The Minister has come part of the way towards us by acknowledging that there will be parliamentary scrutiny. I do not think that every regulation must go through the affirmative procedure, but any new forms relating to something as major and crucial to the liberty of the subject as extradition should be subject to it.

Having put the point on record, I will not divide the Committee on the clause. The Minister has reassured me to a certain extent, although I hope that he will at least consider what I have said. He has already undertaken to consider whether other provisions in the Bill should be subject to affirmative resolution, and I hope that he will add the clause to his list. He may find that in another place the Government will be looking for matters on which they can offer reassurance to show that they have listened to some of our arguments. Clause 199 could be one such matter.

I do not think that it will be a huge inconvenience, but we are talking about changing forms in relation to a matter of principle as important as extradition. We all know that cases often turn on the documentation, so it is important. I am sure that the Minister, like me, will have seen plenty of cases involving extradition to the Republic of Ireland. When I practised at the Bar, I used to work on such cases, which involved special branch officers sitting at the back of the court. Many cases fell apart because Governments of both parties—I am not making a party political point—failed to provide the Irish courts with proper documentation. As the Minister acknowledges, documentation is important in extradition, so its form is crucial.

I am not making a silly point. There are good reasons why any change in the forms under a general order-making power for the Secretary of State should be considered in Parliament. With the best will in the world and however carefully Home Office officials try to draft something, they might miss a certain point, so the forms should come before Parliament for proper scrutiny. Parliament has many Members of both parties who have served as Northern Ireland Ministers, and they might be able to suggest changes based on what went wrong before. That is just one example. Cases of extradition to other countries will undoubtedly have gone wrong under pre-existing law because of documentation problems.

The point should be considered. I will not divide the Committee, but I hope that the Government will consider it seriously instead of just batting away our objections.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 199 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 200 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule agreed to.