My Lords, on previous occasions this House has spoken at length on the question of what constitutes appropriate parliamentary scrutiny, in the wider sense, in relation to the addition of any territory, and has just done so again on Amendment 2. I will now expand further in addressing
Amendment 3, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, which seeks to mandate that this be done by individual statutory instrument for each suggested country.
I was slightly dismayed to hear noble Lords talk about mutual extradition arrangements because, as I have clarified on several occasions, this has not, and never has been, about mutual extradition arrangements. We do not do this on behalf of other countries, and if, for example, we did it on behalf of Turkey, the courts would throw it out—even if the Government could get it through Parliament, the courts would throw it out.
When this issue was debated in Committee, it was pointed out that statutory instruments that seek to specify new territories are not amendable. Some feel that this may create a difficulty for this House if regulations were laid which sought to specify multiple countries. As I have said before, the process of potentially listing multiple countries already exists for adding territories to both parts of the Extradition Act 2003.
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It was further pointed out that there are countries in the world which do not respect the rule of law and a concern was raised that a future Government may seek to add such countries to this legislation, countries that this House and the other place together may think it inappropriate to add. Again, even if the Government could get it through Parliament, the courts would throw it out.
It was put to me that somehow this House cannot really grapple with considering a country to which there are objections unless it appears in a statutory instrument alone. The answer to that concern is very simple. If a country is proposed by any Government, either now or in the future, that this House does not want to be specified under this Bill then the job of this House is to win that argument and vote down the relevant regulations.
To quote my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who as always put it very succinctly, being a former Lord Advocate and Lord Chancellor,
“a Minister putting forward a list would have to be mightily careful that the list was of all good, or at least equally good, countries. If there was a doubtful one it would have to be separate. That lesson should be taken to heart. It is very unwise to have a great big list where we are not sure about two or three countries, because we would just lose the whole lot. I suspect that we may be faced in due course with a fair group about which we have some knowledge already. I do not think that that has anything to do with the Bill, but it might be a consequence of granting this power. I imagine that any Minister contemplating this who wished to be successful would be very careful to leave a country out of a list of very good countries and have it in a separate list if he thought that it would risk the others.”—[Official Report, 5/3/20; col. GC 386.]
I have often made such considerations when considering statutory instruments. This House and the other place will have the ability to reject regulations which contain multiple countries, which will incentivise any Government to heed my noble and learned friend’s advice.
It was also suggested in Committee that having multiple instruments specifying a single territory would take just “a little longer”—a bit more typing and printing. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge,
alluded to that today. That is to rather belittle the potential impact of this amendment on parliamentary business. The description that this would not cause,
“much more than a few more pieces of paper—a little more typing and standing up and sitting down”—[Official Report, 5/3/20; col. GC 387.]
simply does not adequately describe the impact of unnecessary regulations. We are all in the middle of an abject lesson in the reality of entirely unexpected time having to be diverted for vital emergency parliamentary work for the good of the whole of the UK. Unnecessarily burdensome legislation is simply not consistent with the Government’s duty to have proportionate systems in place that afford regulations only the proper and necessary time and resources needed.
Despite the crisis that has engulfed normal and parliamentary life in the UK, we need to press on with this Bill because some of the horrors it seeks to mitigate are already present on our streets. I have said more than once that thousands of international arrest alerts are already circulated for fugitives by the countries in scope. UK police officers need the arrest powers not because of other countries but to keep our streets safe. This law will prevent fugitives responsible for such crime continuing to evade justice through an operational loophole which puts the public at risk.
From the tone of the speakers, I think there will be a desire to test the opinion of the House. I hope noble Lords will join me in resisting this amendment.