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Baroness Rawlings moved Amendment No. 3:
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The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment No. 3 tabled in my name. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, to the Dispatch Box today for, I believe, the first time on a Bill. Your Lordships will be aware that we discussed this issue in Committee and then again on Report. Therefore, I do not intend to keep the House long on this matter. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Desai, for his kind words, if not support, during the Report stage. I also thank my noble friend the Duke of Montrose for his support.
This is an important and serious matter, and the Government have failed to act as swiftly as we and others would wish in implementing the agreement that they made on the OECD Convention on Combating the Bribery of Foreign Public Officials. The amendment tabled today varies from those which I tabled in Committee and on Report in a significant way which I hope will help the Minister to concede and agree to my amendment.
As I said previously, the OECD Convention on Combating the Bribery of Foreign Public Officials has been ratified by the UK Government but has yet to pass into UK law. The Minister said:
On page 198 of its report, Global Corruption Report 2001, Transparency International said:
We support the Bill. We believe that the Government are moving in the right direction. Nevertheless, we believe that the war on corruption is equally important. Although our amendment seeks to delay the Bill, the means, in this case, justify the end. Our amendment would halt implementation of the Bill unless or until a Bill to give effect to the Convention on Combating the Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions is introduced. My previous amendment referred to enactment of legislation. The amendment before us today will shorten any delay to implementation of the Bill, and I hope that that will gain the support of the Minister.
Corruption is hindering British business and the environment, and it is hurting those whom we seek to protect--the poor and the disadvantaged. In its conclusion, Transparency International's global report states:
Lord Thomson of Monifieth: My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of Transparency International. I have been pressing this matter on the Government for some years. I very much welcome the noble Baroness's approach to the Bill and the way in which she has presented her case and I wholly support the thrust of her remarks. I am not sure, I am bound to tell her, that I approve of the amendment's text. It is not a wise course to seek to delay this very important Bill
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, we support the amendment's aims. My one reservation was expressed by my noble friend. My problem with the amendment is that it uses the word "introduced", which implies not that the legislation should be enacted but that during this Session it should be introduced. I have been put in the enviable position of directing whether we support the amendment or the Government, depending on the Minister's response. I very much hope that the Minister, who is on his first outing on this Bill, will give a sufficiently strong reply to sway these Benches.
Lord Desai: My Lords, it is wrong to make such a big fuss about what I call "big corruption". Big corruption is a division of surplus among the elite--how much ministers get from multinational corporations. It is very bad and rightly should be abolished but, so far as the poor are concerned, it happens at the top, not at the bottom. To stop the Bill for that purpose is frivolous.
Lord Grocott: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, for being generous to me on my debut at the Third Reading of a Bill in this House. The procedures are a lot simpler in the other place--a debate on general principles is much more straightforward than dealing with detailed amendments, as we are doing this afternoon.
As the noble Baroness said, this issue has been raised on previous occasions. I appreciate the fact that the revised wording softens the amendment and makes it rather more flexible. However, as was made clear by my noble friend Lady Amos on Report, our view very much remains that the ability of the Secretary of State to provide effective assistance under the Bill should not be dependent on the passage of other legislation.
We strongly support the views of the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, on the importance of legislation to deal with corruption. I have been asked by the Liberal Democrat Benches to do something that I am sure they know in their hearts would be extraordinarily difficult for me to do. I have been around in politics long enough to know that the progress of government legislation is dependent on figures such as the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip both in this House and in the other place. I know my place, and it is not for me to spell out precisely the way in which the legislative programme will run.
In response to the points that were made by the noble Baroness, there was a crucial difference between our debate in Committee and on Report because, as we all recall, the debate in Committee occurred before the Summer Recess and what happened between the Committee stage and the Report stage were the horrendous events in the United States on 11th September. Pressure on the legislative programme has increased significantly as a
In our White Paper, Making Globalisation Work for the Poor, we made clear our commitment to tackling corruption. Corruption hurts the poorest people most severely. It diverts public services from those who need them and it strangles private sector investment and growth. World Bank analysis shows that a corrupt country is likely to lose about half a percentage point of gross domestic product per year compared with a relatively uncorrupt country.
DfID supports those countries that are determined to tackle corruption seriously through a wide range of governance reform programmes, which often include specific anti-corruption measures. DfID's country strategy papers assess the extent of corruption in the country concerned, its government's commitment to tackling the problem and DfID's potential role in supporting anti-corruption programmes.
I want very briefly to mention two or three examples. We are supporting national anti-corruption strategies, which often include the establishment of anti-corruption agencies, in Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and a number of other countries. We are strengthening public sector capacity for budget and financial management in countries such as Bangladesh, Ghana and Nepal. We are helping governments in Uganda, Jamaica, Malawi and South Africa, among other countries, to improve their procurement, accounting and audit functions and to reform their civil service management. We are also giving support to strengthen the legal sector, including the judiciary, in India, Malawi and Uganda. The total committed by DfID to bilateral projects that contribute towards governmental reform is running at about £350 million annually.
Now that this Bill is nearing its conclusion, I repeat that there has been tremendous, reassuring support from all sections of the House for the Bill. The Government greatly appreciate the support that they have received. It has been scrutinised properly and neither the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, nor the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, have let us off the hook. In view of the widespread support within the House for the implementation of this Bill at the earliest opportunity, and reinforcing the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, that we need to have it on the statute book and to deal with the other problem as well, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
"( ) The Secretary of State may not appoint a date under subsection (2) until a bill to give effect to the Convention on Combating the Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions is introduced into either House of Parliament."
"We are committed to introducing legislation that will give effect to that convention".
However, she went on to say:
"I am unable at this stage to say when that legislation will be introduced".--[Official Report, 18/10/01; col. 740.]
I press this matter because in Committee the Minister was quite emphatic that a Bill would be introduced in this Session of Parliament. She said:
"I am therefore pleased that the Government have confirmed that a criminal justice Bill containing provisions that demonstrate our compliance with the OECD convention will be introduced into Parliament in the current Session".--[Official Report, 16/7/01; col. 1349.]
I have only one question for the Minister. Is he able to tell us now whether his Government will introduce a criminal justice Bill which will breathe life into the dead words of our commitment to the convention?
"In the UK, the government will soon submit to parliament new legislation that will specifically apply to bribery of foreign public officials".
How much longer will it have to wait?
"Overall, the results of the two years of monitoring are very encouraging. To ensure a level playing field for companies from all states that are party to the Convention, it is important that the remaining countries ratify and adopt implementing legislation as soon as possible".
Our amendment would enable that to happen with greater urgency. I beg to move.
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