UK-US Extradition Treaty

I apologise in advance to right hon. and hon. Members if I fail to address their points, as I have only five or six minutes in which to respond. We have had extradition treaties with the United States since 1796 and, for most of that time, those relationships have been uncontentious. The only criticism has been that procedures are often slow. Indeed, we heard about cases in which people waited eight or 10 years to be extradited. I am pleased that, under the Extradition Act 2003, such lengthy processes before someone can even stand trial, which are not in the interests of justice, will no longer take place. The Government have a responsibility to review and modernise the UK’s extradition laws, as that has not been undertaken thoroughly since 1870. The Home Office published a full review of extradition law in March 2001, which was well before 9/11—a point that has already been made. Many right hon. and hon. Members said that the treaty and the Act dealt only with crimes related to terrorism, but that is not the case. The Act deals with our relationship with a particular country and it covers all crimes, not just terrorism. I have a record of our debates in Standing Committee, in which the United States was designated as a country that did not require prima facie evidence. We made it clear that the designation, which changed our relationship with the United States, did not just apply to terrorism. Much of the debate, if anyone chooses to read it, was about different kinds of crime.