Bribery Bill [HL]

I am not saying, as the noble Viscount suggested I was, that it would necessarily mean that there was an offence of bribery committed under the provisions of the Bill; but it might. The noble Viscount has picked up on my example of a police officer working in a particular way. Police officers, in the same way as intelligence service officers, have to behave in a particular way sometimes to get the information that they require to do their extremely difficult job, and to preclude the fact that police officers might have to do that seems to me not to be a valid argument. I have tried to explain why we did not put this before the Joint Committee. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, specifically asked me about that. Other departments were obviously in discussion with my department at that time and we were unable to conclude in time for inclusion in the draft Bill—