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Standing Committee A
Tuesday 10 June 2003
(Morning)
[Mr. Joe Benton in the Chair]
9.10 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Bob Ainsworth): I beg to move,
That—
(1) during proceedings on the Crime (International Co-operation) Bill [Lords] the Standing Committee shall meet when the House is sitting on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9.10 am and 2.30 p.m.;
(2) the proceedings shall be taken in the following order, namely Clauses 1 to 15, Schedule 1, Clauses 16 to 31, Schedule 2, new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Chapters 1 to 3 of Part 1, Clauses 32 to 51, remaining new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 1, Clauses 52 and 53, new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 2, Clause 54, Schedule 3, Clauses 55 to 79, new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 3, Clauses 80 to 89, Schedule 4, Clause 90, Schedules 5 and 6, Clauses 91 to 95, remaining new Clauses and new Schedules, remaining proceedings;
(3) the proceedings on Clauses 1 to 15, Schedule 1, Clauses 16 to 31, Schedule 2 and new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Chapters 1 to 3 of Part 1 shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.15 pm on Thursday 12th June;
(4) the proceedings on Clauses 32 to 51, remaining new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 1, Clauses 52 and 53, new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 2, Clause 54, Schedule 3, Clauses 55 to 79 and new Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 3 shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 6.55 pm on Tuesday 17th June;
(5) the remaining proceedings on the Bill shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.15 pm on Thursday 19th June.
I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Benton, and members of the Committee to our proceedings. I understand that there have been extensive discussions between all three parties. I am not sure whether the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) was included in them, but I hope that she will go along with the consensus that has been reached about how we divide our time to enable us properly to scrutinise the Bill. I wish to repeat the assurance given to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East (Mr. Heppell) that, if we have difficulty about how time has been allocated, we will consider appropriate changes to be made to accommodate the Committee and give it the maximum ability to scrutinise the Bill.
Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire): I repeat the Minister's welcome to you, Mr. Benton, and members of the Committee to what will be fairly short, but no doubt sharp, proceedings. I welcome the Minister back to his accustomed place in Committee, when debating other Bills. We have no criticism to make of the motion. As the hon. Gentleman said, it has been the subject of discussion. We are happy with it. There are only two knives in it, so there is scope for variation in our progress as long as we meet the criteria.
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I welcome the Minister's commitment to a review, if that were necessary. However, I am sure that we can proceed with the Bill. It will not be the most exciting measure that we have debated, but I am sure that members of the Committee will do their best to make up for what the Bill lacks in excitement. A few issues will certainly give rise to contention. We shall endeavour to make them as contentious as possible so that members of the Committee will not think that their time has been wasted. We are happy with the motion, and I suggest that we proceed with the Bill.
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome): I, too, welcome you to the Committee, Mr. Benton. For those of us who are involved regularly in the legislative incontinence of the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor's Department, it is nice to be back in the Room, albeit for a slightly briefer time than that we spent considering the Criminal Justice Bill, in which so many of us were involved.
I am also content with the programming motion. We have had the benefit of constructive discussions. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Nottingham, East, whom I fear that I constantly embarrass by saying how co-operative he is in such matters. He did a good job of ensuring that we had as good a run at the Criminal Justice Bill as was possible within the confines of a restricted timetable. I am confident that he will take the same action on this Bill.
We have serious matters to discuss about the English and Welsh jurisdictions as well in the Scottish jurisdiction. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) is a member of the Committee. He knows about Scots law, as a result of which he is potentially unique in Committee. I hope that he will be listened to, especially in respect of Scottish matters. It is now best to proceed with the Bill with due dispatch.
Question put and agreed to.
The Chairman: I remind hon. Members that adequate notice should be given of amendments. As a general rule, my co-Chairman and I do not intend to call starred amendments, including any that may be reached during an afternoon sitting of the Committee. I also remind members of the Committee to switch off their mobile phones. Clause 1
Service of overseas process
Mr. Paice: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment No. 116, in
Amendment No. 126, in
clause 13, page 8, line 25, leave out
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Amendment No. 127, in
Amendment No. 128, in
Amendment No. 129, in
clause 51, page 31, line 9, at end insert—
'(5) In this part, a reciprocating country is a country other than the United Kingdom which has, at the time a request is received, implemented the provisions of:
(a) the Schengen Convention;
(b) the Mutual Legal Assistance Convention; and
(c) the 2001 Protocol.'.
9.15 am
Mr. Paice: I commence by craving your indulgence, Mr. Benton, in my introduction of the amendment. It is of an exploratory nature, but it tries to get to the heart of what this chapter of the Bill, and in particular clause 1, is about.
The amendment proposes leaving out the reference to
''a country outside the United Kingdom''
and restricting the provision to a ''participating country''. It is worth pointing out to the Committee, as I am sure that the Minister would do if I did not, that a similar debate was held in the other place when the Bill started its parliamentary process.
