I happen to think that that is absolutely right, both from our point of view and from the point of view of the courts. It is important that our proceedings allow people to be honest and to speak freely without incriminating themselves, and that must be a protection that we seek to maintain. I think that if we undermine it by bringing the courts into the details of the behaviour of Members of Parliament, we will fail. I would go in the opposite direction. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), I would go the whole way and leave it to the British electorate. I would place my trust in them, and let them get on with it. But the worst of all solutions—worse even than a Committee of chums somewhere upstairs deciding that we have all behaved beautifully—is to involve the court system.
I also cannot agree with the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), which is rare, because I often do agree with him. He has proposed a “pledge” in new clause 4. I do not like the pledge. I think that it reads as a sort of bureaucratic announcement that we are all going to do good things, in that awful “speak” that is so common in conferences, about how you should be a leader and grab hold of your management skills, and all that waffle.
I do not like that at all. It does not accord with my vision of myself as a Member of Parliament. I think that Members of Parliament are here at the service of their constituents, and that their constituents will judge whether they are doing their job properly, rather than someone’s saying that they have not shown leadership. What on earth does “showing leadership” mean? If you are the Prime Minister it is easy, but what is a Back-Bench MP meant to do? [Interruption.] The Prime Minister always shows wonderful, clear, decisive leadership. The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) is cackling from his Front Bench. Many people think it is a pity that he did not show leadership by trying to become leader of the Scottish socialists, which would have been very welcome.