Parliamentary Standards Bill

If I may reply before my noble and learned friend Lord Lyell, I completely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has said. I put this amendment down to try—and I succeeded, as my noble friend has with his amendments—to provoke a discussion on the whole question of how we got into this ghastly muddle. If my amendment has enabled that to happen, it has served its purpose. The amendment happens to reflect my own personal whim of how this should be done, but I did not expect anyone to accept it. I wanted above all to have an opportunity to say, as several noble Lords have done, that there are a lot of very honourable men in the House of Commons, that they should go on being called "honourable Members", that we should respect them as such and that we will do everything that we can to give them back the confidence that they deserve. I shall certainly not be moving my amendment.