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House of Lords: Code of Conduct

I accept the noble Lord’s point, but I always have a slight tingle down the back of my spine when I hear us being asked to do something to inspire public confidence. What we want is to inspire the confidence of our fellow Members of this House, first and foremost. If we can indeed inspire the confidence of the public, so much the better, but what will the public say about our signing an affirmation here? They will say, "They have signed another piece of paper. Is that a guarantee that they are going to behave?". We do not know the answer to that. I believe that it is such a serious matter to sign an affirmation, a declaration or whatever we call it that it is essential that we are clear what we are signing up to. If we find out later that there is a lack of clarity, it should be properly reviewed so that, beyond peradventure and beyond any doubt, we know what it is that we sign up to.