Hemming and Heath on the Bill of Rights

• [Mar 17] Peter Bone (Wellingborough, Conservative): This very important debate is about articles 9 and 13 of the Bill of Rights and the role of Parliament in dealing with all grievances and the importance of freedom of communication between constituents and Members, and I know that it is very important, because the Leader of the House trailed it earlier. I remind Members of the importance of privilege, which we have here in Westminster Hall as in other parts of Parliament, but Members should always exercise their rights with care, particularly when naming individuals, and should avoid intrusion into areas that are within the jurisdiction of the courts, particularly things that are active before the courts.

• John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley, Liberal Democrat): I thank you, Mr Bone, and also the Backbench Business Committee, on which I sit, for providing the opportunity to debate this very important issue.

I often find the older laws interesting to look at, and they are all available on the modern websites. On the statute law website, found at legislation.gov.uk, we can find the Bill of Rights 1688, which is sometimes called the Act of Rights 1689. Article 9 of that Bill is on freedom of speech, and says

"the Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parlyament."

Interestingly, that it is often misunderstood to mean absolute privilege, when it in fact means that the courts cannot look at what is said in Parliament, which gives a defence not only against defamation but against contempt of court. Things that perhaps otherwise could not be spoken of, can be spoken of within Parliament because of article 9. It is absolutely crucial to recognise that that is a liberty of the British people: the powers of Parliament, in the body of democracy, to represent the citizens of the United Kingdom are liberties of the British people. Contempt of Parliament and parliamentary privilege are there to protect the citizens of the UK, and of the world more widely, and I shall go into some detail about that later.

Article 13 is about frequent Parliaments:

"And that for Redresse of all Grievances and for the amending strengthening and preserveing of the Lawes Parlyaments ought to be held frequently."

That clearly gives Parliament two functions, one being the redress of all grievances. The nub of my arguments today is that if Parliament does not know what is going on, for one reason or another, it is somewhat difficult for it to produce any results whereby the grievances are redressed. We face serious problems if Parliament is blinded or deafened by the actions of others.

I have some other laws here, which are important. In the area of family proceedings, people very often refuse to, or are pressurised not to, give information to Members of Parliament. There have been a number of changes over the years. In 2005, a statutory instrument creaked open the door to the family courts, and then there were the Family Proceedings (Amendment) (No.2) Rules 2009, which are important because they made it clear under "communication of information for purposes connected with the proceedings" that a

"party or the legal representative of a party, on behalf of and upon the instructions of that party, may communicate information relating to the proceedings to any person where necessary to enable that party...by confidential discussion, to obtain support, advice or assistance in the conduct of the proceedings".

This might come as a surprise to some people: Members of Parliament are human beings. The law was opened up very clearly in 2005, and it was made explicit in 2009 that any person is allowed to have information from a party. Article 9 of the fundamental constitutional law of the UK of course trumps statute and statutory instruments, but we have here a statutory instrument that makes it extremely clear that a Member of Parliament may obtain information from a party; for example, from a parent or a child who is aggrieved at their treatment by the family courts. Often children have great difficulty escaping from this strange world; a number of teenagers who have found it very difficult to escape the system have contacted me.

There is another old constitutional law that I would like to refer Members to: the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta 1297 is the version that is in force-in statute. It is rather sad, in some senses, that so little of it remains. A lot of it has been repealed, and only articles I, IX and XXIX are left. Article I is on the confirmation of liberties, and basically refers to the Church of England. Article IX refers to the liberties of London, and as a Member of Parliament for Birmingham I wonder why an article about London and the Cinque ports has not been repealed when so many of the others have gone.

Article XXIX is an important one, on imprisonment contrary to law and the administration of justice:

"NO Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the Land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right."

I emphasise the last sentence of that article, the key to which, as I see it, is that people are equal before the law, and that one's wealth should not affect how one is seen by the legal system. There are lots of debates going on about access to justice, and last week I raised the issue of the balance between two different cases, and of how the people involved in them were treated. One case involved a particularly wealthy person and the other a relatively poor person, and I will come on to that later because it is important.

