NatWest 3 - Lib Dem MPs secure emergency parliamentary debate

9.56.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 13th Jul 2006

The Liberal Democrats secured an emergency debate in the House of Commons on the controversial one-sided UK/US extradition treaty. At the initiative of chief whip Paul Burstow, the Party's Shadow Home Secretary Nick Clegg raised the issue under the little-used Standing Order 24, which allows a short speech to request a debate on "an important matter that requires specific and urgent consideration". The Speaker's decision to grant the debate was the first time one has been approved since the debate on Afghanistan in March 2002.

Here is an edited version of Nick Clegg's speech:

Nick Clegg MP on the extradition of the NatWest 3: "It is the tip of the iceberg, and it has highlighted a wider problem"

Nick Clegg MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary

Emergency Debate on UK/US Extradition Treaty

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing this debate to be held on a matter of tremendous seriousness and urgency. We are all aware that tomorrow morning, three British citizens are to be extradited to the United States on the basis of an unfair, imbalanced treaty that the Government negotiated in secret and to which they devoted the most cursory parliamentary scrutiny imaginable. Although it is too late to alter the fate of the so-called NatWest three, except in terms of pressing for bail, in which we support any efforts that the Government are able to make, it is not too late to abandon that treaty, which is not yet in force in international law, but which we have chosen, inexplicably, to implement unilaterally.

We on the Liberal Democrat Benches have objected to the extradition arrangements with the USA ever since the text of the new treaty was published in May 2003. We spoke and voted against the orders implementing our end of the treaty in December 2003. We have tabled a Bill in the House to restore the need for prima facie evidence to be provided by US authorities when requesting extradition. We have supported in another place amendments to the Police and Justice Bill that would suspend our implementation of the treaty. The purpose of those parliamentary initiatives has been to prevent serious injustice for those who face extradition to the USA or may do so in future-injustice because the extradition treaty and its enactment through the Extradition Act 2003 is manifestly unfair to British citizens.

In recent days, the Government have claimed in strong terms that the treaty is reciprocal-a claim repeated by the Prime Minister today. They say that the arrangements with the United States are, despite all appearances, reciprocal and equivalent. The Government cannot have it both ways. The treaty does, place different evidential burdens on the two parties. Either it is not reciprocal, as Ministers have repeatedly confirmed for months, or-miraculously-it is now reciprocal, in accordance with the Prime Minister's pronouncements last week and today.

To return to the NatWest three, that case is not the be-all and end-all of this debate. It is the tip of the iceberg, and it has highlighted a wider problem-the Government signed a lopsided treaty that short-changes the interests of British citizens and people under our judicial protection. It may be the case, as the Prime Minister suggested today, that the extradited individuals could have been extradited under the terms of the 1972 treaty. It is perfectly possible that in initiating extradition proceedings against the NatWest three, the US authorities presented sufficient evidence to meet the higher hurdles under the 1972 treaty. The point is that we do not know, because under the new provisions, there is no cross-questioning or examination of the substantive evidence that they present. Much more importantly, they are not required to present the amount of evidence that could have been presented in the case of the NatWest three-a non-requirement that will apply to all future cases.

The courts in Houston, Texas must determine bail terms-they are notoriously stringent-but, of course, we welcome any measures by the Government to facilitate the granting of bail to those three individuals.

The Government have got themselves into that sticky situation by eagerly enforcing our obligations under the treaty and failing to exert, until very late in the day, meaningful political pressure on the United States to do likewise. There is no excuse, however, for the mess in which we find ourselves. The Government repeatedly argue that, because we do not demand prima facie evidence from Council of Europe countries-Albania and Azerbaijan are the most salubrious examples in the long list of countries cited by the Government-we should not demand it from the US. Broadly, because the US is a "mature democracy" we should not have any qualms about extraditing British citizens there.

I should like to make three quick observations. First, as I mentioned, we have reciprocal agreements with those countries, but none of the arrangements have such wildly differing evidential burdens. Hence our support for the European arrest warrant which, as I said, is based on symmetry between the parties that entered into it, and is reciprocal between nations. The US-UK agreement, by contrast, is unique in its lopsided provisions. Secondly, Council of Europe countries are all signatories of the European convention on human rights, which is not binding on the United States. Any contravention of the ECHR by a Council of Europe state subsequent to extradition can be reviewed by the European Court of Human Rights, but such judicial review is not available to individuals extradited to the United States.'

I want to refer to scale. The United States is by a long way our largest extradition partner. There are between 15 and 20 ongoing requests for extradition from the United States to the United Kingdom, and in 2005 13 people were extradited to the US-the highest number in five years and more than double the figure in 2003, just before the provisions of the bilateral treaty came into effect.

Given the sheer number of requests made by the US compared to other countries, and the fact that the US has increasing ambitions for extra-territorial prosecutions, it is vital that the treaty is fair to the British people. But events have already proved without doubt that it is not. Surely questions must be asked when Ian Norris, a former chief executive of Morgan Crucible, can be extradited for price-fixing, even though during the period he was alleged to have committed the offence it was not a criminal offence in the UK.'

It is more than three years since the Government signed the extradition treaty with the United States, two and half years since the secondary legislation introducing that treaty was passed and less than 24 hours before the high-profile individuals who have brought such attention to the treaty will leave the country for a Texan jail. We should have debated the treaty years ago, but we did not have the chance, thanks to the Government's continued disregard for the opinions of the House.

The treaty was negotiated in secret, signed by royal prerogative and announced merely in a written statement, offering the House no chance to question the Home Secretary on the wisdom of his actions. The text of the treaty was published two months later on 21 May 2003, as I mentioned earlier, the day before the Whitsun recess, thus reducing the chances of parliamentary scrutiny. The Extradition Act was piloted through the House by a junior Minister, with the Home Secretary making no comment on its progress. The secondary legislation was passed in a Committee that sat for barely 90 minutes.

Until the case started making daily headlines, the Government had made no attempt to persuade the United States to keep its end of the bargain and ratify the treaty; indeed, we know that as recently as March, during the US Secretary of State's last visit to the UK, the Foreign Secretary did not even mention the issue. And the Government had to be forced, by Mr. Speaker's decision, to come to the House today to hear this debate.

Much emphasis has been put on the Senate's failure to ratify the treaty. Surely, we should be asking why we have no ratification process in this country similar to that enjoyed by the US Senate. Why is there no proper parliamentary scrutiny, and no written constitution to protect us from the Government's willingness to hand away vital legal protections?

It is six years since the Wakeham Commission on Lords reform proposed proper parliamentary scrutiny of treaties in Parliament. The Government must take action. First, they should recognise the force of opinion among the public and in another place-where the Police and Justice Bill has been amended to repeal our part of the treaty-and revoke the 2003 order immediately so far as it applies to the USA. Next, the Government should renegotiate the 2003 treaty to make the extradition test reciprocal. Finally, they must introduce proper parliamentary scrutiny of treaties, and amend the royal prerogative so that international agreements can no longer be entered into without meaningful reference to the House.