Bribery Act 2010: Post-legislative Scrutiny (Select Committee Report)

Lord Empey Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Empey (UUP) [V]]

My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville of Newdigate, for his chairmanship, which it was a pleasure to serve under throughout this report. I also extend my thanks to the clerk and the staff of the committee, who served us extremely well, dealing with voluminous amounts of evidence that came in throughout the inquiry.

If I had one impression from the committee, it was that perhaps we were looking at the issue a little earlier than might have been appropriate given that it takes a long time for a piece of legislation like this to drill down to the actual business on the ground. However, I would have to say that we are not unique in having a report debated here 18 months to two years after we published it. Earlier this week I attended Grand Committee when the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, was making a report on the Pacific Alliance, and that was 18 months old as well, so we are not in any way unique.

It was encouraging to hear that by and large the legislation was working, and it was also good to hear that the United Kingdom has a relatively good reputation internationally on its approach to bribery. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, pointed out, that was the position nearly two years ago, and obviously it has changed. I hope that that is not permanent. I also note that I watched an interview last night with Senator Menendez of the US Senate, during which Russia and what was happening in the Navalny case came up. A throwaway remark was made that London was awash with Russian money, we were very soft on dealing with money laundering, and so on. One has to be aware that our reputation is under scrutiny by the world, and questions need to be answered about how we approach large sums of money which seem to come without any clear evidence of how they were earned.

The other issue that has perplexed me somewhat has been the balance between small and medium-sized enterprises and the large corporates. While our recommendations are as they are, one still has a feeling, as the noble Lord, Lord German, pointed out a few moments ago, that the person running a small business, up a lane in a garage somewhere, would not necessarily have the grasp of the issues that a large corporate has, which can afford to employ expert legal advice and have people to deputise. That needs to be watched very carefully. We need to push the SME sector to export, and the biggest fear it has is not so much getting sucked into bribery but not getting paid for its products in a foreign market. That needs to be taken into account.

The other issue that we touched on was how this matter will be continuously kept under the eyes of government and Parliament. There is, or was at the time, a parliamentary advocate, who I think was John Penrose MP, and we were a bit concerned that a Back-Bencher might not necessarily be the right person to promote the whole concept of keeping bribery under control.

I would also like to raise one another matter, which perhaps the Minister could address in summing up—no one would be better qualified. We took evidence from Scotland; of course we know that Scotland has a different law and has had for centuries. One issue that came up was whether there was a risk that the law in Scotland could become sufficiently different from the law in the rest of the United Kingdom that we could allow a loophole to develop whereby location of a business in one part of the United Kingdom would leave it less vulnerable to charges under the Bribery Act than if it was located in another. I would appreciate it if the Minister could address that in his summing up. While we were satisfied that it was adequate and equivalent in current circumstances, that may not necessarily be the case in future. Could that particular matter be kept under review?