Corruption Bill [HL]

My Lords, I also join in congratulating my noble friend Lord Chidgey on introducing a very important and far-reaching Bill. I agree with the sentiments expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Neill, that it is perhaps disturbing that it has taken a private initiative to bring these matters forward. Notwithstanding the fact that the current law against corruption comprises three Bills which were passed by Liberal Governments, I have to tell noble Lords that, from a professional point of view, I consider the law to be in a mess. I also share the indignation expressed by my noble friend Lord Goodhart at the length of the delay. In 1995, Lord Nolan’s committee, newly set up, asked the Law Commission to clarify the law on bribery, and two years later the commission produced a consultation paper. In June 1997, in the early days of the current Government, the Home Office recommended a single offence of corruption. In December 1997, the OECD convention was agreed and ready for signature. So, we are going back 10 years since all that happened. The Law Commission’s report, published in March 1998, expressly stated that it could not take into account the convention, which dealt with the bribery of foreign officials and the elimination of bribery in international affairs. The trade Minister stated that UK law was consistent with the convention notwithstanding that even then it was already 90 years old. The convention was ratified by this Parliament on that basis—that our existing law was compatible. Mr Jack Straw’s June 2000 White Paper, Raising Standards and Upholding Integrity: the Prevention of Corruption suffered the same fate—as no doubt his recent White Paper will suffer the same fate—of ever-increasing delay. As my noble friend Lord Goodhart pointed out, that White Paper was only an appendage to the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 which we considered in the context of what had happened on 9/11 in the United States. Only then were the existing, highly unsatisfactory laws extended to offences committed by UK nationals and UK companies abroad. Only a very limited extension of the unsatisfactory laws took place at the time. We then had the draft corruption Bill in March 2003 which was heavily criticised by a Joint Committee on the basis that it was confused with complex laws, the sort of complicated laws referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, a moment ago. In December 2005, we had a Home Office consultation paper, and, finally, a few days ago—no doubt as a result of this Bill coming before the House—Dr Reid stepped in with his new initiative to send the matter back to the Law Commission on the basis that, "““no consensus has emerged from the consultation as to what the scheme of new offences should look like … there is insufficient support for any one particular model to justify its being submitted to Parliament””." He went on to ask the Law Commission to look at the, "““full range of structural options””." The Home Secretary states that there is no consensus on the model. This is not rocket science. We all know what bribery and corruption are and no right-thinking person is in favour of it. It should be the easiest matter—I will come back to this—to carry out the recommendations set out in Dr Reid’s statement. Indeed, they are contained in this Bill. One of the strengths of the Bill is that it does not require the Attorney-General’s consent to prosecution. The government draft Bill in 2003 did require his consent. Why? The Attorney-General’s consent is not required for prosecutions for fraud or, under existing common law, in corruption cases. We wondered why in 2003, but now we know: his consent enables a political dimension to enter into the issue of investigation and prosecution. I am not going to leave the Al Yamamah decision entirely to one side. I saw poor Mr Robert Wardle, the director of the Serious Fraud Office, trying to defend what he described as ““his”” decision on television the other night.