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UK Extradition Arrangements

It is a terrible ministerial cliché to stand at the Dispatch Box and say that this has been a good and useful debate, but tonight it is true. Particular thanks should go to my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) and to members of the Backbench Business Committee for securing time in this House to debate these important issues. My hon. Friend made some kind remarks about me at the start of the debate and I should reciprocate by praising not just his energy in pursuit of this campaign—this is our second debate in nine days on the subject—but the considerable legal expertise that he brings to the subject, as well as his contribution to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, whose Chairman also contributed to the debate. As I made clear in the debate in Westminster Hall, the Government are currently considering what action to take to ensure that this country's extradition arrangements work both efficiently and fairly. I welcome multiple debates on these matters and of course the Government will take them into account when responding to Sir Scott Baker's independent review of extradition along with the work done by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Home Affairs Committee. The debate on extradition in recent years has focused in large part on a number of high-profile cases. Like others tonight, I pay tribute to the hon. Members who have spoken on behalf of their constituents, including my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) and for South Dorset (Richard Drax). We understand and take full account of the concerns raised by right hon. and hon. Members in respect of individual European arrest warrant and extradition cases involving their constituents. As I indicated during the debate, and as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has said repeatedly in the context of the extradition review, it is vital that we strike the correct balance between effectively bringing offenders to justice and seeking redress for the victims of crime while protecting the fundamental rights of those who are sought for extradition. That point was made well by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). For that reason, this further debate is warmly welcomed. Many interesting points have been made this evening, but the only one with which I flatly disagree was made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who said that 1,000 years ago habeas corpus was an important part of our constitution. I would normally defer to him in matters of mediaeval history, but I do not remember in the dying decades of the Anglo-Saxon kings, underrated though they are in history, that habeas corpus featured particularly highly.