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Anti-corruption Champion

Volume 481: debated on Tuesday 28 October 2008

11. To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if he will make a statement on his role as anti-corruption champion. (230380)

The Government take very seriously their responsibility to tackle international and domestic corruption and as the anti-corruption champion, I will be taking forward the reform of the law on bribery and developing a comprehensive UK strategy for tackling foreign bribery, including a full response to the recent OECD report.

The UK is recognised as one of the least corrupt countries in the world—16th in the world and 3rd of G8 countries and we are committed to tackling foreign bribery by UK firms. We have had the first conviction for foreign bribery in international transactions this summer and over 20 foreign bribery investigations.

We have already announced in May this year in the draft legislative programme that we intend to introduce a draft Bribery Bill in the next Session. This will be informed by the Law Commission report on bribery, due next month.