Clause 8 - Remand etc.
Extradition Bill
4:15 pm
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
Amendments Nos. 28 and 29 would ensure that the Bill guarantees that the person who is the subject of the new powers can receive independent legal advice. The amendments would also delete the inappropriate provisions about consent, which is taken far too readily. Amendment No. 119, tabled by the Liberal Democrats, would have a not dissimilar effect. It states that
''consent must be given before the judge who must satisfy himself that the suspect has had the opportunity of receiving independent legal advice and had opportunity to consider that advice.''
That, too, is the preferred wording of Justice. If I had had the advantage of seeing that before drafting amendment No. 28, I might have gone along with it. No doubt the hon. Members for Torridge and West Devon and for Orkney and Shetland will confirm that amendment No. 119 takes a similar direction to amendment No. 28. Each of us is trying to ensure that a suspect has independent legal advice before giving or withholding consent to extradition.
In an earlier debate, the Minister said that about 30 per cent. of people currently extradited consent to it. In discussing these new, much more wide-ranging powers, it is important that we ensure that independent legal advice is available to a person before he or she gives or withholds consent to extradition. The Liberal Democrats' amendment No. 133 goes further and would provide for free legal advice. We have not gone as far as that; we believe it more important that legal advice be independent than that it be free. No doubt the Liberal Democrats will seek to justify their proposals in their own way. However, we are all moving in a similar direction; a necessary pre-condition before someone gives consent to being extradited and deported to another country is that they should have the benefit of independent legal advice. The other amendments in the group are consequential.