This debate is particularly about the position of communication with Members of Parliament, and Mr Davis has a very important point to raise in association with that. Even if we did not have the Bill of Rights, it is clear that there are circumstances in which it would be lawful for people to communicate with Members of Parliament. There are other situations, when there are court injunctions or other pressures on people through employment contracts and the like, when it perhaps is not as lawful for people to communicate with their Member of Parliament. I am particularly concerned about situations in which people are bullied and threatened to prevent them from raising their grievances with their Member of Parliament, and there is obviously a question as to where the limits of that lie. I tend to construe it more broadly, in that when information is needed for proceedings in Parliament that should be protected by the law. The law of Parliament is part of the law, even if some solicitors firms do not understand that, such as Withers last year.

139WH)

[10707

Richard Bacon (South Norfolk, Conservative): On that point, and particularly in connection with family law, it is the bullying of constituents that is one of the most offensive aspects of this. In trying to explain to parliamentary colleagues why we sought to hold this debate and what is so important about it, the example that I have given that has most grabbed their attention is that of a social services department saying to a constituent, "If you talk to your Member of Parliament, we'll make sure you lose custody of your child." Does that not illustrate vividly the nature of the problem that we are dealing with?

141WH)

[11420

John Hemming: Yes, it is a dreadful abuse of state power to threaten to remove a child from the care of the parents because they deign to speak to their Member of Parliament. That happened to one of my constituents, Andrew France, and I will come to the detailed documentation on that later. I think that is a dreadful thing to do with people.

On the Family Proceedings (Amendment) (No.2) Rules 2009, I pointed out that it is in fact entirely lawful to talk to anyone. To say, "We will remove your child, because you had the effrontery to raise your concerns about process with your Member of Parliament" is a dreadful thing to do. Parliament should not tolerate that, because it undermines the actions of Parliament. Later, I will come in detail to the example from Australia which demonstrates that it can be interpreted as contempt of Parliament, so Parliament could take action on those grounds to ensure that people's right to talk to their MP is protected.

Last week, I raised the issue of Fred Goodwin and Lee Gilliland. Everyone tended to concentrate on Fred Goodwin and the banker issue, but I think that the issue of Lee Gilliland is more important. The Gilliland case is slightly complex, and I cannot refer to some things, because proceedings are continuing. However, in the historic proceedings to which I referred last week, he had his mental capacity removed, on his right to instruct a solicitor, on the basis of a report from his GP which was written some five months after his GP had last seen him and which he has still not seen-I spoke to him about half an hour ago.

It took me a little time to get into the issue of mental capacity, when I first encountered it a number of years ago, because it seemed so shocking. Yes, we have the Mental Capacity Act 2005, which specifies circumstances under which people's capacity can be removed, but I was surprised to find a situation in which someone who seems coherent could be told, basically, "You're too stupid to tell a solicitor what to do. And, because you are too stupid to tell a solicitor what to do, we will appoint what is called a litigation friend"-one must distinguish between a litigation friend and a McKenzie friend, because people sometimes confuse the two. The litigation friend acts on someone's behalf. The Official Solicitor is often appointed as litigation friend even though the Official Solicitor ought really to be appointed as a litigation friend of last resort.

With the agreement of the Official Solicitor on behalf of Mr Gilliland, a decision was made by the court. The house he lived in was to be sold, with half the money going to him-roughly £50,000. However, he was to be evicted and, of the £50,000, more than £37,000 would go to his solicitor. Who is protecting Mr Gilliland's interests? He did not start out as a particularly wealthy individual, then the state came in and said, "You are too stupid to instruct a solicitor, but you can't see the basis upon which we have made that decision. Oh, and by the way, we are going to take three quarters of the money you might have had, turfing you out of your house and putting you on the streets, and give it to your solicitor."

I do not see that as treating Fred Goodwin on the one hand and Lee Gilliland on the other hand equally. Fred Goodwin can afford to spend a lot of money on getting an injunction, or even a super-injunction under which someone cannot even talk about him having the injunction. I will come to what I call hyper-injunctions. One of the freedom of speech issues is that media organisations are generally commercial organisations, and there gets to be a point at which it is not worth their while trying to challenge the system and to get information out. With that, we return to the article 9 issue, because our freedom of speech in the House is obviously on behalf of the citizens. We need to know of grievances so that we can raise them and talk about them publicly, so that the citizens of the UK can know. If it costs £20,000 or £30,000 in legal fees to write an article, in most circumstances a media organisation will just give up. The freedom of speech is basically sold down the river, because of the costs of the legal processes.

