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Privileges Committee: First Report

My Lords, I want to say one other thing about this. I reached the conclusion, for the reasons that have been advanced—I do not want to repeat them—that we do have the power to suspend. I am glad to have reached that conclusion, because I would have been unhappy if this House did not have such a power to regulate its own procedure. I would have been unhappy justifying our present position as a self-regulating House if we did not have such a power. I emphasise—I respectfully urge noble Lords to view the matter the same way—that the question is not whether we would like to have the power, but whether we do have the power. My conclusion is that we do have the power and, as it happens, that we should exercise it as well. The reputation of this House is high because we have the ability and we have exercised the power to regulate our procedures and our Members in the past, not because we are going to arrogate a new power to ourselves today.