PART I WARRANT AND CERTIFICATE (Hansard, 13 November 2003)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Caroline Flint)
I beg to move amendment (a) to the Lords amendment.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this we may discuss Government amendments (b), (c), (d) and (e).

§ Caroline Flint
I invite the House to agree the to the Government amendments to the Lords amendment. We are trying to preserve the spirit of the Lords amendment while, at the same time, using language that is suitable for a piece of UK legislation. We are concerned about the information that an incoming Part 1 warrant should contain. In the Government's view, the Bill is explicit about that, but in another place Members took a different view. In particular, they decided to import wording from the framework decision on the European arrest warrant into the Bill. We have no objection to that in principle, but it is much more sensible to use language that can be readily understood by people in this country, and which has been prepared by our expert parliamentary counsel.
We therefore propose to remove the requirement that the warrant should contain details of the nature and legal classification of the offence, as well as the applicable statutory provision, replacing it with any provision of the law of the category 1 territory under which the conduct is alleged to constitute an offence. Basically, what does the requesting country think that the person has done, and how is its law applied? I am sure that hon. Members will recognise that that is a slightly neater and more straightforward formulation. I should also make it clear for the avoidance of doubt that there is already a separate requirement to give details of the sentence that could he passed.
Similarly, we are replacing a description of the circumstances in which the offence was committed with details of the conduct alleged to constitute the offence. It is important that the person's acts, not the reasons why he or she committed the offence, should be clear. The term "circumstances" could lead to confusion. The requirement is therefore expressed more neatly and clearly and in keeping with the way in which our legislation is usually drafted.
We are seeking to remove one part of the Lords amendment without replacing it—the requirement that the warrant should contain information about the 435 degree of participation in the offence by the requested person. I am not sure that I understand what that means or why it is relevant. For extradition purposes, it does not matter whether the person is the ringleader or an accomplice, provided that they are alleged to have committed an extradition offence. For example, it does not matter whether someone was waving a sawn-off shotgun at the bank teller or driving the getaway car— it is the offence that is important. Clearly, the nature of participation may be an important consideration in the eventual trial and determination of sentence, but for the purposes of extradition to another EU country it is not relevant.
As I have tried to suggest, we have sought to accept the spirit of the amendment made in another place, while ensuring that the drafting is as clear and effective as possible. I invite the House to accept the Government amendments.

§ Mr. Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath)
As I said earlier, only this week did the Government say that they were prepared to start to climb down in the face of the defeats that they suffered in another place. Even though it was a last-minute concession, or at least a meeting of the Opposition parties halfway, it was nevertheless welcome. I do not hold the Minister responsible in any way. Her predecessor, the hon. Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth) was very intransigent in Committee, but he has now resumed his role as the Government hard man or deputy Chief Whip. Baroness Scotland met my noble Friend Baroness Anelay of St. Johns, who is my party's spokesperson in another place, only on Tuesday afternoon, and discussed the climb-down that the Government were proposing to make.
We have found that the Government are meeting us about halfway on this matter. Even though that is welcome, we have said throughout the proceedings on this Bill and in Committees in both Houses that the warrant relating to the extradition of a British citizen to a category 1 country should include detailed and specific information. Of course, the Opposition still have fundamental objections to the concept of the European arrest warrant and the way in which minor administrative judicial officials in other countries, working as investigators, juges d'instruction or the like, may be able to require the extradition of UK citizens, while the British courts will be unable to look behind the warrant. We maintain that objection.
Yesterday, the Home Secretary referred in his statement on identity cards to the distinguished writer Frederick Forsyth and told us that he regarded him highly as a writer, but not as a political commentator. I regard Mr. Forsyth highly in both capacities, however, and I refer my hon. Friends and those outside the House who take an interest in these matters to his trenchant and accurate comments on this issue. I was reminded of his prescience in looking at the European arrest warrant, as well as the Government's proposed amendments to allow more to be included on the back of it, when I was stuck in traffic yesterday listening to a recording of one of his brilliant Saturday morning Radio 4 essays, which were broadcast before the BBC revealed its bias and took him off the air.
436 Unfortunately, despite the strong views on this matter that we expressed in Committee and in another place, the rules constraining today's proceedings allow us to debate only the matters coming from the Lords and the way in which the Government are responding to the defeats that we inflicted on them there. The Government's halfway house proposal is an attempt to soften the blow by ensuring that the warrant contains some details about what the requesting country alleges against the UK citizen. We hope that that may enable challenges if requesting countries make inappropriate requests and the warrant is clearly defective because it does not provide what amendment (a) will require.
I should stress, however, that that does not entirely allay our fears, and I wish to refer briefly to what my noble Friend Lord Lamont and some other noble Friends said yesterday in another place in furthering the concerns expressed by distinguished jurists and commentators such as Leolin Price, QC, and Torquil Dick Erikson, who have helped us a great deal. Lord Lamont spoke about the difficulty that may arise if British citizens find that they are being summoned abroad on the basis of code Napoleon and corpus juristype requirements. At column 1412 of Hansard,he expressed concern about the way in which British citizens' rights may be trampled on by people investigating matters rather than prosecuting them.
None the less, the European arrest warrant will now have to contain the details that we regard as equivalent to the legal classification of the offence in question, as set out in the original Opposition amendment and in the European framework decision. We will discuss the list of offences later in respect of Lords amendment No. 236. I understand why the Government do not feel able to include reference to the degree of participation, as we suggested in the original amendment, on which we defeated them. They believe that there is a danger that the question whether somebody was a ringleader, as the Minister puts it, or one of the hangers-on in an offence might cause confusion and create a loophole.
That is why we have agreed, however reluctantly, to accept the Government's halfway house, but we still feel very strongly that, because extradition cases may now be much more common, as my noble Friend Lord Lamont said yesterday in another place, there may still be occasions on which somebody is arrested and brought before foreign courts without the degree of protection that British citizens have previously been able to expect.

§ Mr. Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland)
We have had confession and forgiveness from the Minister, and now we apparently have repentance, even though it has come at the eleventh hour, as the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) said. None the less, the Liberal Democrats welcome that repentance, which represents a significant improvement. Indeed, it is a tribute to the manner in which business is done in another place. I should like to observe in passing, however, that it is regrettable that one sometimes has to debate such matters in this place four times before the argument is finally accepted and that it is sometimes not the force of argument, but the force of timetabling, that seems to carry the day.
437 1.45 pm
As I said, the safeguards that are being introduced are important and should be included in the Bill. The one significant change that the Government seek to make to the Lords amendment is the exclusion of the reference to the degree of participation. I agree with the hon. Member for Surrey Heath that that represents an improvement to the amendment, which strays from what we wanted the warrant to include and relates to what is properly a matter of evidence. It is important that such distinctions are maintained.
I commend the Government for having taken the point that was made and improved on it.

§ Caroline Flint
I welcome the support of the hon. Members for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) and for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael). We try to show that we are a listening Government and ensure that the process of scrutinising legislation—in the case of extradition, it is very detailed legislation—is seen to work, and I commend my noble Friend Baroness Scotland for all her endeavours in that regard.
Obviously, we want to introduce legislation that clearly respects the rights of British citizens while recognising that the European arrest warrant has huge benefits in terms of securing effective arrests and a more open and transparent way of ensuring that nobody who commits a crime can escape the consequences by crossing a border. The measures in the Bill and the tightening up provided by the amendments will further reassure people about the way in which the European arrest warrant, and consequently extradition, will be applied.