Clause 59
Policing and Crime Bill
5:15 pm
Vernon Coaker (Minister of State (Policing, Crime & Security), Home Office; Gedling, Labour)
Article 6—as the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon knows because he knows the answer to the question—does not apply to extradition hearings.
Clauses 48 and 49 will provide further improvements to the European arrest warrant mechanism in the UK. It is predicted that access to the SIS II will enable law enforcement agencies in the UK to make an additional 1,200 arrests per year subject to these warrants, while the improvements to public safety that these clauses will provide are of great significance and importance. As the European arrest warrant is subject to judicial proceedings this will place a greater administrative burden on the court service. Clause 59 will in part address this problem by enabling live links to be used in extradition cases.
This amendment to the Extradition Act 2003 will mean that all initial and remand hearings can, at the direction of the appropriate judge—I hope that hon. Members heard that—take place via live link. This will not only provide greater efficiency when dealing with extradition hearings but also ensure that those subject to EAW and extradition requests do not need to make potentially lengthy journeys for very short extradition hearings. It is important to note that the subject of the request will continue to attend the substantive extradition hearing.
Furthermore, the clause makes it clear that the judge may not direct that the hearing take place via live link if he feels that the interests of justice will not be served. The interest of justice, I know, is something that the hon. Gentleman often wants read into the record, so I am doing so. The clause will ensure that the mechanism in place in the UK to deal with the EAW and extradition requests is both efficient in dealing with rising numbers of judicial proceedings and will ensure fairness to the subject of the request. I hope that helps the hon. Gentleman.