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Corruption

My Lords, I was very impressed by the previous speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, particularly because Stephen Egerton, to whom he made several references, was my closest friend. I very much regret that he is not alive now because I would have had great interest in talking to him about the subject of this debate. At about 5 pm on 14 December, I was sitting at my desk in the attics of your Lordships’ House when the annunciator told me that the Attorney-General would make a Statement in a few minutes. Ironically, I was here only because I was waiting to go to the Attorney-General’s Christmas party. However, I thought that I should listen to the Statement, and what I heard frankly horrified me. It became apparent that the United Kingdom was submitting to Saudi Arabian blackmail by discontinuing the investigation into the possible bribery of Saudi officials by BAE Systems. Since then it has become apparent to me that that discontinuance was in all probability a breach of Article 5 of the OECD convention. Here I should perhaps declare an interest as a member of the advisory committee of the United Kingdom branch of Transparency International. Corruption poisons. It is a poison that does immense damage to developing states. Funds which should and could have been available to help people out of poverty are creamed off by their rulers and end up in Swiss bank accounts. The developed countries, particularly the members of the OECD, are working to cut back on corruption. That is why we have the convention, and it is why the United Kingdom became a party to it. That is also why we enactedPart 12 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. So what do we do when the Saudis object to an investigation? We give in and terminate it. There are some curious aspects of the decision to terminate. The Prime Minister claimed publicly that it was his responsibility. If so, that was unconstitutional. The Prime Minister should never interfere in decisions on prosecutions. The Attorney-General says that the Prime Minister did not take that decision. Under our present constitutional arrangements, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, pointed out, it is the Attorney-General himself as the independent head of the prosecution service who is the right person to take the decision to stop investigations on the grounds of public interest. That is because he must be in a far better position than the head of the Serious Fraud Office to decide that question. But the Attorney-General did not take that decision. He left it to the director of the Serious Fraud Office, the unfortunate Mr Wardle. Why did we give in? According to the Attorney-General, it was on the grounds of national security. There is a suspicion that the real grounds, in the mind of the Prime Minister if not of the Attorney-General, were to protect the commercial interests of BAE Systems. There is a suspicion that the alleged danger to our security is based on evidence no more reliable than the evidence of Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction. Those are suspicions—no more than that—but they are not unrealistic suspicions, and if we are to dispel them we need answers to many questions. I shall outline six of them. First, we want to know what pressure BAE Systems put on the Government to end the investigation. Secondly, what did the Saudis say to BAE Systems or the Government would be the likely consequences of continuing the investigation? Did they make specific references to the removal of co-operation on intelligence? Thirdly, what advice or information did our security services give to the Government, and did that include any form of risk assessment? Fourthly, what advice or information did the ambassador to Riyadh give to the Government or to the SFO? Fifthly, what did the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Defence Secretary say to the Attorney-General when they were trying to persuade him to end the investigation? Lastly, what did the Attorney-General say to the head ofthe SFO, and why did he not take the decisionhimself? What has been done has done severe damage to the worldwide battle against corruption and to the international standing of this country. I believe it is important enough to need a thorough and dispassionate inquiry into the circumstances leading to the termination of this investigation. This is more serious than the events which gave rise some 15 years ago to the Arms to Iraq inquiry. The question is: was there a threat to national security so severe as to justify overriding the rule of law, and to justify breaking the obligations of this country under both our domestic and international law? Or was it the case that the Government were guilty of obstructing the course of justice by blocking further investigations? We need and must have an inquiry into these circumstances.