• . . David Heath (Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, House of Commons; Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat): I am pleased to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Bone. Let me start by congratulating my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) and for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) on securing this debate. This is the second time in recent weeks that I have participated in a Westminster Hall debate that was initiated by the Backbench Business Committee. I am also grateful to Helen Jones for her comments, most of which I entirely agreed with. As she said, this is not a party political issue; it is a matter of Parliament standing up for the privileges of our constituents, who are so important to our process.

The debate has focused largely on the right of constituents and others to approach their own MP to share information with them lawfully, without fear of reprisals, and the right of hon. Members, having received that information, to raise any matter in the House, without fear of legal action. It is those two issues that I wish to address this afternoon. References have been made to specific cases during the course of the debate. Like the hon. Member for Warrington North, I do not propose to comment on them today, as it would not be proper to do so in a general debate of this kind. In particular, I am mindful of the risk of contravening the House's resolution relating to matters sub judice, and I know that hon. Members will understand why I will exercise extreme caution in everything that I have to say about the relationship between this House and the courts.

Article 9 of the Bill of Rights applies only to proceedings in Parliament, and its protection is absolute. The meaning of "proceedings" in this context is open to interpretation, but the House has never sought to assert that it should apply to dealings between Members and their constituents or other members of the public. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley asserts that it should and I am simply stating the fact that it never has. However, the courts have regarded the communication of information to a Member of Parliament by a constituent as enjoying qualified privilege at law. Similarly, a Member who passes on a constituent's concerns in good faith to the proper authority, such as a Minister, will not be protected by parliamentary privilege, but is likely to be protected by qualified privilege. Qualified privilege provides protection in certain situations where a person, acting in good faith and without any improper motive, makes a statement about another person, which is in fact untrue and defamatory. According to the case of Adam v.Ward in 1917,qualified privilege arises in situations where

"the person who makes a communication has an interest, or a duty, legal, social or moral, to make it to the person to whom it is made, and the person to whom it is made has a corresponding interest or duty to receive it."

That point was clearly made during the debate. There are other cases, such as Rivlin v.Bilainkin to which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley referred, where the courts held that it was not lawful for a person to pass on information if they were not seeking to bring to the attention of a Member of Parliament something which was his duty to pass on to another authority, but was simply making a point. In that case, a woman was making a point about her former husband, and it was held that that was not proper use of the facility and did not benefit from the qualified privilege that would otherwise apply.

The issue of passing on correspondence to a Minister is important and it was referred to by the hon. Member for Warrington North. As I have said, at the moment that does not have absolute privilege-parliamentary privilege-but it has qualified privilege. However, there is the very important case of Beach. In that case, an MP passed on a constituent's letter that complained about a local firm of solicitors to two third parties, the Law Society and the Lord Chancellor, and the firm of solicitors took action for defamation against the MP. The court held in that case:

"1. MPs have an interest in receiving correspondence from constituents bringing matters of concern to their attention;

2. MPs have a consequential interest or duty in "passing the complaint on to the proper quarter";

3. The Law Society and the Lord Chancellor both had an interest in receiving complaints about the conduct of solicitors;

4. Consequently, a qualified privilege was made out in this case which acted as a bar to an action for defamation".

That is a very clear illustration of where qualified privilege assists an MP in the exercise of their proper duties and in the sort of action that we would expect any hon. Member of this House to take on behalf of their constituents.

171WH)

[10319

Helen Jones (Warrington North, Labour): The Deputy Leader of the House is quite right about the case that he has just quoted. However, does he think that it is now time to consider whether an MP who is carrying out their proper duties should be subjected to a case in court and have to defend it with qualified privilege, or should we consider enshrining privilege in statute?

173WH)

[10269

David Heath : I am certainly open to the suggestion that we should consider that issue as part of the privilege Bill that we intend to introduce. I will discuss that Bill in a little while.

173WH)

[10095

William Cash (Stone, Conservative): What the hon. Lady has just said raises the question of who would actually interpret the statute. So we are back to the courts in that event. What we need to do is entrench a procedure into the privilege Bill, when we pass it into law, that might, for example, prevent such a case being taken to court, or that at least would ensure that if the case went to court a judge would have a kind of pre-trial opportunity to consider it. It is probably a procedural question, but we cannot avoid the fact that even if privilege is put into statute it will still be open to interpretation.

