Parliamentary Standards Bill

The hon. Gentleman allows me an opportunity to explain. I am not arguing against the offences per se—offences of this sort may be very necessary—but their creation has a particular implication for the operation of parliamentary privilege. That comes back to another point made by the Clerk in his memorandum: the 1999 report gave us an opportunity to take a holistic approach to dealing with questions of privilege. The draft Bribery Bill is before the House—I sit on the Joint Committee that is scrutinising it—and now we have this Bill. We are taking what the Clerk terms a "piecemeal" approach to privilege, and that is where the danger lies.