Joint Committee hears evidence on draft Bribery Bill

• Video and Audio: Bribery Bill evidence session
• Joint Committee on the draft Bribery Bill

Appearing before the Committee at 10.45am will be:

• Dimitri Vlassis, Chief, Crimes Convention Section, Treaty and Legal Affairs Branch, Division for Treaty Affairs, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
• Nicola Bonucci, Director of Legal Affairs, OECD
• Christine Uriarte, General Counsel, Anti-Corruption Division, OECD
• William Yiu Wah Loo, Policy Analyst, Anti-Corruption Division, OECD

Giving evidence at 11.30am will be:

• Mark Pyman, Director, Defence Programme, Transparency International UK (the UK National Chapter of the global anti-corruption non-governmental organisation)
• Jeremy Carver, Board Member, Transparency International UK
• Nicholas Hildyard, Director, The Corner House

The Joint Committee, which is comprised of 12 MPs and 12 Members of the House of Lords, was set up to scrutinise the draft Bribery Bill.

Issues of interest to the Committee include:

• the background to the draft Bill, including the reasons for the shift in approach from the current law and the 2003 draft Corruption Bill
• the proposed new offences of bribing and being bribed, together with the functions that they cover
• the proposed new offence of bribing foreign public officials
• the penalties proposed in relation to the new offences
• whether the exemptions from prosecution proposed for the intelligence services are appropriate and workable
• whether parliamentary privilege should be narrowed as part of a balance between convicting the corrupt and protecting free speech in Parliament. If so, whether the proposals are workable and otherwise appropriate
• compliance with the Human Rights Act 1998
• whether there are any specific changes that should be made to improve the draft Bill, together with any other issues that ought to be addressed.