Michael Fabricant
Main Page: Michael Fabricant (Conservative - Lichfield)Department Debates - View all Michael Fabricant's debates with the Home Office
(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
On the first point, the hon. Lady will know that it has been the policy of numerous successive Governments not to publish legal advice. On the second point, the Prime Minister was aware of the decision. The decision was made between the Home Office and the Foreign Office, and she agrees.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
I remind my right hon. Friend that the United States shares English law with us. A particularly ridiculous point was made by the SNP spokesman, the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), when she mentioned Saudi Arabia, which patently does not. I also tell the House that there are widespread reports in the press that these people were responsible for beheading 27 western hostages with a serrated knife. If the evidence is not available in the United Kingdom but is available in the United States, I tell my right hon. Friend that it is absolutely right that they be tried there, because the last thing we want is these people being tried here, and then, through a lack of evidence, being found innocent and allowed to roam free in this country.
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. At the end of the day, this is about the security of our country and about justice being delivered where that can be done. For all the stories about the United States of America, it has a robust judicial system, a lot of which is based on English law, and for that reason we should not fear that sharing evidence with the United States is somehow comparable with sharing it with some other states that have been mentioned, or indeed that justice will not be done and that these people will not be given a fair trial if a trial is to happen. That is why I have said repeatedly from the Dispatch Box that I cannot comment in too much detail about these individuals.