The rule as it stands right now is to allow evidence to be heard, frankly, and to try to prevent people presenting evidence from being heard I guess is part of it. This has happened in the past. I wasn't here, but I'm aware of the fact that in the past there was an attempt to disrupt committees by preventing evidence from being heard on certain occasions, whether it was government or opposition or individual members doing it. That's why my comment outside was that you can't have a situation where if one person walks out of the room it can prevent evidence from being heard. So I was satisfied to leave it as it is.
As to the purpose here, there are two reasons. One is that sort of manipulation, but also the potential that when committees are travelling there may not be a full quorum. If committees have gone to the effort of travelling somewhere and you have an opportunity to hear witnesses, that can take place in a remote location, on a visit, and that evidence can then be available to the committee, even though you don't have a full quorum. That's the purpose of this particular rule. I don't think we need to be too proscriptive in terms of who ought to be present. The idea of one member of the opposition is to say that the government can't do it on its own; there has to be some measure of collaboration.