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Bribery Bill [HL]

I must apologise, first, for being slightly late and, secondly, for letting my telephone off not once but twice, so I grovel before your Lordships. I find it very difficult to see where a facilitation fee ends and a bribe begins. The difference between the jumping of a queue by a baggage handler and the jumping of a queue via a civil servant to see a Minister in a contract is surely a question of degree rather than fact. The problem of corruption is such that we ought to be as tough as we possibly can on it—it enters into the canker of humanity. On a holiday in India, I watched our driver hand over a dozen or so rupees to a policeman who failed to give him a minor traffic infringement ticket. Had he asked us to reimburse him that, would we have been acting corruptly or would it have been a facilitation fee? The problem is that it is an area which slides. You know it when it is there, but it is very difficult to define a boundary. Even though I sympathise with and can understand the argument of my noble and learned friend Lord Lyell, I go along with my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew.