Police and Justice Bill

The Home Secretary began his speech with some unusual, but none the less disarming, honesty when he told us that the amendments that he had tabled in lieu, both in relation to designation of the US and to forum, were utterly meaningless. He does not mean a word of them. They are merely devices. I hope that the House will judge the Home Secretary and his arguments through that filter. We are not here to be abused in that way. We are not here to allow the Executive to ride roughshod over the rights of the House of Commons, still less to ignore the advice of the other place. I found the Home Secretary’s speech breathtaking in its use of Aunt Sallies that have nothing to do with the guts of the treaty or the Bill. He produced a load of utterly irrelevant arguments that had nothing to do with anything other than Labour party propaganda. It was also a nasty and sinister speech—unsurprisingly—underneath which lay an invidious threat that had nothing to do with the duties of Members of Parliament. The Home Secretary said that unless Members did as he advised and kowtowed to the Executive, and unless they agreed to what the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) did secretly in March 2003, they would be allowing paedophiles to go free. I have heard some revolting arguments in my time, but that just about takes the biscuit—