Attorney General Politically Inept Over BAE Systems - Campell

3.28.41pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 14th Jun 2007

Menzies Campbell today accused the Attorney General of political ineptitude over the information given to the OECD regarding BAE systems. The Liberal Democrat Leader today received a letter from the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, regarding the affair.

Commenting, Menzies 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."

ENDS

Notes to Editors

Menzies Campbell today received a letter from the Attorney General regarding the BAE systems investigation:

Dear Sir Menzies,

Al Yamamah/OECD

I know you have been asking about the role played by the Law Officers in the implementation of the OECD anti-bribery convention and in supplying information to the OECD about payments made to Saudi officials. I thought it would be helpful for me to write to you.

As you know, the SFO and I believe that the SFO Director's decision to terminate the investigation into BAe Systems and the Al Yamamah contract on national security grounds was fully compatible with the Convention. That is borne out by the recent decision of Mr Justice Collins, who held that the judicial review challenge to the Director's decision was "bound to fail" on the basis that "it is clear that national security must prevail and no State could be expected to take action which jeopardises the security of the State or the lives of its citizens."

As to the question of supplying information to the OECD about payments involving particular individuals, neither the Solicitor General nor I played any role. It was the SFO which provided information to the OECD about their investigation and which made the judgement about which information to give, as the Director said last week. I gave no orders, instructions or advice to the SFO about that. Indeed I did not know of the judgement that the SFO had reached about this issue until it arose in the media last week.

The SFO would strongly contest that they concealed information from the OECD or that it was misled. The SFO Assistant Director in fact disclosed to the OECD Working Group in January that they were investigating a series of payments to a senior Saudi official. Whilst the individual was not named, nor were details provided of the payments, the OECD did not ask for any more details in the questioning that followed or in the next meeting in March.

The Director General of my office was present at the Working Group's considerations. The main focus of these was on broader questions of UK law; whether the OECD Convention had been complied with - whether commercial considerations had been taken into account (which the SFO Assistant Director firmly told the Group they had not), and whether national security was a legitimate reason having regard to Article 5 of the Convention.

Against that background, given the meeting involved 35 other countries, I understand that the SFO would have been cautious about unnecessarily revealing information which could have gone widely into public circulation, so leading to the very damage to national security which the decision to stop the investigation was designed to avoid.

All the information given to the OECD was provided voluntarily. The Working Group does not have a locus to attempt a forensic examination of the conduct of specific investigations; nor do Working Group meetings constitute any form of judicial hearing. The Group has publicly expressed its appreciation for the efforts of the UK authorities to explain the SFO decision.

Finally, I should correct the misapprehension that the OECD is conducting an "investigation" or "inquiry" into the SFO Director's decision or the Al Yamamah allegations themselves. It is not. The focus of the Working Group's "phase 2bis" evaluation will be the UK's legal framework and issues related to the organisation and resourcing of our law enforcement effort.

I am copying this letter to Dominic Grieve. I am also arranging for copies to be placed in the libraries of both Houses and made publicly available.

Yours sincerely,

Lord Goldsmith