My hon. Friend has, typically, put more pithily than I could a complex legal argument. By drawing the courts into adjudicating on these words, we would be devaluing the 1689 Bill of Rights. That would be irresponsible. If the courts start arguing about all this, we will have to legislate on the matter and risk losing our historic immunity.
Our conclusions, clearly stated in the report, were:
“The extent of Parliament’s exclusive cognisance changes over time, as the work of Parliament evolves”
and it would be impractical
“to draw up an exhaustive list”.
We continued:
“Where there is uncertainty in a case brought before the courts, the extent of Parliament’s exclusive cognisance will be determined by the courts.”
We stated that
“if Parliament were to consider that its privileges had been reduced to the extent that it could no longer effectively perform its core work, it could in the last resort change the law”,
but finally that
“legislation should only be used when absolutely necessary, to resolve uncertainty or in the unlikely event of Parliament’s exclusive cognisance being materially diminished by the courts.”
Neither of those last two conditions exists. There is no uncertainty.
We made further recommendations about how our 1689 privileges could be clarified. It is fashionable to believe that over the years parliamentary privilege has been eroded by the courts. That is a two-way street. In certain circumstances, Parliament might exercise privilege in a manner that has recently been ruled to be subject to court proceedings. It would depend on the circumstances, and we need to hold out the prospect that in extremis we would exercise privilege in a way that the courts might not expect us to do, given the way that privilege has been exercised in the past.
We no longer send out a posse of soldiers to arrest people on behalf of Parliament, and I do not suppose we will return to that in these democratic days, but who knows what will happen in the future? Parliament should reserve its right to assert its privilege in order to be able to conduct its proceedings immune from the courts, immune from the Executive, under any circumstances.
6.45 pm