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Bribery Bill [HL]

My Lords, I have not previously taken part in the debates on this Bill and I speak on this amendment only in order to make it quite clear that I strongly oppose it. No one need be surprised by that, having regard to previous debates about the role of the Attorney-General. It is my experience that all previous law officers—apart from, I think, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer—whenever confronted with the issue as to whether a politician should also be the chief government legal adviser, have said that the answer is obvious and that the old system works perfectly well. That is not my view. The Minister knows from the time when I was independent adviser within the Ministry of Justice that I for one strongly believe that it is time that we separated the role of the Attorney-General as a politician from the role of chief government legal adviser. If anyone wants any proof of why that is desirable, they have only to recall the role of the Attorney-General in the BAE affair and the halting of the investigation. If that is not sufficient, they should look at the Iraq inquiry and the role of the Attorney-General in relation to Ministers and politics in that regard. The Prime Minister originally raised expectations that there might be change in this area. Those expectations have not been met and I regret that that is so, but I strongly feel that, when one is dealing with bribery, decisions about prosecutions should be taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions and not by the Attorney-General. This is no reflection on the integrity of law officers of the Crown as individuals. What convinced me originally that the schizophrenic role of the Attorney-General was unsustainable was the Spycatcher case many years ago. I recall that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, was my junior in that case. We were against the Attorney-General, who was there as the guardian of the public interest, but in fact was there as lawyer for the Crown for the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher. I found it impossible to distinguish in my mind between the role of the Attorney-General in seeking a gag order to prevent the press from publishing extracts from Peter Wright’s controversial book as counsel for his client, the Government, and his role as guardian of the public interest. I do not expect anyone present in the Chamber who has held the office of Attorney-General or Solicitor-General to agree with what I have just said, but I hope that they would agree that an amendment to put the clock back so that the decisions on bribery prosecution were taken by the Attorney-General, not the DPP, is not one that would command respect in this House.