My Lords, just to give some sense of momentum on this, I can tell your Lordships that the Joint Committee that has been established on parliamentary privilege is asked to report by 25 April 2013.
I listened carefully to what my noble friend said. As always, he made an extremely well informed and well researched contribution, but can I just put to the Committee a political reality? We are dealing with probably one of the most sensitive areas of the functioning of our parliamentary democracy; that is, parliamentary privilege. There is not a snowball’s chance in hell of the Houses of Parliament in an area, which is so sensitive and so important, allowing this Committee and this Bill to make decisions which go ahead of what the Joint Committee is going to do.
As the Government’s Green Paper pointed out, the point of parliamentary privilege is not defamation or what is published in the newspapers; it is the right of Members of Parliament to conduct their business in Parliament. That is why parliamentarians are so careful and so jealous about how we should handle this.
Therefore, I am sorry to say that I can give my noble friend no other response than the one that I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney: that the Joint Committee is now in being. Certainly, my noble friend’s contribution today will be well worth reading by that committee, but it is a matter for that committee and I urge my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.