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Bribery Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support this amendment for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has given. The idea of a prior authorisation is incorporated in the statutes of the security and intelligence services. The authority or precedent of the Protection of Children Act, which the noble Lord previously quoted, refers to an amendment which was introduced into what I think is quite an elderly Act by a children’s Act in 2003. This deals only with questions of the possession of pornography and the like for the protection of children. It is a very much simpler issue than the contents of this legislation involve. Secondly, I want to mention the very considerable intervention at the last stage by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell, who is probably more experienced than any of us in this area, certainly from the point of view of seniority. His was a very serious comment on having this simply as a defence. Therefore, in my view, what he said is best met by the kind of amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has moved, which greatly improves the drafting of the Bill.