Mr. Speaker, I will be extremely brief. Suffice it to say that there is clearly no privilege in this case.
No privileges of any member have been impugned because, as I pointed out in my intervention, procedurally, we are—“we” being the House—absolutely within our rights to give instructions to a committee to expand a bill.
I gave the one reference and the one example in my intervention of the 1959-1960 bill by Margaret Thatcher. The intent of that bill was to allow members of the press, and only members of the press, to attend committee hearings. Mrs. Thatcher wanted to expand that to allow members of the general public to also attend hearings. Therefore, the House gave instructions to that effect to the committee, which then made the proper amendments, and the resulting bill allowed both members of the press and the general public.
The point is that the House has the complete authority to give instructions to a committee to allow it to expand the scope of a bill. That is the procedure of this place. Therefore, there is no privilege argument to refute that.