The report, which the Guardian is publishing on its website along with various accompanying documents, is believed to be the only inquiry by Britain's public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office (NAO), to be so thoroughly censored, with only two MPs allowed to see its conclusions.
Its suppression, along with associated papers in 1992, has been a cause célèbre for decades among anti-corruption campaigners, with Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs backing parliamentary motions on three occasions calling for it to be released, amid speculation that it contained damning evidence of bribery in the notorious al-Yamamah arms deal.
The cache of papers reveals that the report was in effect banned after lobbying by the Ministry of Defence's top civil servant, who argued that publication would enrage the Saudis and threaten thousands of jobs.
The former MoD permanent secretary Sir Michael Quinlan also appears to have lied to MPs investigating the deal, by falsely claiming that no commissions were being paid using public funds, and he failed to disclose his own department's involvement in regular secret payments to a Saudi prince.
The discovery follows a Guardian investigation into longstanding MoD complicity in corruption and secret payments to high-ranking Saudis to secure defence contracts for Britain over decades. Payments to senior Saudis were allegedly made as recently as 2017.
The £40bn al-Yamamah deal, initially for the supply of 120 Tornado aircraft, Hawk fighter jets and other military equipment, was agreed in 1985 by the government of Margaret Thatcher and the Saudi defence minister, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
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