The Conservative amendment No. 32 would require the Secretary of State rather than the judge to evaluate the worthiness of the undertakings given by the requesting state that, if the person was extradited, the death penalty would not be imposed or carried out.

It is unlikely that the clause will ever be used, because no EU state currently operates the death penalty, and, as I have said repeatedly, the Government have no plans to add any non-EU countries to category 1 other than Iceland and Norway, because of the special arrangements that those countries have with the EU.