Resources: Parliamentary Committee

This Corner House submission to a Parliamentary Inquiry on "Government Assistance to Industry" (and on "Rebalancing the Economy") looks at how the Export Credit Guarantee Department (ECGD) promotes exports and supplies credit to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

In March 2009, the UK government published a Draft Bribery Bill, which a Joint Committee comprising members of both Houses of Parliament scrutinised in May and June, taking oral and written evidence from a wide range of individuals and organisations, including The Corner House. The Committee's final report, published on 28 July 2009, "strongly support[s]" the draft Bribery Bill. "It represents an important, indeed overdue, step in reforming the United Kingdom's bribery laws, which have been a source of criticism at home and abroad for more than thirty years."

On 25 March 2009, the UK Ministry of Justice published its long-awaited Draft Bribery Bill, the stated aim of which is "to reform the criminal law to provide a new, modern and comprehensive scheme of bribery offences that will enable courts and prosecutors to respond more effectively to bribery at home or abroad". The Corner House was requested by the Joint Parliamentary Committee scrutinising the Bill to submit evidence on the proposed new offence of bribing foreign public officials.

On 13 May 2008, the UK Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee launched an inquiry into the Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) and Sustainable Development to reassess the extent to which ECGD takes account of environmental and social concerns in the course of its decisions.

This Corner House submission to a parliamentary committee scrutinising the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill argues that the proposed legislation does not sufficiently protect the independence of prosecutors and creates a grave risk of abuse by the Government of national security arguments.

At the beginning of 2005, the UK Parliament's Trade and Industry Select Committee conducted an inquiry into the UK's Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD). During its inquiry, it interviewed the Government Minister responsible for the ECGD about the Department's watering down of its anti-bribery procedures following industry lobbying. In March 2005, the Committee published a report, Implementation of ECGD's Business Principles, that was highly critical of the changes the Department had made to its procedures. This document is The Corner House's submission to the Committee's inquiry.

This submission outlines how and why the UK Department for International Development (DfiD), and the multilateral agencies and non-governmental agencies to which its contributes, should act to curb emissions of greenhouse gases in developed countries. It recommends that the UK should support: initiatives to keep fossil fuels in the ground; alternative sources of energy; and movements working towards these ends.