Parliamentary Standards Bill

My hon. Friend may well be right. Another point arises from an amendment that he has tabled. It relates to the European convention on human rights. So long as this House has kept its principles simple, it has succeeded in escaping outside jurisdictions—for very good reasons, I think—but if this House starts to create criminal offences for its Members, which we are doing, that will clearly become much more difficult. Also, when we come to consider this matter tomorrow, I strongly recommend that the House should pause before creating criminal offences which, in fact, pertain to regulatory breaches of its own rules. That too is likely to create very serious problems for how we run ourselves.