule of law, both in our jurisdiction and outside it, is of very real importance to everyone. The second is that extradition deals with real people who have real families, and just because someone is accused of a crime or convicted of one, that does not mean they become a non-person, with no rights at all. A proper extradition system has to ensure that there is no conflict between the two.