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

No, I will not. Having said what I have about the case in question, I also think that when we consider issues of privilege, it is worth reflecting that if it was the case—and I know that it will not be in this instance—that a Member of Parliament had entered into an arrangement with a civil servant to disclose information on a continuing basis for political reasons or if a Member of Parliament was paying a civil servant to send information across regularly, we would regard that as extremely serious. It would also raise questions about Members' conduct. It might not occasion the criminal law, but it would lead us to define what we think is the proper conduct of a Member of Parliament. So yes, let us have a Committee: I rather like the Committee proposed by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) and I hope that the Government will be well disposed to such a Committee. I do not know whether the term ““sub judice”” actually covers the worry we have about police inquiries, but I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman can assure us that it does. Let us have the Committee; let the Committee decide where it is and where it is not proper for it to go; and let us put all that on the table in order to make some sense out of it all.