173WH)

[10269

David Heath : I think that we would be in the same position that we are in now, with the present interpretation of the absolute parliamentary privilege that we enjoy in the comments that we make in this House. I do not see that there would be any difference if we were to extend our statutory interpretation of proceedings to include correspondence in the way that the hon. Lady suggests. However, let me not attempt to pre-empt a serious debate that will inevitably need to happen in preparing the statute on which this Bill will be based, both in terms of the pre-legislative scrutiny and then our scrutiny of whatever is proposed.

173WH)

[11420

John Hemming: I may not be right but I am thinking of the Strauss case, which was about a letter from a Back-Bench MP to a Minister about cables. I believe that at the time the Standards and Privileges Committee recommended that the House should consider that case to have privilege, but the House voted-albeit not unanimously-not to treat it as being privileged.

173WH)

[10269

David Heath : My hon. Friend brings me on to a very important point about the attitude of the House to date. He is eager to change that attitude, but the House has not yet shown a predilection, to use his own word, to do so, because in the past the House itself has not regarded attempts to interfere with or to frustrate a constituent's communication with their MP as a breach of privilege. "Erskine May" records cases where threats have been made against a constituent by his employer in respect of communications with the constituent's MP and either the House has declined to refer the matter to the Standards and Privileges Committee or the Committee has found that the actions alleged did not amount to a breach of privilege.

My hon. Friend addressed the situation in Australia, where the position in the state of Victoria is slightly different from that here. There was a 2006 case in the Parliament of Victoria, in which the Parliament upheld a privilege complaint from Michael Leighton, the Member for the electoral district of Preston. In that case, the complaint was that a constituent who provided information to Mr Leighton relating to an issue that he had previously raised in the Parliament later received a solicitor's letter threatening legal action if Mr Leighton repeated certain allegations in the Parliament. That illustrates that there might be particular circumstances in which interference with communication between an MP here and a constituent might be regarded as a contempt of the House, although it does not demonstrate that communications between MPs and constituents should generally be regarded as being protected by parliamentary privilege.

However, there are two points that we must remember about the Victoria case. First, the threat to take legal action against the constituent was specifically in respect of any allegations that might be repeated by the Member in the Parliament of Victoria and it was therefore an indirect attempt to constrain the Member's freedom of speech in the Parliament. I have to say that that bears some level of similarity with my hon. Friend's case against Withers, where the House acted quite properly in his defence, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that it acted in defence of his constituent.

The second point, or rather the second difference between the situation here and the situation in Australia, is quite important in the context of this debate. It is that parliamentary privilege in Australia is defined in the Parliamentary Privilege Act 1987, so Australians do not rely on the Bill of Rights as we do. In addition, there is a definition of "proceedings" in that Act, which is

"all words spoken or acts done in the course of, or for the purposes of or incidental to, the transacting of the business of a House or of a committee."

I think that my hon. Friend is arguing that we ought to have some similar provision here and we will need to look at that issue when we consider the matter of parliamentary privilege more widely.

173WH)

[10707

Richard Bacon (South Norfolk, Conservative): I am listening with great interest to the Deputy Leader of the House. There is an article 13 point here, which is that the Bill of Rights says that Parliament should "frequently" meet

"for redress of all grievances".

Is it not an axiom of that, in effect, that Parliament can only do its job of redressing "all grievances" if MPs know about "all grievances", and therefore that communications that are intended to ensure that MPs do know about "all grievances" are inherently bound up with the Bill of Rights?

174WH)

[10269

David Heath : I hear what the hon. Gentleman says and I have some sympathy with what he says. However, I have some difficulty with the interpretation of article 13 of the Bill of Rights. I say that not as a constitutional lawyer, but as someone who is making the simple observation that article 13 of the Bill of Rights is headed, "Frequent Parliaments", and therefore it seems to me to that article 13 is inherently about the frequency of Parliament rather than the reason for holding Parliaments frequently, which is

"for redress of all grievances".

It is the emphasis within article 13 of the Bill of Rights that I am addressing. Having said that, we are talking about a 1688 Act and it would be very surprising indeed if it was construed in 1688 in exactly the same way that modern eyes construe it. Therefore, I do not want to replace centuries of jurisprudence on the subject with my lay observations today. However, I hear what the hon. Gentleman says.

