My Lords, I hope that I am standing up at the right moment. I have been advised by the Table, as the only Back-Bencher available to speak in this debate, that this is the moment that I am allowed to intervene as a gap speaker. Unfortunately, I am also advised that I have to keep to the strict rules of the gap and a Whip is already showing four fingers to me, which I think indicates four minutes. All I can do is to hope that the Whips will be kind, because I was a full participant in the Special Public Bill Committee on this Bill and took part in the many thorough and detailed sessions that we had within that committee.

I am going to break away for a moment to give tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, who was our excellent chairman, and also to tell your Lordships that the noble and learned Lord is sad not to be here today and has asked me to express his regret for his absence.

I will therefore concentrate on the corruption issue. This has become important since the judgment of Mr Justice Robin Knowles in the Nigeria case. He gave his judgment on 23 October 2023. Suffice it to say that in that case, two very distinguished English arbitrators came to the conclusion that there should be an award of no less than $11 billion US against the Federal Republic of Nigeria. When this came before Mr Justice Robin Knowles, in a judgment lasting 140 pages, he set the whole of this large award aside on the grounds of corruption.

In the committee, we received submissions from Spotlight on Corruption but had no time to examine this important issue further. I am therefore asking the Minister to convene, before Committee, a special meeting to be attended by the Law Commission, by noble Lords who take part in the Special Public Bill Committee, and other noble Lords, to consider the issue of corruption and whether we should address that in Committee. This is a very important issue, and I cite from a distinguished international arbitrator who says:

“Corruption is today one of the greatest challenges facing international commerce and has serious detrimental effects on markets, efficiency, and public welfare”.

I know that from my own days as an international arbitrator, when I arbitrated a number of commodity cases relating to Ukraine and Russia. Corruption was evident all the time, and we had to be very careful in reaching our decision.

Of course, this can be pushed over to another day for another arbitration law reform, but they come very few and far between. There were 17 years between the 1979 and 1996 Acts, and it has now been more than 20 years since the 1996 Act, so I suggest that this should not be pushed over to another arbitration reform Bill; it should be addressed now and in committee.