I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way at this point. He says “around the world”. It is often thought that parliamentary privilege is unique to our rather odd partly written constitution, where the fundamental principles are accepted and not written down. That is not the case. Every parliamentary democracy in the world grants its legislative authority some kind of immunity in order to ensure that it can carry on its function of holding the Executive to account, and legislating and discussing with impunity. It is not unique to us; it exists in America, Australia and elsewhere. They all wrestle with this problem of how to make it work.
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Bernard Jenkin
(Conservative)
in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 8 October 2013.
It occurred during Debate on bills on Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
568 c85 
Session
2013-14
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Subjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2013-12-20 04:23:44 +0000
URI
http://hansard.intranet.data.parliament.uk/Commons/2013-10-08/13100831000045
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