I want to move on to Parliament and the courts, because a lot of what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley had to say was about the relationship between Parliament and the courts. Yet again, I enter the caveat that as a member of the Executive I need to be careful about what I say about that relationship and I hope that hon. Members will understand that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley referred to circumstances in which parties to court proceedings are forbidden to talk about them, either because of a specific injunction to that effect or, as in the case of certain family court proceedings, because proceedings are conducted in private, for example in the family court or the Court of Protection. That would not prevent a Member from raising in the House matters that it would be a contempt of court to raise elsewhere. We saw that in the recent Trafigura case, in which I had an interest. I was clear about what Parliament's position should be, and I am happy that that was supported by others. If proceedings had been concluded, the House's sub judice resolution would not necessarily prevent such matters being referred to.

The crux of the issue is the degree of legal protection offered, not to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley were he to raise the matter in the House-as he has done this afternoon-but to an individual who discloses information to their Member of Parliament. The extent of that protection is less clear, as in many cases it depends, as we have heard, on qualified privilege. In family proceedings, the Family Proceedings (Amendment) (No. 2) Rules 2009 include certain exemptions about the disclosure of information, including in rule 11.4(1)(d), which provides that a

"party or the legal representative of a party, on behalf of and upon the instructions of that party, may communicate information relating to the proceedings to any person where necessary to enable that party...to make and pursue a complaint regarding the law, policy or procedure relating to a category of proceedings to which this Part applies."

However-that is a significant "however"-I emphasise that that is a general rule, which is subject to any direction of the court, and the court may direct that such disclosure, though generally allowed, should not be allowed in certain cases. That, I think, is the circumstance to which my hon. Friend refers.

I agree with the many Members who have said that an individual's right to approach his or her MP should be regarded as an essential part of the democratic process. However, we need to consider how to deal with cases in which one person's right of access to their MP could interfere with the rights of others, including the right to a fair trial and the right to privacy. There is no point in Parliament making laws conferring decision-making powers on the courts, if an individual Member can vitiate those decisions by disclosing on the Floor of the House information that might fatally undermine their purpose. For example, if a court orders that the identity of a party to legal proceedings should not be disclosed-usually because it would render the proceedings nugatory-Members should think very carefully before using the auspices of parliamentary privilege to subvert such a judgment.

The guiding principle must be one of comity: the House and its Members will respect the jurisdiction of the courts, and the courts will not trespass on to territory that is properly occupied by Parliament. If Parliament collectively believes that some injustice arises from how the courts apply the law, it is open to Parliament to change the law. There is no need to use the blunt instrument of parliamentary privilege as a battering ram with which to beat the courts.

If there are deficiencies in family court proceedings, my hon. Friend ought to seek to amend those rules, in the first instance, or the statute under which they operate, if he feels that they are ineffective in allowing him properly to represent the interests of his constituents.

174WH)

[10095

William Cash (Stone, Conservative): I appreciate that I am intruding somewhat into this rather narrow debate about parliamentary privilege and the Act. The Deputy Leader of the House referred to family law. As such matters are absorbed into the broader context of the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, the manner in which the courts respond to them within the framework of the law will be interpreted by that Court. I fear that some of the assumptions being made, including that we will be able to legislate in line with the kind of principles that the Deputy Leader of the House has referred to, will not be applicable, because it will not be a matter exclusively for our courts.

176WH)

[10269

David Heath : I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. He talks about the European Court of Justice. I thought that he was going to talk about the European convention on human rights, because it could be argued that the way these matters operate is outwith ECHR provisions, other than the fact that we are using the licence within the relevant article in the convention, which allows for specific items-the interests of minors are mentioned-to be excluded from the general rule of open proceedings in court. We must bear that in mind. I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, and I have no doubt that we will discuss the matter on many other occasions.

Coming back to what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley was saying, I think that he is particularly exercised about the office of the Official Solicitor. He seems to have an interesting relationship with the Official Solicitor, in the pursuance of his various interests in the cases in which he has been involved. He essentially asks where the Official Solicitor's supervision and accountability are, in the exercise of his duties. My hon. Friend knows that the antecedents of the office go back a long way, to its origins in the Six Clerks Office, which was mentioned by Pepys. This officer of the court has a long pedigree, and he acts on behalf of those who were originally defined as paupers, including lunatics and infants, and needed protection under the law. The office is an ancient one, but it has always been an office of the court.

