Parliamentary Standards Bill

These are probing amendments. As such, they afford the opportunity for debate that was referred to yesterday by my noble friend Lord Higgins. That is of interest and value to another place—but perhaps no more. I will oppose the Question that Clause 8 stand part of the Bill. I will not go into the reasons again—I have said enough already. One has to be very careful to bring down the curtain on crime where it is clear; but how can one say what is not a crime or what could be a crime, and so on and so forth? This is not an easy exercise, and not something that we should seek to resolve in this House and impose on another place. It is for another place to decide, constitutionally, what it is going to do about implementation of its domestic procedures covering breaches of rules. It is nothing to do with us.