Police and Justice Bill

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point. It is also worth observing that in the case of French citizens and the European arrest warrant, they will still have the convention protections, which do not apply in the case of the US. The hon. Gentleman also highlighted the problem with forum, which I have noticed as a member of both the English Bar and the Irish Bar. In Ireland, the very existence of the forum provision enables one to deal with a situation in which one has to deal not only with offences that may not have existed in law in the state from which extradition is sought, but with massive disparities in sentence. For example, someone might be chargeable with an offence that in Ireland or the UK carries a maximum punishment of five years, but is extradited—under a slightly stretched analogy—to the US, where it is punishable by 25 years imprisonment. The forum provision provides some safeguard that is not present in the Government’s proposals.