Under the most recent legislation, the office is a statutory office of the Supreme Court, and we have been very clear in the House, by statute and otherwise, that we respect the independence of the Supreme Court, and that we will not seek to interfere with the activities of the Supreme Court, as a legislature. We have to be very careful in expecting something of an officer of the Supreme Court, who I suppose is answerable in extremis to the Lord Chancellor in the exercise of their duties. It is not a matter for normal, democratic control, any more than a judge sitting in the High Court is a matter that should be under the control of the House.

176WH)

[10707

Richard Bacon (South Norfolk, Conservative): I have listened to the Deputy Leader of the House with great interest. He said that we should not seek to interfere with the operation of the Supreme Court as a legislature. Did he mean that we should not, as a legislature, seek to interfere with the operation of the Supreme Court? There is a fundamental difference.

177WH)

[10269

David Heath : I meant that we, as a legislature, should not seek to interfere with the activities of the Supreme Court. There was a comma, which the hon. Gentleman did not, I think, hear. It was there; I assure him.

177WH)

[10707

Richard Bacon (South Norfolk, Conservative): I regret that I did not hear the comma, but does the Deputy Leader of the House not agree that this goes to the heart of what my hon. Friend Mr Cash was talking about? Although the late and much-lamented Lord Chief Justice, Tom Bingham, made it extremely clear in his recent book, "The Rule of Law", that he thought that the Court should ultimately defer to the democratic will of the elected legislature, my hon. Friend the Member for Stone says that there is abroad-"abroad" is the wrong word, although it is also true-around the place, including here and also abroad, a kind of judge who does not take that view. That is a source of great concern.

177WH)

[10269

David Heath : I understand the concern about what is normally described as judicial activism, and about the judiciary perhaps wishing to extend its role beyond what has been the traditional separation between its role and that of the House. We have to be extremely wary about that. Nevertheless, I maintain that it is not and never has been the role of Members of Parliament to decide whether officers of the court are behaving properly in the exercise of their duties. Our role is to create the statutory environment in which they work, and that is a very different matter.

177WH)

[10319

Helen Jones (Warrington North, Labour): It is a difficult area, but does the Deputy Leader of the House agree that while we would not wish to see Members of Parliament interfering in the judicial process-we have both probably had experience of telling constituents that we cannot do that-a constituent who feels that they have not received justice or due process ought to be free to raise that with a Member of Parliament? There are two different issues.

177WH)

[10269

David Heath : The hon. Lady puts it very well. There is a distinction, and we are right to make it.

I share the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley about the growth of the super-injunction, and what he described as the hyper-injunction. I was concerned when the issue arose during the Trafigura case. I am also concerned that we have allowed a whole new jurisprudence to develop without any real consideration of where it will end, or the consequences for our judicial process.

Happily, the Master of the Rolls, who has a proper role in the matter, has recognised the public concern. He established a committee in April last year to examine the use of injunctions that bind the press, including super-injunctions. He brought together a committee of the judiciary, the legal profession and the press. I anticipate that it will report soon, and we in the House should have particular concern about what it says.

Such injunctions have an impact, potentially, on what we do in the House, and certainly on the interests of our constituents. Personally, I look forward to seeing whether the Master of the Rolls wishes to bring into effect any significant changes to how the courts interpret the whole role of super-injunctions, and what he has to say about the position that has been established whereby my hon. Friend, as a Member of Parliament, cannot know that his constituent is even involved in a case, let alone get involved in it, because his constituent is injuncted by a super-injunction to prevent him passing on that information. My hon. Friend's concern is perfectly legitimate and I am glad he has had the opportunity to express it today.

177WH)

[10707

Richard Bacon (South Norfolk, Conservative): Many people, including Paul Farrelly, who raised the Trafigura case, have had concerns about super-injunctions. Does the Deputy Leader of the House agree that such people should also be concerned about what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley has identified as another category, hyper-injunctions, whereby a court makes an order not to refer to the existence of proceedings? Is that not simply a step far too far?

178WH)

[10269

David Heath : I am not sure that I understand the distinction that my hon. Friend was making between a super-injunction and a hyper-injunction, because what is called a super-injunction is an injunction that requires a particular course of action to be taken, including not reporting that the injunction in place is proceeding. It is an injunction squared, or a self-referring injunction. I am concerned about it, as are a lot of hon. Members, but we must wait and see what the Master of Rolls has to say on the subject when he-or, rather, his committee-reports.

I want to conclude by talking about the draft parliamentary privilege Bill.

