Bribery Bill [HL]

This is a proposal to add an additional clause to this part of the Bill, which is headed, "Failure of commercial organisations to prevent bribery". I have referred on a number of occasions to the Independent Commission Against Corruption in Hong Kong. It has a corruption prevention department with an advisory services group annexed to it. The group provides a management consultancy service free of charge and tailor-made to the company’s needs. It handles information in strict confidence with a pledge to respond to any request within two working days—which is probably beyond the competence of the Government in this country. Clients are free to accept the recommendations and to implement them at their own pace. The group provides tailor-made corruption prevention advice on system/internal controls. It also assists companies to draw up staff codes of conduct and, in particular, a policy on solicitation and acceptance of advantages, a policy on acceptance of entertainment, guidelines on declaration of conflict of interest and guidelines on handling confidential information. Any company can go along to the advisory services group and seek its free advice on the adequacy of the systems and procedures that it has drawn up. It will be assisted in the areas which I have outlined. The advisory services group also formulates and distributes codes of industry best practice, and organises talks and seminars to promote them. So there is an advisory group under the shelter of the ICAC which assists companies to set out adequate procedures. It goes about it by discussing with the management of the companies their operational procedures and practice, identifying potential risks and malpractice, and formulating recommendations for the client’s consideration. I shall give your Lordships some idea of the feedback that it has had. The chairman of the Hong Kong Institute of Directors, Mr Herbert Hui, said: ""Directors are entrusted with the execution of corporate governance standards within each corporation, listed company, SME or NGO. The Advisory Services Group of the Corruption Prevention Department assists corporations to enhance corporate governance standards from a corruption prevention point of view. We highly recommend directors of corporations to make use of the Group’s free and professional consultancy services"." The director and chief executive of Cathay Pacific Airways Limited, Mr Philip Chen, said: ""Since its establishment in 1985, the Advisory Services Group of the Corruption Prevention Department has been conscientiously assisting private sector companies in enhancing system controls and promoting to staff the importance of corruption prevention. In the past, we had sought advice from the Group on various parts of our operation. I highly value the Group’s work and contributions to the community"." Since 1985, the advisory group has advised a total of 3,000 companies—that is a rate of about three a week—covering manufacturing, financial services, property management, hotel and catering, welfare and education associations and so on. It discusses such things as common malpractices and vulnerabilities in procurement, sales and marketing, administration, store management, information systems, security and so on. So there is an essentially government-sponsored body providing a service, which does not require great expense, at a rate of three companies a week to companies in Hong Kong. That has contributed very significantly to making Hong Kong the third least corrupt territory, if I can put it that way, in the whole world. It is not something to be set aside lightly. I have already quoted the Secretary of State for Justice saying that we have to be quite imaginative about how we tackle advice. It is in that sort of area that I am sure imagination is required. Under my amendment, ""The relevant department may respond to specific enquiries from any commercial organisation concerning the adequacy of its procedures for the purposes of section 7(2)"—" that is, for the purpose of getting advice on what are adequate procedures. It continues: ""A response under subsection (1) shall not prevent the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Director of the Serious Fraud Office or the Director of Revenue and Customs from consenting to proceedings for an offence under this Act"." I appreciate the point that the Government and others made to the Joint Committee that one cannot confuse the prosecutorial system with the giving of advice. It would be wrong to ask the Director of Public Prosecutions to hand out chits to companies say that they could go and do this or that. My amendment suggests not the giving of immunity from prosecution to a particular company but that authoritative advice and expertise should be built up over a period of time, as has happened in Hong Kong, whereby companies from all sorts of sectors, whether large or small, whether they have been in business for a long time or are just entering into the market, can go to such an advisory body and ask it to look at their procedures, help with them and make sure that they do not have procedures in place that would in any way encourage bribery. If the purpose of the Bill is to prevent bribery, this is a very small price to pay. I have used the expression "the relevant department" deliberately, because that could cover the Secretary of State for LlanfairPG, to use a shorthand term, or it could be another department of state that could give out advice of this sort. It would be hugely advantageous to the commercial companies in this country and would at the same time make sure that the purposes of this Bill were addressed and that bribery was prevented. I beg to move.