Member News
The Crown Prosecution Service has said it is ready to test the applicability and extent of parliamentary privilege in court.
Prosecutors have started criminal proceedings against three MPs and a member of the House of Lords over their expenses claims.
Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, said today that "lawyers representing those who have been charged have raised with us the question of parliamentary privilege".
"We have considered that question and concluded that the applicability and extent of any parliamentary privilege claimed should be tested in court," he said.
Labour MPs Jim Devine, Elliot Morley and David Chaytor have been charged under the Theft Act 1968 with false accounting.
And Tory peer Lord Hanningfield faces six charges for claiming expenses he was not entitled to, Starmer announced this morning.
Under parliamentary privilege, which is asserted by the Speaker at the start of each new parliament, proceedings in parliament cannot be impeached or questioned in the courts and MPs cannot be sued or prosecuted for anything they say or do in the House or a committee.
However, the protection of privilege applies only to "proceedings" in Parliament.
The attorney general has made clear that the determination of whether material obtained from an MP is inadmissible as evidence in a criminal trial is a matter for the courts.
Last month the Clerk of the Commons Dr Malcolm Jack told a Commons committee that the extent of privilege is a legal grey area.
It could be argued that a note made by an MP for the purpose of asking parliamentary question is part of 'parliamentary proceedings' and therefore protected.
While the principle of protection from legal action in relation to anything said in the Commons chamber is clear, documents would have to be judged on a "case by case basis" by the courts.
An MP could argue that his expenses claims are documents protected by privilege.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd