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Corruption

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, on bringing this matter before the House today. Like other noble Lords and many other people, I was very worried about the intervention of the Prime Minister into this matter and I tabled a number of Written Questions. Perhaps I may summarise them. I asked: "““Under what statutory authority the Prime Minister used his executive power to order the termination of investigations of possible corruption in dealings between BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia””," and what were the precedents. Secondly, I asked: "““What legal or other advice the Prime Minister sought before the decision was taken””;" and, thirdly, "““Whether the Cabinet was consulted before the decision was taken””." I received the following reply from the Attorney-General: "““The Prime Minister did not order the termination of the investigation. The decision to terminate the investigation was taken by the director of the Serious Fraud Office. The Cabinet was not consulted about that decision but, as explained in my Statement of 14 December 2006, the views of the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Defence Secretary were obtained as to the public interest considerations raised by the investigation. This was done in accordance with the well established procedure known as a Shawcross exercise””.—[Official Report, 22/1/07; col. WA 200.]" Because I thought I must have heard wrongly, I looked at the transcript of the Prime Minister’s monthly press conference on 16 January. I fear I shall have to quote extensively from it. It states: "““QUESTION""Prime Minister, you mentioned you are unveiling a Serious and Organised Crime Bill tomorrow. People inside the SFO would say that they were very hot on the heels of serious and organised crime involving the Saudi Royal Family and British Aerospace and that they were actually extremely close to prosecutable evidence when you drove a coach and horses through the case. Secondly, there are very few people when you really press them that believe the Saudis would ever have severed cooperation on security matters, that they in fact need us really rather more than we need them.""PRIME MINISTER:""I would not agree with that assessment. Look these are difficult decisions that you have to take as Prime Minister … I think that had we proceeded with this investigation it would have significantly materially damaged our relationship with Saudi Arabia, that that relationship is of vital importance for us fighting terrorism … and as I say all of that leaves aside the fact that we would have lost thousands of UK jobs. So you know I don’t know who you are talking to when they tell you that we don’t need the Saudis as much as they need us on counter-terrorism.""QUESTION:""And the message to the developing world in terms of anti-corruption, when you know that you had to use your executive position to override the rule of law?""PRIME MINISTER:""Look we have done, as you rightly point out, we have done more than any other country probably in recent years to push this forward and things like the Extractive Industries Initiative and so on in relation to Africa. But I have to take judgments, I mean I don’t accept what you say, and I think the Attorney General made some mention of this at the time actually about the likelihood of prosecution. I don’t actually accept what you ""say, but I have got to take a judgment about the national interest and that is my job, and you know when you come to views like this you expect it, and I knew I would be heavily criticised for it, but I believe it to be the right judgment, and you know this isn’t just a personal whim of mine, it was the judgment of our entire system and I can assure you from everything that I know it was extremely soundly based””." Yet the Attorney-General said that the Prime Minister did not take the decision. It is quite clear from the Prime Minister’s own mouth that he did take the decision. He mentioned the Attorney-General only once in the whole of that questioning. So I have to come to the conclusion that the Prime Minister improperly used his influence and, in doing so,has undermined the good name of this country abroad. My other point relates to the Shawcross letter. As I understand it, Sir Hartley, who was an Attorney-General in the first post-war Labour Government, devised a list of criteria that he felt should apply to a prosecution. He decreed that political colleagues should be consulted to obtain all the relevant facts, including the effect of any prosecution, successful or not, on public order or morale. He also insistedthe decision must not be influenced by political considerations or pressure from colleagues. Clearly he did not believe that political considerations should come into it and, certainly, he would not have believed that his doctrine or his letter should allow a cover-up of commercial and political chicanery. That is what has happened in this case. I hope the Attorney-General will have another look at the Answer he gave to my very relevant Question, if I may say so, and correct any mistake that he may have made in giving such a reply.