Extradition Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:30 pm on 27 October 2003.

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Photo of Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal Minister of State, Home Office, Minister of State (Home Office) (Criminal Justice and Offender Management) 6:30, 27 October 2003

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for those helpful comments, because they give me an opportunity to respond. The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, called it "gold-plating" and said that it was too early for us to move to a more generous accommodation. He was echoed by the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, who also mentioned gold-plating. That theme echoed around the House.

I shall be clear about the framework document. That document sets minimum standards; that is, the least that we have agreed to do. It does not prevent us from going further if we in this country think that it inures to the benefit of our system and our individuals. It is our Bill; we set the standards which we deem to be appropriate for our country. Therefore, we must legislate for what we believe is in the best interests of the United Kingdom. If that involves exceeding our international obligations, then so be it.

Why should our approach in implementing European measures be that the UK should always do only the bare minimum that is required? We set our own standards. On occasions, we have led the pack. We lead the pack in our legislation on race. Our race relations legislation is probably the most robust in the EU. Noble Lords will know that many countries do not share our belief that incitement to racial hatred is a punishable offence. In discussing reciprocity, let us take the example of Portugal. I am not suggesting for a moment that a Portuguese individual would do it, but if someone were to come here from Portugal, were to incite racial hatred and were to create a great deal of difficulty and mayhem and then depart, if we sought total complimentarity as noble Lords suggest, others could say that it is not an offence in Portugal to incite others to racial hatred.

We need to be a little careful about what we are saying here. We wish people to obey our laws when they come to this country. We will not accept, for example, that that they should be able to incite racial hatred with impunity in this country because they do not know that it is an offence so to do in this country. There is a very practical element to all of this. As we previously pointed out, in contrast to the United Kingdom, other countries have difficult and different regimes. I cite as an example the fact that not all EU countries have an offence of fraudulent trading. So we regard these matters as of real importance.

I remind your Lordships that the partial removal of the dual criminality requirement applies only in respect of EU countries—mature democracies with established and fair criminal justice systems. It is also worth mentioning that if any part of the conduct in question has occurred in the United Kingdom, we can extradite only if the dual criminality requirement is satisfied. So no one can be extradited for conduct that occurred here and is legal in this country. However, we have come to a position in the Bill where there is a clear difference of view.