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Baroness Neuberger: My Lords, why, then, does the Parliamentary Ombudsman's own research show that those particular groupings find it more difficult to access their MPs?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, perhaps the research does show that. However, my point is that most people find MPs quite useful and, when they approach them, they find them able to access the ombudsman service. There is a degree of mystique about the way in which ombudsmen work and that may be one of the issues on which we should focus.
When I first came across the service, I thought that it was rather remote and centralised, whereas at least the MP is local and reasonably accessible and can be made use of in processing the complaint or difficulty. Other Members of your Lordships' House have given rather good voice to that and suggested that the access for MPs is valued. I have listened with great care to what my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said because he, in particular, is a very active user of complaints to focus on political issues. I am sure that we can all think of many examples from our wider political experience.
The noble Lord, Lord Cope, also gave useful examples of the helpful role of Members of Parliament. When he was a Member of Parliament, I know that he was very busy, active, helpful and assiduous. We should be looking at ways of further enhancing and developing that role. I am one of those who thinks that the resources that MPs now have to do that work are very valuable. Ultimately, they probably help improve the quality of public service, because that is where we want to direct our efforts. I am sure that that is the spirit in which the noble Lord, Lord Lester, has brought forward his Bill. But at the end of the day, it is a not a Bill that we feel able to support.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this brief but very important debate. Your Lordships come from a very wide range of backgrounds, but all those who have spoken have direct experience of public life in many different forms. I do not think the noble Lord,
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Lord Cope, will mind my saying, as a lawyer to an accountant—and even accountants can be high-minded, as well as lawyers—that I found his contribution equivocal and ambiguous. The Minister was correct in saying that he did not really understand the Official Opposition's position. I find their position very strange, since you would have thought that the Official Opposition, at least, would want to stop the Government being able to shield themselves unnecessarily from complaints of maladministration, but there it is.
Lord Cope of Berkeley: My Lords, the noble Lord may not have appreciated the fact that we do not anticipate being in opposition for very long.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I do not share that anticipation. That is an example of hope and faith over practical experience.
I shall not go through the various speeches, but I should like to make one or two points. No one suggests that the role of the MP is not absolutely crucial. No one suggests that MPs should not be closely involved in the work of the PCA and copied into complaints that are made, whether directly or through an MP. No one suggests that our MPs should not retain very close links with their constituents.
However, the Minister has failed to deal with the evidence and arguments that have been given in this debate and beyond. There is no evidence I am aware of from other parliamentary democracies, including New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Ireland—and Hong Kong, as a sort of parliamentary democracy, on the road to being a better one—that the MPs in those jurisdictions are bypassed in a way that damages their relationship with their constituents. There is no evidence that any ombudsperson in any jurisdiction complains of overload as a result of direct access. The evidence that we have from the incomplete survey of Members of the other place is that, in the 27 years since the noble Lord, Lord Cope, was concerned directly with the matter, attitudes have changed. No doubt, the overload of MPs has made them perhaps more sympathetic to the idea of giving the public direct access.
Of all the ideas that were expressed in the debate, the one that intrigued me most was that put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Cope, although he did not put it forward with great enthusiasm. It was the idea of the halfway house. If the Bill is given a Second Reading, it could be amended, by way of a compromise, so that—to recall the point of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern—one would retain the filter in the real sense, and one would still have to go to one's MP for, let us say, four weeks, or whatever reasonable time was decided. Then, if the MP had not dealt with the matter, simply through inaction or a refusal to refer it, the individual would then have the right, having exhausted that MP remedy, to take the complaint directly. That would be a way of ensuring that the concern of MPs to remain kept in the loop would be addressed. But that matter could be dealt with in Committee. If the noble Lord, Lord Cope, or
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any other Member of the House, wished to put down an amendment to that effect, I certainly would be sympathetic to it.
We have heard that the Government are not willing to legislate at all. If that is the case, the filter will remain. It cannot be dealt with administratively. The filter will remain as an absolute bar. If the Government are not willing to legislate at all, what are we to do? I suggest that we should take the Bill through its stages—and, if necessary, amend it—as a catalyst to enable the other House to decide the matter as it should. For those reasons, I hope that this Bill will be read a second time.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
Child Benefit Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and ordered to be printed.
