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Serious Fraud Office Investigation

The hon. Gentleman may take the view that it would have been preferable to be able to arrive at the decision earlier. The difficulty is that the director of the Serious Fraud Office was entitled to undertake appropriate inquiries and investigations to establish the nature of the case, and to make a decision when he had sufficient information before him to make that decision. It was not the case, in his view, that he had that information before yesterday. Therefore, when he had the information, he was able to make the appropriate balancing tests that are required of him under the law and under the obligations of a prosecutor. He made that balancing test when he was able to do so. The Attorney-General and I agreed with the decision that he took, after we had spent considerable time—particularly the Attorney-General; on Tuesday at least, I was engaged elsewhere, as the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) knows—going into the detail of the case. The Attorney-General spent Tuesday, yesterday and some considerable time before that studying the detail, and has formed a view that the decision of the director of the Serious Fraud Office is the right one.