That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Crime (International Co-operation) Act 2003 (Designation of Participating Countries) (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Order 2009.

Relevant document: 15th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

The Crime (International Co-operation) Act 2003 streamlined and modernised the United Kingdom’s mutual legal assistance relations with the rest of the world. Today, in an effort to further improve international co-operation, we are seeking to designate Switzerland, Iceland and Norway for the purpose of various sections of that Act.

The order reflects the fact that the European Union has concluded two agreements with other states: on 26 October 2004, a co-operation agreement against fraud was signed between Switzerland and the European Union, and on 19 December 2003, the European Union concluded an agreement with Norway and Iceland allowing them to accede to certain articles of the 2001 mutual legal assistance convention and its protocol.

As a result, it is now necessary for the United Kingdom to designate these countries as participating countries for certain sections of the Crime (International Co-operation) Act 2003. Designation of the three countries for the purpose of Sections 32, 35 and 43 to 45 of that Act will allow for requests for locating bank accounts and providing banking information relating to criminal investigations to be executed in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and for such requests to be made to Norway, Iceland or Switzerland by the United Kingdom.

Norway and Iceland will also be designated under Sections 31, 47, 48 and Paragraph 15 of Schedule 2 to the Crime (International Co-operation) Act. This will allow the United Kingdom to execute requests for witnesses to be heard by telephone in criminal proceedings and allow for prisoners in the requesting country to be temporarily transferred to the requested country to help with domestic investigations.

Paragraph 4.8 of the Explanatory Memorandum states:

“This is subject to the consent of the prisoner”.

Does my noble friend know how often such travel occurs? Will he be able to answer that question later in the debate?

I cannot answer it right away, but I am sure that my team will look at that and I am sure that I will be able to do exactly as my noble friend asks.

We also propose to designate Switzerland under Sections 4 and 4B of the Act in order that process documents should be sent directly from the United Kingdom to the individuals affected. The United Kingdom is determined that criminals will not escape justice simply because the evidence required is located overseas, and equally determined to improve the United Kingdom’s ability to achieve justice for British victims of serious crime. Accordingly, I commend the order to the Committee.

I thank the Minister for his explanation of the order. As always, I had some problems with the drafting of the statutory instrument and started trying to use what I think are called Venn diagrams to indicate which bits applied to Iceland and Norway, which bits applied to Switzerland and which bits applied to both. I then tried to make use of the Explanatory Memorandum, which is, despite improvements in Explanatory Memoranda over the years, not as clear as it could be.

However, I offer a deep expression of thanks to the Minister for making it clear in his speech, so that my Venn diagrams became unnecessary and I think I now know exactly which bits apply to which countries: that is, that telephone evidence can be taken in relation to Iceland and Norway, but that does not seem to apply to Switzerland; whereas in Switzerland, there is a process relating to documents under Section 4B. When he comes to wind up the debate, perhaps the Minister can explain why there should be a difference between Iceland and Norway on the one hand and Switzerland on the other. Other than that, I thank him for his explanation; I have no further questions.

The Minister will know that we have particular problems with Swiss banks and their secrecy laws. Those Swiss banks have in the past failed to co-operate with requests for information made to them. I would like to know whether the protocol which has now been entered into, and which is envisaged in this order, means that the Swiss banks are likely to be more co-operative. I recall that in the BAE investigation it was the desire of the Serious Fraud Office to obtain details of accounts from Swiss banks that really caused the whole thing to blow up. One hopes that this agreement will make the procedures a great deal simpler than has been the case in the past.

As for the Norway and Iceland agreement, all we can say is that the Iceland banks have enough problems on their plates and it may not be too difficult to obtain information from them. However, I respectfully suggest to the Minister that a major hindrance to dealing with international crime is bank secrecy, whether it is in the European countries which are the subject matter of these orders or in offshore banks where money can be laundered and can disappear for ever. The assistance of the noble Lord in these areas would be very acceptable. I am grateful to him for proposing the order, to which we have no objection.

I thank noble Lords for their various comments and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Henley, for his kind words about my exposition at the beginning of the debate. I had to get that spelt out to me by the team because I was a bit confused myself, so I am glad that it was useful. I appreciate the views expressed.

I shall run through various points. As regards the consent of the prisoner, I am unaware of the exact total. The team is not aware of that but we will write on that specific point. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, asked why different countries are designated for different sections. This reflects the terms of the international agreements to which the order gives effect. I hope that that is a good enough answer. If it is not, I am very happy to explain more expansively in writing, if that would help.

The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, was absolutely right about banking in Switzerland. As I understand what we are doing now, under the terms of the agreement between the European Union and Switzerland, Switzerland has agreed to provide such evidence. We think there is no reason to believe that it will not fulfil its obligations under that agreement. We will have to watch very closely and see that that happens. I agree entirely that this has not always presented a very good picture in the past and that it has been an area of great difficulty. As regards BAE, I will not speak on an individual case but I know the sensitivities and issues that surround that. However, as I say, I will not talk about an individual case today.

One thing I did not mention, which I think I probably should have talked about, is Scotland. Scotland brings forward its own secondary legislation, and has done so. It is being debated and should pass into law. Then the whole of the United Kingdom will move forward from there.

I think that that covers the points raised. I believe that this order is necessary to allow the United Kingdom to continue to fulfil its international obligations and ensure that we can successfully prosecute international crime and achieve justice for British victims of such crime. As such, it is a good thing to happen. I commend the order to the House.