UK-US Extradition Treaty

I hazard the suggestion that even eight months ago it was too late; the decision was taken on 15 December 2003, by order, to enact our side of the extradition treaty with the United States. As the hon. Lady may know, the only Members who objected at that point—when the House could have stopped the process—were Liberal Democrats. I want to refer to scale. The United States is by a long way our largest extradition partner. There are between 15 and 20 ongoing requests for extradition from the United States to the United Kingdom, and in 2005 13 people were extradited to the US—the highest number in five years and more than double the figure in 2003, just before the provisions of the bilateral treaty came into effect. Given the sheer number of requests made by the US compared to other countries, and the fact that the US has increasing ambitions for extra-territorial prosecutions, it is vital that the treaty is fair to the British people. But events have already proved without doubt that it is not. Surely questions must be asked when Ian Norris, a former chief executive of Morgan Crucible, can be extradited for price-fixing, even though during the period he was alleged to have committed the offence it was not a criminal offence in the UK.