BRITISH agents are to be given formal permission to pay bribes to recruit informants or buy off Taliban warlords.
Agents working for MI5, MI6 or GCHQ, the government eavesdropping centre, will be exempt from anti-bribery legislation and, with ministerial approval, will be able to give financial inducements.
The legislation, backed by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, creates a new series of offences and a maximum 10-year jail sentence for offering, promising or accepting bribes. MPs and peers facing bribery charges will lose the immunity from imprisonment that parliamentary privilege affords them at present.
The new bill, destined to win cross-party support, will introduce unlimited fines for firms that induce "improper conduct". It comes in the wake of a rebuke issued by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development for Britain's tolerance of corruption.
The organisation criticised the 2006 halting by Lord Goldsmith, then attorney-general, of a Serious Fraud Office investigation into allegations that BAE Systems had passed more than £1 billion to Prince Bandar of Sauidi Arabia. This was done in relation to the Al Yamamah contract, a British weapons export deal.
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David Howarth, the Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, attacked the exemption for secret agents, saying: "It seems to me quite extraordinary that the government should authorise itself to do this sort of thing."
Although it has never been admitted that British security services offer bribes to win friends abroad, the practice of passing large amounts of cash to potential allies and tribal informants is apparently common in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Andrew MacKinlay, the Labour MP for Thurrock who will question the exemption in parliament, said: "There is no earthly reason why M15 and GCHQ should have a reason to bribe people."