Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, I thank all those who have participated in this debate. I thank particularly warmly my noble friends Lord Richard, Lord Anderson and Lord Morgan, and my noble and learned friend Lord Boyd. I also note with the greatest warmth the comments made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd. My noble and learned friend Lord Boyd explained very clearly why the amendments tabled by the noble Lords opposite would cause huge difficulty for and damage to this country and, indeed, to our ability to prosecute. I accept all the comments made in support of the Motion, and I shall not repeat them, except to say that crime has now become truly international. It is no respecter of frontiers or borders, which is why we have striven in most recent years to find ways in which we can work in comity to ensure that those who commit offences internationally do not escape justice. I am sure that noble Lords opposite do not propose that someone should avoid the consequences of their actions simply because they can escape from these shores, commit offences and come home again. The offences that we seek to cover in this treaty are weighty indeed. It may assist the House if I run through the sorts of cases involving extradition to the United States in 2005-06 that we have covered in the treaty. They include indecent assault, two cases of theft, nine cases involving drugs, child abduction, grievous bodily harm, fraud, murder, child pornography, forgery, rape and money laundering. Those are the extraditions from the United States. The extraditions from the United States to the United Kingdom in 2005-06 were for drugs offences, burglary, child abduction, forgery, manslaughter, murder and deception. We are talking not about minor offences, but about enabling our countries to work together in unison to bring about justice for victims. I listened carefully to the noble Lords, Lord Kingsland and Lord Goodhart. I confess that I wondered whether real consideration was being given to what we as a country would lose if we passed these amendments and how our citizens would be thereby ill-served.