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Bribery Bill [HL]

My Lords, I have an amendment in this group that deals with the matter in the opposite way from the Government. I hope that there will be an answer to the point, to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, has already adverted and which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell, and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, rehearsed on Report, about how the defence will work. There are various methods of dealing with the problem about which everyone has been talking and obviously understands very well. The Government have decided on the method of a defence which the House has been told by people who are much more eminent in the criminal law than I am simply will not work, because the material will not be available to the defendant—or to the court, let alone to the jury—for him to establish the defence on which the Government are dependent. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, has therefore had notice of this, and I hope that he will explain exactly how it is intended to work. It will be no defence if the result is either that the case cannot be prosecuted because such sensitive material is involved that it cannot be presented to a court, or that it cannot be defended because the defendant has no access to exactly that sensitive material and therefore cannot establish the defence that he has been given by the statute. This was the concern that moved me, so I reversed the whole thing in my amendment and put the burden on the prosecution instead. I hope that the noble Lord will deal with this point.