BAE case proves need for constitutional reform

Stuart Weir & Andrew Blick (Cambridge & London, Democratic Audit): The latest revelations about the dropped serious fraud office investigation into the BAe-Saudi Arms deal demonstrate the need for the government to pursue its present constitutional reform programme harder and more thoroughly. A number of measures are required. First, the forthcoming draft constitutional reform bill must clearly put a wall (and not a Chinese one) between ministers of the crown on the one hand and criminal investigations and decisions about prosecutions on the other hand. Second, Parliament must be given greater purchase over decisions relating to foreign policy and our entry into international alliances with countries such as Saudi Arabia. Third, the parliamentary export controls committee should be given advance notification of the granting of major export licences, with the opportunity to take evidence on them and report a view. Through these means, if an unpleasant regime working in tandem with an unpleasant multinational company wants to make threats about not cooperating over terrorism, it will have to do so in public to the UK Parliament and electorate, rather than to a Prime Minister who may be ready to "roll over".