Corruption Bill [HL]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the sensible words of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, in also calling for an urgent reaction by the Government to these matters. In this debate there are noble Lords representing different parts of the House but only one Conservative. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, who is not in his place but was here briefly at the beginning, positively welcomed the Attorney-General’s announcement to abandon the SFO investigation into the arms deal with Saudi Arabia. That makes me proud of the remarks of my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford on the Front Bench, which were in total contrast to the reaction of the Conservatives in this House. I am sorry to have to say this, but the stench of that abandonment of the investigation still lingers over the MoD, the Government, No. 10 and the Attorney-General’s Office. People will not easily and lightly forget what happened on that dark day for this country. The reasons given for it are totally unconvincing. The Government need to return to the matter and give us further answers. That is not the direct subject of the Bill, although it is an important background component. I, too, add my warmest thanks to my colleague and noble friend Lord Chidgey for being the inspiration behind the Bill. I heartily endorse the idea of the Bill enthusiastically receiving a Second Reading. My noble friend has done a great deal of work on this. His background in industry and engineering, combined with many years spent in other countries representing legitimate British corporate interests—and very respectable ones at that—has given him unrivalled experience in these matters. His co-operation and work with Transparency International have been second to none in producing what I regard—although I am not a legal expert on these matters, so I am guessing some of it—as an extremely well balanced Bill. The Government should encourage it and proceed with it from today. I do not intend to go into very great detail on the Bill’s contents, except to say that I strongly agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Neill, said about facilitation payments. That needs to be clarified and worked properly in the subsequent stages of the Bill. I hope that the Bill will go into Committee as soon as possible so that these matters can be dealt with. I turn to the sad events of 14 December and the subsequent comments of the OECD in March this year. We need to return to the contradiction expressed by the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General that definitely no aspect of economic interest—or national interest in that sense—was involved and that those factors were definitely not taken into account in the judgment. The Government’s answers on these points are very unconvincing. I was reflecting on that when my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford said: "““I protest that the public interest in the prosecution of international corruption is of the highest order and, if we permit international corruption to continue in any way, or seem in any way to be giving a go-ahead to a large British industry, however much that may be in the economic interests of this country, we are damaging international relations in the broadest sense””.—[Official Report, 14/12/06; col. 1713.]" That matter must be returned to. We now have the impending visit of the OECD investigation team. I am not sure whether a date has been set; perhaps the Government can give us an answer. In its statement on 14 March it was extremely critical of the Government’s position: the failure to keep up with other countries in the international convention and the agreement, which has been signed and ratified by so many countries. We have fallen behind in our obligations. On 1 February I said—forgive me for repeating it: "““Corruption of any kind—even the thorny problem of finding a definition of it that will stand up to searching analysis—is a hard item for parliamentarians to deal with””.—[Official Report, 1/2/07; col. 364.]" I made my maiden speech in this House on 16 July 2004 and reflected on the enormous Joint Committee report, which we all remember, and the Government’s poor and disappointing response to it—although they are entitled to make a number of technical points, which some would regard as very valid. So much time has now elapsed that it is really high time that the Government made rapid progress. In summer 2003 the Government rejected most of the Joint Committee’s recommendations but insisted on keeping the agent/principal formula. That very important matter also needs to be gone into profoundly in Committee. The government response stated that, "““as regards the central issue of the definition of corruption, we do have reservations on the proposal of the Joint Committee ... we have not abandoned the agent/principal approach proposed by the Law Commission for reasons which we detail below””." But the Government can now make progress without once again referring the whole business back to the Law Commission. That would be cause a delay of several years. That is unacceptable bearing in mind the extremely expert work done by Transparency International and other bodies, including our overseas friends, with their technical and legal suggestions on how to deal with definitions, the relationship between agents and principals, the definitions of the measurements of money passing hands unlawfully and so on. Transparency International underlined that when it presented the draft text. It stated that, "““The Attorney General’s announcement of the decision of the Serious Fraud Office to discontinue the criminal investigation of BAe Systems’ role””" was a major part of the immediate background. It is not just a side issue that we can now forget; it is central, although not a direct part of Bill’s text. In the last part of its introductory letter of 14 March, Transparency International stated that the Bill, "““aims to reform the law of bribery in a way that will be understood by police, prosecutors, jurors, the private sector and the general public. It defines bribery by reference to the improper conduct that results from a bribe and includes a number of modern features of anti-corruption law, including explicit offences of bribing foreign public officials; of foreign bid-rigging””—" I am glad that that was referred to earlier, because it is a huge area needing complex supervision— "““and of fixing sporting events””." I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Chidgey has also included that matter in the Bill. Transparency International continued: "““It includes a requirement for UK companies to take steps to ensure that their foreign and associated companies do not commit corruption offences; and a duty to report suspicions of corrupt behaviour in the public sector””." I notice that there are five Liberal Democrat speakers in this Second Reading debate, a number of Cross-Benchers and speakers from the government Benches. I hope that the Minister will be able to give a very positive response today to the growing clamour to respond not only to the OECD's strictures, instructions and requests that we behave properly in terms of international law and the conventions that have been signed and ratified but that we produce our own solid and convincing legislation as soon as possible.