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Bribery Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his response. I am grateful that by a magical means he is able to get the answer to my noble and learned friend’s question. It is quite right that the Government should offer guidance on a matter such as this if they are not prepared to take up my amendment and add the word "improperly". I do not quite know why the Government are worried by the word and suggest, if I have understood the Minister correctly, that it would introduce a degree of uncertainty into the matter and make it harder to get convictions. The word appears elsewhere in the Bill and the courts would have little problem with it. I also note what the Minister had to say about prosecutorial discretion in the case of hospitality. We will welcome the guidance that will come in due course, because it is important for any business engaged overseas to know just what it can and cannot do and how that discretion will be exercised. In explaining what a "foreign public official" was, the Minister simply seemed to direct me to Clause 6(5), which defines it. I was hoping for a little more from the Government by way of an explanation of what precisely that subsection meant, but I take it from what he said that the examples I gave—a doctor in China, for example, or, for that matter, a doctor here—would count as "foreign public officials" because it is a state-run scheme. Because he has not corrected me on that, I will just have to take that as an assumption. The Minister has given me a partial answer. I am not entirely satisfied with it, but at this stage of the passage of the Bill it would not be worth seeking the opinion of the House so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 3 withdrawn. Amendment 4 not moved. Amendment 5 Moved by