We need to go back to the Criminal Justice (International Co-operation) Act 1990. Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill replicate section 1(1) and (2) of that Act. There is a minor alteration in the definition of process under clause 1, but the provisions mainly replicate each other, which raises the question as to their purpose in the Bill.
Since 1990, we have had the Schengen convention and the Government's accession to parts of it. Other colleagues may be tempted to go further down that road, but the fact is that the United Kingdom has acceded to some aspects of it. We have also had the mutual legal assistance convention in criminal matters 2000, which introduced different procedures. Therefore, we can understand to a degree why it is necessary to embellish the reference to procedures and process in the Bill, but I am at a loss to know why we need to replicate the whole of the first part of the 1990 Act.
Although the genesis of the Bill seems to be the Schengen convention and the mutual legal assistance convention, there does not seem to be any reference to it in clause 1. When the Bill was debated in the other place, it was suggested by Lord Filkin on behalf of the Government that if we were to restrict it as we propose in the amendment to a ''participating country'', it would mean that any country that was not participating could serve process directly on any
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British citizen in this country. However, nothing in clause 1 will prevent that from happening anyway.
Clause 1 repeatedly sets up the same mechanism that has previously existed for an overseas country to serve a process on a British citizen, or someone resident in this country, via the Home Office. However, nothing in the Bill makes such a measure exclusive and states that it must be served through the Home Office. The example given in the other place was the situation of Zimbabwe. We will not go into the rights and wrongs of what is taking place there, but there is concern about the impartiality of its judicial process. It was suggested that a Zimbabwean process could be served on someone in this country without going through the Home Secretary. If the Government's argument is, once again, as it was in the other place, that Zimbabwe is not a participating country in either of the conventions to which I have referred, and that we should not have the words of our amendment in the Bill, it is not correct. The clause does not make it necessary for another country, whether that is Zimbabwe or anywhere else, to go through the Home Office. It is possible for it to do so, but it does not mean that it must. Therefore, even with the present phrasing, including the words
''a country outside the United Kingdom'',
it is still possible for another country, in whose judicial process we may have less faith, to serve a process or document directly without going through the Home Office. The role of the Home Office is not automatic, although as I understand it, that is available under the clause. I do not follow the argument that the wording should be left as open as it currently is.
The amendment would insert the words, ''a participating country'' to try to narrow the scope to include the countries involved in the Schengen agreement and the convention, which are supposed to be the genesis of this part of the Bill; it is all about improving international co-operation through those conventions. We are at risk of confusing two conventions, parts of which Britain has signed up to, with the whole of the international judicial process in different countries with which we have no conventions or mutual understandings. That is confusing. All we are doing is repeating in law something that was made law 13 years ago, before either of the conventions was enacted.
Before the Liberal Democrats speak to their amendments in the group, I shall mention discretion. There was an argument during the debate in the other place about a country such as Zimbabwe, or any other country whose judicial system we may have reservations about. Lord Filkin said:
''Clause 1(3) is not an obligatory provision. It contains the word 'may'. It always remains open to the Secretary of State to decline to comply with a request.''—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 January 2003; Vol. 643, c. GC4.]
In other words, to continue with the same example, if Zimbabwe were to say to the British Home Secretary, ''Will you serve this process or document on somebody who is resident in the United Kingdom?'', the Home Secretary could say no. However, the helpful explanatory notes do not say that; they clearly say:
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''Subsection (3) replaces section 1(2) of the 1990 Act, giving the Secretary of State . . . discretion as to how to serve the document—
it may be served by post, or the chief officer of police in the relevant area may be directed to serve it personally where this is required.''
The explanatory notes do not mention discretion about whether to serve. Clause (1)(3) states:
''The Secretary of State may cause the process or document to be served by post or . . . direct the chief officer of police . . . to cause it to be personally served''.
It appears that he does not have any discretion about whether to have it served.
The arguments advanced by the Government in the other place fall completely. The Bill means that the Home Secretary cannot say suddenly that he will not serve a process because he does not think much of a particular Government or court that began the procedure. I contend that he does not have that discretion in law, and that he can decide how, but not whether, something is served. Therefore, the argument that any country with which we do not have a mutual agreement must go through the Home Office, which must then use its discretion, falls. That is why we have tabled an amendment to narrow the focus of the clause from a
''country outside the United Kingdom''
to a ''participating country''—in other words, a country with which we have the agreements to which I referred. That would create clearer legislation. As I have tried to explain, the arguments advanced in the other place to refute that do not stand up.
As I said in my opening remarks, the amendment is exploratory. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, and I hope that he will not merely repeat what his colleague said in the other place, as after studying that carefully I do not believe it to be valid. I look forward to his comments, because this matter is central to the chapter of the Bill entitled ''Mutual Service of Process Etc.''
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