Parliamentary Standards Bill

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for pointing that out. I think that that gives it additional weight and authority, and we should all be concerned when a servant of this House raises such points. The Clerk cannot make a speech; he relies on us to reflect his concerns, which is what we are doing. It is a regrettable fact that the courts might be required to make a judgment on what is essentially a dispute between the House and the commissioner, with unpredictable consequences. If I understood the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed correctly, if the House decided to discipline the Member concerned and it was subsequently found that the information was demanded unreasonably, the court would be interfering directly in the disciplinary matters of this House. If there is something on which we all agree, it is the fact that the House must retain the ultimate sanction to discipline its own Members. If I am wrong about that—[Interruption.] No, I think that the Justice Secretary is agreeing with me. Will he explain, then, how that sanction is not put at risk if a court can declare that disciplinary action by the House is unreasonable because the commissioner had been unreasonable in the requiring certain information from a Member under investigation?