UK-US Extradition Treaty

I entirely agree with my right hon. and learned Friend, and I shall also return to that point shortly. I shall start with a few general points, because it is important that we get them clear. First, I have no idea whether Mr. Bermingham, Mr. Darby or Mr. Mulgrew are guilty or innocent of the offences with which they are charged—indeed, that outcome is irrelevant to our debate. Secondly, regardless of whether people are innocent or guilty, the process by which we extradite individuals to foreign countries to stand trial can be onerous: during the trial process, they are removed from proximity to their families; they are sometimes in foreign countries—not only the United States—with different cultural practices; and the conditions of imprisonment can be very different from those that prevail in this country. Those are not reasons why we should not extradite people, so long as we are satisfied with the fairness of the trial process. We are perfectly prepared to contemplate that. This country has been doing that, and the comity that exists between nations makes it important that we preserve that position. I say this to the Solicitor-General because I hope that it might provide a quieter and calmer framework within which we can debate the issues. The problem arises because the Government perfectly sensibly chose to renegotiate the existing 1972 treaty with the United States of America. They had good reason to do that, because the old treaty had many flaws. The Solicitor-General has not touched on them, and I will not go into them in detail, but there were issues to do with time limits and temporary surrender, and there were handicaps, as has often been pointed out in the House, to do with extraditing certain types of United States defendants to this country, particularly if they were Irish nationals wanted for terrorist offences. To embark on renegotiation was perfectly sensible, and it was also perfectly sensible for those involved in that process to consider our own practices, particularly in light of the fact that the Extradition Act 2003 was in contemplation at the time. The problem arises because, in negotiating that treaty, the Government allowed themselves—the expression used by Lord Mayhew in the other place was correct—to be treated like patsies in relation to reciprocity of implementation. They had a treaty that had some mutual advantages, although I do not think that its terms were sufficiently well scrutinised, but they gratuitously chose to give them to the United States without deriving any benefits for ourselves under it by giving the US privileged status under the Extradition Act 2003. I will return to that. When Baroness Scotland in the other place or Ministers in the House of Commons express their sadness, irritation, annoyance or anxiety on behalf of those in this House and the general public that the United States has not ratified the treaty, they have only themselves to blame for what happened. A little realpolitik dictates that those who give people everything that they want without asking for the return that they were promised are never going to get that return. I gather that Baroness Scotland is going to the United States—she may be flying over at this very moment—to supplicate the US Attorney-General, but the truth is that she cannot persuade Congress, which is made up of some pretty hard-headed individuals, unless they decide that there is something in it for them. There is a fundamental failure of government here, and although it does not reflect badly on the Solicitor-General or the Law Officers, it certainly reflects very badly on the Home Office.