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Parliamentary Standards Bill

I raise a simple point. We always look at the Bill of Rights as something that created a massive, monumental right. It did not. It did not create anything. It declared rights that were already there, inherent in the very institution of Parliament. Indeed, the Bill of Rights is only one manifestation of those rights. They are wider than Article IX. The fact that they were spelt out in statute did not change them or confine them in any way at all. In 1840, Parliament passed the Parliamentary Papers Act, after Stockdale v Hansard. That in no way limited it rights; it merely declared rights that would have been there in any event, even if that declaratory instrument had not been made. Since it seems that those rights may well be wider than the Bill of Rights, I ask with great humility that the Government—I congratulate the Government; the noble Baroness the Leader of the House has placed the whole House of Lords in her debt through her decision on this matter—consider that the reference should be not just to the Bill of Rights but also to the parliamentary privileges of which the Bill of Rights is a manifestation.