Clause 202 - Existing legislation on extradition
Extradition Bill
3:00 pm
Mr John Burnett (Torridge and West Devon, Liberal Democrat)
I am grateful to my colleague. This is a classic Henry VIII clause, conferring power on the Executive to make fundamental amendments to primary legislation through secondary legislation. We have been fortunate to have the Select Committee's comments on the Extradition Bill. I refer to page 29 of its excellent report and we have all noted its conclusion. With the backing of my party, which responded to requests to express its views on the Bill, I shall attempt to précis the report. It states:
''The Bill provides no indication of what provisions of these Acts''—
the Backing of Warrants (Republic of Ireland) Act 1965 and the Extradition Act 1989—
''the Government intends should be amended or repealed. Clause 205 provides that any Order in Council made under clause 165 would be subject to the negative resolution procedure, whereby it may be annulled in pursuance of a resolution of either House.''
It continues:
''The Home Office has told us that it considers Clause 202 needs to be drafted in its present form because the Government intends that the Bill will apply to all extradition requests received after the Bill comes into force. Consequently, it intends to repeal both the 1965 and 1989 Acts in their entirety. However, these Acts cannot be repealed until all cases which are in the system at such time as the Bill comes into force have been finally disposed of.''
The Home Affairs Committee makes it quite clear that it considers the clause to constitutionally inappropriate. As I said at the outset, it is a classic Henry VIII clause and it is objectionable because we have no idea, beyond a bland assertion from the Home Office, what parts of the Acts will be repealed, or what the principles or guidelines for appeals will be.
Fortuitously, on 14 January 2003, at the behest of the noble Lord Dahrendorf, a debate on the third report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee took place in another place. The debate centred on the key constitutional question of the limits of Executive power, and Parliament's ability—and its duty—to prevent the unchecked expansion of those limits. The conclusion was that, although Henry VIII powers could occasionally be justified through the negative procedure, the fundamental principle was that there
''should always be a presumption in favour of the affirmative procedure. That means that whenever it is not adopted reasons must be given in the Explanatory Notes accompanying Bills why this should be so.''—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 January 2003; Vol. 643, c. 169.]
We shall press for a Division on these obnoxious, objectionable and unparliamentary provisions. I hope that Labour Members will support our endeavours to ensure that Parliament regains its authority and the principle of parliamentary democracy is retained. We have discussed this before in Committee. This is a slipshod little clause that has no place in the Bill.