178WH)

[10095

William Cash (Stone, Conservative): I realise that I asked a much broader question than was intended for the debate, so I do not ask the Deputy Leader of the House to go into any detail, but in general does he take on board my point about the hierarchy of laws and the necessity to ensure where the final jurisdiction lies? The issue has come up in various forms in exchanges on the draft parliamentary privilege legislation and its proposals. The Supreme Court and other courts in the European dimension are claiming greater jurisdiction than previously over what we do, indirectly and, sometimes, more directly. That is an innovation, which was certainly not around five years ago. I ask the hon. Gentleman to do no more than take into account the fact that these points are not just the emanations of those who are concerned obsessively about such matters; they need to be taken very seriously because the process is on the march.

178WH)

[10269

David Heath : I was going to come to the hon. Gentleman's points at the conclusion of my other remarks, but I will answer them now.

I am loth to usurp the authority of the Lord Chancellor, which I suspect would be lèse majesté on the part of a junior Minister. Therefore, it would not be appropriate for me to second-guess the Lord Chancellor's views, in particular as he had the opportunity recently to set out some concerns in a Committee, as the hon. Gentleman said.

The hon. Gentleman knows that the Government are setting up a commission to look at the case for a UK Bill of Rights. He knows that the announcement has been made and that that will happen. He knows what is in the coalition agreement in respect of the issue, and I do not need to remind him of that. He also knows, because I heard him recently ask the question of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe, that the Government strongly support reform of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. There is a package of considerations and I will not pre-empt any conclusions, but I hear what the hon. Member for Stone has said. I am sure that other colleagues in the Government will have heard his comments as well. It is probably safest if I leave it at that. He understands that there is a limit to how far I can expand on the subject.

Returning to a perhaps slightly safer area for which I do have some responsibility, the Government intend to bring forward a draft parliamentary privilege Bill. As we have heard this afternoon, it is a complex subject. We have the report from some years ago to which the hon. Member for Warrington North referred. We need to revisit it, to ensure that it meets all our present circumstances, but we hope that we will soon be able to provide a draft Bill on which every hon. Member will have the opportunity to comment. In particular, I hope that Members involved in this afternoon's debate will make their views well known as part of the consultative process, because they will have the opportunity to shape the content of the Bill.

I was intrigued by the suggestion of Mr Bacon that we should do away with "privilege" altogether and call it something else. I make no commitment that that will form part of the Bill, but "privilege" is sometimes misinterpreted, deliberately or purely by ignorance, and assumed to mean that we somehow place our interests, and ourselves, above those of other people, rather than what it does mean, which is that it enables us to do our job on behalf of the people we represent.

Such interpretations were perhaps exaggerated by the recent court cases involving former Members of the House. The proposition before the court was that parliamentary privilege somehow prevented them from facing due criminal proceedings in the courts. Of course, privilege did not do that; we said so at the time and I am pleased that the courts held it to be the case. However, that message simply must go out: parliamentary privilege is not about privileges for Members, it is about privilege for our constituents to have a Member of Parliament who can stand up and speak without fear or favour on their behalf in the House, and to do so on whatever terms that Member feels fit, and without the threat of court action or the actions of the Executive preventing them from acting in the fullest capacity as a Member of Parliament. We intend to produce the draft Bill by the end of this Session, in spring 2012. That will provide us with a further opportunity for these matters to be discussed.

I am grateful to you, Mr Bone, for chairing this sitting and to the Backbench Business Committee for providing us with the opportunity to debate the subject. I am grateful too to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley for bringing forward matters of considerable importance, which have now been given an airing in the House.

179WH)

[11915

Peter Bone (Wellingborough, Conservative): With the leave of the House, I call the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley.

180WH)

5:10 pm

[11420

John Hemming: I thank everyone who attended this debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing it. I also thank you, Mr Bone, for chairing it so ably.

The debate can be summed up in a few words. Parliament needs to know about grievances and to be able to take action. We need to take action to protect our constituents. The accountability of the courts rests on people knowing what is going on, even if anonymously. The difficulty with the operation of the Official Solicitor's office is that people do not know what is going on. There is no question but that reform is needed in that area. However, the points have been reasonable and we have had a good debate. I thank my hon. Friend Mr Bacon for working with me on the debate. On that point, I shall end.

Question put and agreed to.

Sitting adjourned.

• Full Debate in Parliament