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Queen’s Speech

My Lords, as the son and brother of distinguished academics, I start by saying that I totally agree with the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes. That, of course, is not what I have come to speak about today, which is a subject that was appropriate for debate in your Lordships' House last Monday and to a certain extent was debated, but which is even more appropriate for debate today. That subject is the Bribery Bill. The department responsible for the Bill is, of course, the Ministry of Justice, but the Bill’s impact is almost entirely on the business community—and that is why it is relevant to today’s debate. I declare an interest as an ordinary, not official, member of Transparency International UK, the UK branch of the leading international NGO on the subject of corruption. It is a terrible disease which literally kills thousands of people every year. It has a devastating effect on developing countries, particularly in Africa and parts of Asia. In far too many countries, money which should have improved the living standards of the ordinary people has found its way into the foreign bank accounts of the countries’ leaders and their associates. Surely it is the duty of government and business in the developed countries to eradicate bribery in their dealings with government and business in less fortunate countries. There is, of course, bribery within the United Kingdom; we need to keep a watchful eye on it, but it is not, these days, a very serious matter. However, the UK has not, up till now, played anything like its proper part in preventing businesses based in the United Kingdom committing bribery abroad. United Kingdom laws are far behind the times. The main laws against corruption were enacted in 1889, 1906 and 1916, and are still in force. They were concerned with corruption in the UK, not abroad. The Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 extended the earlier Acts to bribes paid abroad by United Kingdom citizens and companies. But except for one case only, which happened earlier this year, no United Kingdom company has been convicted of corruption abroad. We are far behind the standards set by other countries. We have nothing like the USA’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 which has been extremely effective in controlling corruption. We have failed to bring our own legislation into line with the requirements of the OECD’s convention on bribery, to which we are a party. Evidence given to the Joint Committee by witnesses from the OECD—I was a member of the Joint Committee which considered the Bill—was highly critical of the United Kingdom’s past failure to improve its legislation on bribery. This Bill is long overdue. The process of reforming the law began with the Law Commission, which produced a consultation paper in 1997, followed by a report in 1998. The Government, five years later, produced a draft Bill which was referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses for pre-legislative scrutiny. That Joint Committee, which was chaired by the late Lord Slynn, was very critical of the draft Bill and called for its revision. Reform then went into limbo for another four years until 2007 when the Law Commission, at the request of the Government, started consultations again. The Law Commission produced a consultation paper in November 2007, followed by a report and a draft Bill in October 2008. The Government produced a modified version of the Law Commission’s draft. A Joint Committee of both Houses was set up in May of this year to report on the Government’s draft Bill of which, as I have said, I was a member. It was clear from the beginning that the Bill which was put forward by the Government earlier this year was a great improvement on the Bill which had been rejected in 2003, which was seriously defective. There were several issues, however, which the committee debated and on which amendments were considered. At the end of the first meeting of the Joint Committee, I was convinced that it could never come to agreement on what changes to the Bill should be proposed. But I was wrong: the committee’s final report was unanimous. I will not go into the detail, because that is a matter for the Bill’s Second Reading or subsequent stages. The Bill will have its Second Reading here on 9 December. However, I can say that the Government accepted most of the committee’s recommendations, including what I believe was easily the most important—the removal of a clause in the Government’s draft which would have made it nearly impossible to achieve a successful prosecution of companies even if they had not taken proper steps to prevent bribery committed by people acting on the companies’ behalf. That defective clause was replaced by the present Clause 7, which will make enforcement against those who have failed to take proper steps to prevent bribery a good deal easier. This Bill is very important. It is a vital step against corruption and the terrible consequences for poor countries. The Bill has not attracted much attention in the media, but that is not a bad thing, and it may well be because it is not seen as controversial. I would be happy to support the Bill as it now stands, taking in the Government’s new proposals. I am not saying that it is incapable of being improved, but I hope that we will not get involved in lengthy debates on amendments. This is a real step forward. Not all the Government’s Bills in this Session could or should be enacted, but this one plainly should.