Bribery Bill [HL]

My Lords, I think that what we are looking at here is the result recently, or over the past 25 years, of rather disputed decisions by Attorneys-General. The Westland case springs to mind. If my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew were here he would be able to inform us about that in much greater detail. There have been accusations thrown about about Lord Goodhart—sorry, the other one, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith—and the Gulf War, and I think also on the withdrawal to do with BAe Systems. These have produced accusations that I am sure are untrue, because of all the people who I have met who have been involved in those, I have never doubted their personal integrity. I may have disagreed with them on some things, but never have I doubted their personal integrity in that particular role. The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, talks about the separation of powers. This is one of the great myths. Montesquieu got it wrong and misunderstood Locke, which is why the American Constitution is different from ours. He failed to realise that all powers eventually end up in the sovereign, and so they have to come down. They do separate, but they do not have to be so rigidly separated as the Americans do. That gets them in just as many muddles as our one does. Therefore, we should be careful about bandying around the concept of the separation of powers. We have had honest, upright men and women of great integrity as Attorneys-General, and we should not change things unless there is an obvious reason so to do. If we want to change the role of the Attorney-General, surely it should be done in a constitutional Bill with proper thought and proper pre-inquiry. Therefore, I support my noble friend on this amendment.