Corruption is a Crime

Liberal Democrat leader Ming Campbell put the Al Yamamah arms deal at the centre of his criticism of the Labour Government during his leader’s speech at the party’s Brighton Conference:

Our mission is to change the British political landscape, once and for all:

To throw open the doors of government and let the people in.

No more sleazy patronage, no more dodgy dossiers, no more abandoned investigations into secret arms deals – in fact, no more secret arms deals, full stop!

Read his full speech on the Liberal Democrat website.

A senior civil servant who was allegedly involved in the decision by the Serious Fraud Office to drop its BAE/Saudi arms deal inquiry was close to the deal itself in the 1980s, today’s Daily Telegraph reports.

We now have a new Prime Minister, but the BAE arms affair - raised with Gordon Brown by Liberal Democrat Leader Ming Campbell at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday - rumbles on.

According to the newspaper, the head of the SFO, Robert Wardle, told Parliament last week that the memos he was shown to encourage him to drop the BAE investigation included “papers from Sir Richard Mottram“, the permanent secretary for intelligence and security.

In the 1980s Sir Richard was permanent secretary to former defence secretary Michael Heseltine, who played a key role negotiating the contract with the Saudis.

Sir Richard wrote in September 1985 to Charles Powell, private secretary to Margaret Thatcher, giving detailed updates on the deal.

Vincent Cable, Liberal Democrat deputy leader, said of Sir Richard’s role in the 1980s and his recent advice on the SFO probe: “There are enormous overlaps involving senior officials which casts great doubt on the impartiality of the judgements which have been made.”

The paper also reports that the SFO is to launch a new round of interviews under caution with BAE executives.

Sources close to the investigation said the new push would see BAE staff questioned for the first time on evidence uncovered in the SFO’s investigation into allegations of corruption outside Saudi Arabia.

The Leader of the Liberal Democrats has labelled Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, as “politically inept” over the information given to the OECD regarding BAE Systems.

Responding to a letter he received today from Lord Goldsmith, Ming Campbell said:

“These events get curiouser and curiouser.

“Major decisions involving relevant information to the OECD were taken by officials and not by those with direct ministerial responsibility.

“The plain unvarnished truth is that Britain did not reveal significant information to the OECD. Not only was this a lack of candour but it was politically inept since the information was bound to come out eventually.

“These events make yet another powerful case for transparency and more effective scrutiny by Parliament. It will be an irony if the United States Congress gets more information into the public domain than Parliament.”

Tackled at Prime Minister’s Questions today about BAE/Al Yamamah, Tony Blair took responsiblity on behalf of his whole Government.

According to the Guardian:

After being asked at prime minister’s questions about the £43bn arms deal between BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia by the Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, Mr Blair said: “If you want to blame anyone for this, blame me. I am perfectly happy to take responsibility for it.”

Sir Menzies had asked which minister was responsible for withholding information from the world’s anti-corruption watchdog, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, about secret payments to Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia.

We note that Tony Blair will be Prime Minister for just two more weeks.

Another day, another refusal by the Government to answer on Al Yamamah. From today’s Guardian:

Des Browne, the defence secretary, yesterday refused point-blank to say whether his department’s £1bn backdoor payments to Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia for arms deals were still continuing. Visibly uneasy and irritated at a lunch with defence journalists, he claimed “national security” was the reason for his silence.

He also refused to say whether he or his predecessors were aware of the payments allegedly processed by MoD officials and wired to an American bank via the arms firm BAE as an integral part of Britain’s biggest arms deal. “I am not going to discuss the detail of these confidential contracts for the very reason it would generate the consequences we do not want to generate,” he said.

The newspaper also quotes the Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Menzies Campbell:

“We need a full investigation to determine whether the Ministry of Defence has been directly involved in processing payments to Prince Bandar. The department’s failure to clarify this issue is unacceptable. We need to know whether any payments took place after 2002 and whether they breached anti-corruption legislation. If it appears the law has been broken then it would be a matter for the police.”

The full story is on the Guardian’s website.

Following the reports in The Guardian about the Attorney General (Lord Goldsmith) and the failure to disclose secret payments to a Saudi prince to an OECD anti-corruption probe into the Al Yamamah arms deal, Liberal Democrat Ming Campbell has called on Lord Goldsmith to explain what has really happened:

If it is true that information about payments made to Prince Bandar was not given to the OECD, then that is an allegation of the utmost seriousness. It would be unsupportable for Britain to sign up to an international agreement on bribery and then fail to honour its obligations when an investigation comes too close to home.

Liberal Democrat Leader Ming Campbell has demanded a statement from the Prime Minister following an investigation by the BBC’s Panorama. The programme found evidence that BAE has secretly paid £1bn to Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia in connection with Britain’s biggest ever weapons contract, known as the Al Yamamah deal. The payments were made with the full knowledge and authorisation of Ministry of Defence.

Campbell said:

“When I questioned the Prime Minister about this issue in the House of Commons, he took full responsibility for the decision to discontinue the investigation into BAE. In light of BBC’s allegations, the Prime Minister must make a full and detailed statement to the House of Commons.”

The Liberal Democrats’ Deputy Leader, Vince Cable, has called for a parliamentary inquiry. He said:

“If it is indeed true that the British Government has been complicit in enormous under the counter payments to Prince Bandar there must be a full investigation by Parliament, and the Public Accounts Committee must be reconvened to pursue the al Yamamah investigation. My colleagues and I will not rest until there is proper ministerial accountability for what appears to be totally unacceptable conduct which completely undermines anti-corruption legislation.”

The Panorama edition on Al Yamamah will be broadcast on Monday 11 June at 8.30pm on BBC One.