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Bribery Bill [HL]

My Lords, as not only a non-lawyer but a non-expert, I always thought that the idea of authorisation was unwise. It is very permissive and very broad. Not only do I defer to my noble friend Lord Foulkes’s expertise on practicality; if one steps back a bit from the amendments and returns to the Bill as drafted, the result of Clause 13 as now drafted is that there will not be prosecutions by the prosecuting authority unless there is a doubt about the legality of an act by the security services or the Army. It seems to me that that is the right balance.