Madness of demonising Britain’s greatest company

THeRe has been a deafening chorus of denunciation over the past week of RollsRoyce, the great British engineering giant. This followed the revelation that the firm had owned up to ‘extensive systematic bribery and corruption’ dating back more than 20 years.

In a typically knee-jerk response, the Labour Party has called for Sir john Rose, who was chief executive throughout most of that period, to be stripped of his knighthood.

There is also talk that he could face criminal charges as the Serious Fraud Office contemplates whether to bring prosecutions.

True, the charge-sheet against RollsRoyce looks damning.

After a long investigation, the High Court ruled that it had been responsible for ‘egregious criminality over decades’ that implicated ‘very senior executives’ and the ‘controlling minds’ of the company.

In a withering judgment, Sir Brian Leveson said the firm was guilty of ‘the most serious breaches of the criminal law in the area of bribery and corruption’.

Rolls-Royce escaped possible criminal charges by agreeing to pay £671 million in fines and penalties to the Serious Fraud Office, the u.S. department of justice and to prosecuting authorities in Brazil in respect of corrupt practices in order to obtain contracts in 12 countries: Indonesia (where the firm bribed a senior figure with a Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit luxury car), China, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Iraq, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Angola and Brazil.

Let me stress immediately that bribery and corruption are morally wrong. But I want to speak up for Sir john Rose and his colleagues.

The truth is that they are patriots who should be celebrated rather than pilloried. I believe a grave injustice may have been done to them.

Above all, those who are loudly lambasting Rolls-Royce bosses have no comprehension of how business is done in the modern world.

MORe specifically, the root cause of Rolls’s problems dates back (like so many of the problems currently facing Britain) to the actions of the Blair government. A former lawyer with no clue about how international business deals are made, he cynically presented himself as a moral crusader who would get rid of the sleaze and corruption which he claimed had been the presiding culture during the previous 18 years of Toryrun Britain.

And so, one of his government’s earliest initiatives was to pass a Bribery Act.

Of course, bribery — the provision of private payments or inducements in order to obtain an advantage — was already illegal, but the new law introduced further penalties and included the actions of companies’ agents.

Although this gave the Blair government a patina of virtuousness, the naivete increased the enormous problems for Britons trying to do business abroad.

The fact is that there are vast areas of the globe — including much of Africa, the Middle east, Asia and the sub-continent of India — where bribery is standard practice.

In some cultures, it is not even considered wrong or immoral. Instead, it is seen as a way of life which dates back centuries if not millennia.

All of our competitors use bribes. Most egregiously, the French, the Italians, the Americans and more recently the Chinese have been happy to offer them as inducements to win major contracts.

In many places, it is simply impossible to do business without using bribery.

As a result, British exporters have found themselves at a massive disadvantage. They were being asked to compete for business against ruthless rivals in some of the most brutally competitive markets in the world.

ultimately, those who suffered most were British workers.

For example, Rolls-Royce has been a superb employer for many decades, offering brilliant careers and apprenticeships in high-skilled manufacturing to tens of thousands of Britons. At risk, therefore, was not only the future of the British economy but also the jobs of people which New Labour claimed it was desperate to support.

After Sir john Rose became chief executive of Rolls-Royce in 1999, he quickly prov proved himself to be a magnificent ex example of British management — fighting like a tiger on behalf of his firm and workers, and consolidati consolidating Rolls’s reputation as one of the greatest aeronautical companies in the world.

In many people’speo estimation, Britain is hugely in Sir john’s debt for what he achi achieved.

However, one o of the biggest problems he faced wasw the Bribery Act.

Put simply, h he faced a choice between allowi allowing Rolls-Royce to be destroyed by foreign rivals who did not havehav to abide by such niceties as Mr Blair’s wide- eyed anti-bribery law,law or devise a way of dealing with it.

ANd, make no mistake, Roll Rolls’s foreign rivals wer were every bit as corr corrupt, if not more, than the British firm. For the list of th those who have been suspected of en engaging in corrupt arrangements to secure vital deals includes an A-to-ZA-to of nations.

Typically, majormajo French firms have bribed officials from Nigeria to Malaysia and fr from Costa Rica to Taiwan. german giants have used corruption to w win big contracts. A japanese nucle nuclear company and a Brazilian aircraft manufacturer have been exposed for paying bribes.

In this context,context it is understandable if Rolls-Royce’sRolls-Roy Sir john Rose cut some cornerscorne and made some foolish mistakes.mistakes

But there is n no suggestion that personal venalityvenalit was involved. His sole intention was to fight for the company he loved and, by extension, to fight for Britain plc.

Incidentally, his brilliant record can be contrasted with that of his critics. Take Barry gardiner, Labour’s international trade spokesman, who splutters that Sir john ‘is not fit to hold his knighthood’.

Let it not be forgotten that this is the same Barry gardiner who was caught up in the MPs’ expenses scandal — having made £198,500 profit from a flat funded and refurbished at taxpayers’ expense.

Also, three years ago he was described as the ‘ junket King of Commons’ after being flown around world by lobby groups. Over 15 years, an international climate change organisation paid £55,000 for Mr gardiner to spend 98 days travelling the world, to push its agenda to combat global warming.

Barry gardiner has no right to lecture Sir john Rose about anything, let alone financial integrity. If the Labour MP for Brent North truly cared about the working people, he would speak out in support of Rolls-Royce.

For, make no mistake, there are many around the world who are trying to trash the reputation of one of Britain’s greatest companies.

If this continues, tens of thousands of British men and women, with families to support, risk losing their jobs.

I am not claiming that RollsRoyce has done everything by the book. Clearly it has erred.

But it’s time more people spoke up for one of Britain’s truly great companies and the proud, superbly skilled workers it employs.