The mutual legal assistance convention was agreed in June 2000 after five years of negotiations and its entry into force requires ratification by 15 national parliaments. At yet, no parliament has formally ratified it but the procedure is being pushed ahead. On 16 November last, the permanent representatives of the four member states behind the proposal declared that the framework decision should correspond to that of the original article 13 of the MLA convention which would remove any limitation on the scope of the offences. That is a concern on my part. In light of his detailed knowledge of the workings of the Bill, will the Minister of State indicate if there is a limitation on the scope of the offences contained in the Bill? The phrase used in the MLA convention is "criminal offences that require difficult and demanding investigations having links with other member states". However, during the discussion on the drafting of this prior document – the mutual legal assistance convention – there was much confusion about its scope. The United Kingdom Home Office, in response to this kind of concern, clearly stated that the convention could, as described in the words of the 1959 convention, cover "any crime however minor". I am not sure if this is the situation in the Bill or if there is a limitation on the scope of offences. Whereas I agree with the Minister of State in terms of the kind of crime to which he referred in the early part of his contribution, I would be concerned if these relatively minor areas could be trawled, perhaps for the purpose of political harassment of figures in other member states.