Bribery Bill [HL]

My Lords, perhaps I may intervene briefly. We can put it simply if we say that during the course of our various debates today some concerns, to say the least, have been expressed about Clause 12. We are grateful for the fact that the noble Lord has promised in particular to reflect on Clause 12(1)(a), the paragraph about which we have the most concern. In my view, there are slightly fewer concerns about subsections (1)(b) and (1)(c). We are glad that the Minister will consider bringing forward something before Report stage, which is now just under three weeks away, so he has a certain amount of time to consult colleagues in the rest of the Government. He also gave a firm promise to produce the Government’s response to the Select Committee’s report, which will in effect be part of the Government’s reflection on the general concerns about Clause 12. Again, we are grateful that we now have a firm promise that we will have that before Report. At that stage, we would want to consider what was appropriate about that clause. On this side, our concerns were more about Clause 12(1)(a) than about 12(1)(b) or 12(1)(c).