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Speaker's Committee on the Search of Offices on the Parliamentary Estate

I will make a little more progress before I accept any more interventions. This whole affair raises a number of questions relating to matters outside the workings of this House: the relationship between the Executive and the police; the responsibilities of the Home Secretary; and the relationship between the Home Office and the Cabinet Office. Those are not matters for this debate. Today, it is for this House to exert its authority and for each and every one of us to consider how we can ensure that the rights of Parliament and of our constituents can be upheld. There will be some people who will ask why we should bother with this—surely no MP is above the law. Of course, that is the case—no Member of Parliament is above the law, and parliamentary privilege has never protected MPs against criminal proceedings. There are, however, two key issues at stake. First, MPs must be able to do their job, both in representing their constituents and in holding the Government to account. What we are talking about today is the search of an MP's office and the seizure of material that was fundamental to the ability of my hon. Friend to do his job. Crucially, material held by an MP which is going to be used or is capable of being used in parliamentary proceedings is indeed subject to parliamentary privilege, which we hold not for ourselves on our behalf but for our constituents.