Extradition Act 2003 (Amendment to Designations) Order 2005
Lord Bassam of Brighton rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 13 January be approved [6th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I can be brief, as I believe that the order does not contain anything particularly difficult or contentious. The Extradition Act 2003 received Royal Assent on 20 November 2003. It underwent intense scrutiny in your Lordships' House and in another place, and I hope that we can avoid going over the arguments of principle today.
We are concerned here with the further secondary legislation required to amend the Extradition Act 2003 (Designation of Part 1 Territories) Order 2003 and Extradition Act 2003 (Designation of Part 2 Territories) Order 2003. This is in order to include additional member states that did not implement the framework decision on the European arrest warrant when it first came into force, but which have now done so.
The order thus amends the order that designated those member states as category 2 countries and re-designates them as category 1 countries. Only then can we act on European arrest warrants received from those countries. As your Lordships can see, the order mentions only five countries, rather than the six that might be expected. The five countries have confirmed that they have now implemented the necessary legislation to allow them to operate the European arrest warrant.
The only member state yet to implement the framework decision is Italy. I understand that its domestic legislation is still going through its parliamentary process and that it is, at present, unable to confirm when that process might be completed.
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As noble Lords can see, the order contains all the remaining countries that acceded to the EU in May last year. There have been concerns in various quarters that those new member states may not have judicial systems that can support the simplified extradition procedure. There is no evidence to support such concerns. All the new member states are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, and we have had extradition relations with them under the European Convention on Extradition. In any event, the European Commission has provided for a three-year transitional period in which it can suspend the operation of the framework decision in any of those states.
The United Kingdom has been operating the European arrest warrant since 1 January 2004, and I am pleased to be able to report that the new procedure is working well. Between the introduction of the European arrest warrant procedure in January last year and the end of January this year, 49 people have been arrested in the UK on European arrest warrants issued by other member states, and 32 people have been arrested on European arrest warrants issued by the United Kingdom. We have surrendered 25 requested people to other member states, and 22 people have been returned to the UK under the new procedure.
On average, subjects of straightforward EAW requests are extradited just over one month after the receipt of the EAW. For example, a person wanted in relation to drug-trafficking offences that included the trafficking of over 120 kilos of synthetic drugs was surrendered to the Netherlands only 13 days after the receipt of a Dutch European arrest warrant. We are also getting people returned to the UK in record time. An individual who failed to appear at Crown Court in October last year was returned in December, only 15 days after their arrest in Spain. It was an important case. The individual was wanted to face charges of conspiracy to supply controlled drugs; failure to surrender to custody; breach of a previous court order; threats to kill; and two offences of affray. He was found guilty in his absence and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. A warrant for his arrest was issued by the judge who sentenced him on 15 October. Inquiries to trace the subject resulted in the issue of the European arrest warrant, and he was arrested in Spain on 17 November and extradited to the United Kingdom on 2 December 2004. That illustrates, as, I think, noble Lords will agree, that the EAW is proving to be a valuable tool in ensuring that fugitives do not evade justice.
Concerns have properly been raised about the rights of fugitives who are the subject of an EAW. I would like to point out that our courts are not simply rubber-stamping warrants issued by other member states and surrendering individuals to those states without offering them proper safeguards. To date, six EAWs have been refused by the courts. The reasons for refusal have varied, but they included concerns that insufficient information was contained in the warrant or that the conduct listed in the warrant did not meet
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the definition of an extradition offence under our national law—the Extradition Act 2003—and reasons of double jeopardy.
I have spoken at length about the chief purpose of the order and will now offer a brief explanation of the remainder of its contents. The order adds a provision designating the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, to reflect the terms of the Agreement between the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for the Surrender of Fugitive Offenders. That means that any request for provisional arrest of a fugitive made by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region does not have to include prima facie evidence. That is in line with the provisions in the agreement relating to provisional arrest. However, prima facie evidence must be provided before extradition can go ahead, and the time limit for the receipt of papers from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region following any provisional arrest will be 60 days.
The order also amends the original order to apply the relevant time limits for Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico. It corrects the existing time limits for Chile, Panama and Uruguay in relation to provisional arrest requests in the earlier order. These relate to the time limit within which relevant documents must be received by the judge when a person is arrested under a provisional warrant and were erroneously listed in the original order. The time limits are derived from the bilateral treaties between the United Kingdom and those states.
I invite your Lordships to approve the order. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 13 January be approved [6th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)
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