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Extradition

Welcome to the Chair, Mr Leigh. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) on securing an extraordinarily important debate and the Backbench Business Committee on doing such great work to ensure our chance to have this discussion. I want to keep my remarks brief, because so much has been said in the evolving consensus of the debate. In particular, I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) for their powerful contributions. There has long been a tradition that Parliament is the last backstop for the liberty of the subject and the protection of the rights of property. It is right for us to be deeply interested in the liberty of our electors and citizens, and it is particularly great to see in the Chamber the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), who has remained in his seat throughout the debate and who has been such a powerful advocate for his constituent, Babar Ahmad. There seems to be a strong, cross-party feeling that things are simply not right. To pick up on one issue, if people are in the UK and commit a crime in the UK, the deep, natural sense that we all—the person in the street—have is that such people should be prosecuted in the UK for that act, if it is an offence in this country, and not be taken away from home, loved ones, community and everything familiar to be prosecuted in a foreign country. In particular, I have long found the US-UK extradition treaty troubling.