Police and Justice Bill

There is no problem if protection of the obligations falls to the signatories to the Council of Europe and its conventions. The United States is not a signatory to the Council of Europe and its provisions, so I think there is a distinction to be made. The third convenient fiction has been implied and not stated today, but it has been current in the press. It is that somehow it is in the greater interests of justice for this imbalance to occur, because of the inadequacy of prosecution for white-collar offences in this country. That was almost made explicit by Margaret Cole, director of enforcement of the Financial Services Authority, who pointed out recently that British criminal convictions were ““sparse””. She attributed that to greater public support for convictions for white-collar crime in the United States, and therefore presumably a greater predisposition of an American jury to convict by comparison with a British jury. I have to say first that I consider that an entirely spurious argument, and secondly that, if it is correct, what it suggests is that we have inadequate prosecuting authorities in this area, not that we should send people—effectively under a sub-contracting arrangement—to stand trial in the United States. If there is a perceived inadequacy in this area, the Government should be clear about it, and should ensure that our prosecution authorities and our laws on white-collar crime are as robust as those in the United States. We come back to the issue of parity. It has already been pointed out—but I shall do so again, because it is important—that what the Minister told us today is completely at odds with what was said by a Minister of State in the other place during the passage of the original order, and with what a House of Commons Minister, the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), said in this Chamber: namely, that there is now a lower requirement for the United States than there is for Britain. It is nonsense to say that there is rough parity when there is not—for all the reasons that we have already given—and that there is no difference between having to provide evidence and having to have it questioned in court, and not being subject to that requirement. I hope that that position will not be pursued. Let us be open and honest about it and acknowledge that a lower standard of proof is required, but say that it is in the best interests of the justice systems of the western world, even if it is not equivalent to that of the UK. The scope of the treaty is the next important issue. I find it astonishing that we should have had such a clear analysis from Ministers when we opposed the measure in the first instance. The hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) made the point, though he is no longer in his place. A relevant Minister said at the time:"““We do not have such a range of offences involving financial crime. The cases mentioned by the Financial Times—such as price fixing—would not apply. Dual criminality would have to exist.””—[Official Report, Third Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation, 15 December 2003; c. 26.]" What do we have now? We have a full case for extradition of a person from this country to the United States to stand trial for price fixing—for a crime that was not a crime under this jurisdiction at the time he may or may not have committed it. That is in direct contradiction of what the House was told when it was asked to support these measures in the first instance.