When doing business with Saudis, use smoke and mirrors!

Photo courtesy of The Telegraph

The Government used "special accounting arrangements" on a controversial £20bn oil-for-arms deal with Saudi Arabia to make sure MPs were not able to vet it, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

The news comes as ministers put finishing touches to a multi-billion pound successor to the original Al-Yamamah arms deal, agreed in 1985 by Margaret Thatcher.

Controversy has raged over claims that millions of pounds were paid in bribes to secure the original contract.

Two years ago the Serious Fraud Office launched an investigation into the claims that bribes were paid by companies used by BAE Systems, one of the main beneficiaries of the deal, to win orders for equipment.

Government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that deal was structured to avoid Parliamentary scrutiny. Saudi deal 'hidden from MPs' by Christopher Hope

Britain's multi-billion pound Al-Yamamah arms contract with Saudi Arabia is the UK's biggest ever overseas defence order.

Yet little is known about it. The original deal was agreed by Margaret Thatcher, the then-prime minister, in 1985 and signed by Michael Heseltine and HRH Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud in the following year.

Analysts have estimated the value of the contract to be anything from £15bn to £150bn. Twenty years of smokescreen over Saudi deal by Christopher Hope

Mark Alexander