I've no difficulty with signing up to the first three paragraphs of the aims of this dignity and respect policy. Of course everybody should feel safe, respected and comfortable when they engage with the National Assembly, and people who work here should feel safe, respected and comfortable in their working environment. I also agree that the culture of the Assembly is diverse and inclusive.

But I do want to sound a cautionary note about the vagueness of some of the wording of this policy, and also the purported reach to us all as Assembly Members acting as private individuals, even, for example on holiday, or in any private situation, actually. I think we should be very careful about what we're doing here. If we are going to put ourselves in a position where, outsiders, as Janet Finch-Saunders has pointed out so far, can engage in purported acts of surveillance—this can be done clandestinely as well, not just openly, as she described, and we are, therefore, in all our doings in private life, whether it's after a few drinks in the pub or in a restaurant, or whether it's even in one's own private home, which might be bugged, telling a joke that might potentially give offence to somebody who can then make a complaint—this is potentially an instrument of oppression.

Now, I'll give one very topical example. Professor Richard Lebow, who is a professor of international political theory at King's College London, is currently being investigated by the International Studies Association because he made the mistake, at one of their conferences last week, I think it was, of getting into a crowded lift, and when he was asked, 'What floor do you want?', he said, 'Ladies' lingerie'. Now, this was then made the subject of a complaint by a professor of gender studies at some mid-western—I think—American university. He, now, is at risk of having his professional career undermined, perhaps even destroyed, because somebody has a grudge against him, or his purported or assumed political orientation.

Now, if we interpret the terms of this dignity and respect policy proportionately and sensibly, of course we're not going to put ourselves at risk, but I am troubled by recent decisions. And I won't go into the individual case, but I spoke about it in the debate on the standards committee report the week before last, or two or three weeks ago. I do think that we have to refine this statement so that we impose some test of reasonableness into the offence that we are creating. Of course, I don't want to adversely affect the dignity of others by anything that I do or say, but I'm not in control of how other people are going to be affected by what I say. Somebody might unreasonably take offence at something that I've said, and that could give rise to a disciplinary complaint, and that could apply to every single person, not only somebody who is a Member of this Assembly, but everybody who works here or comes into contact with us in an official capacity. And in that respect, I do believe that there are serious issues here, of freedom of speech, of privacy—which are both protected by the European convention on human rights, and other human rights legislation—and I do believe that we've not given sufficient care and attention to this issue by drafting these broad general statements of principle without any limitation, and applying them to us in our daily lives, 24/7, as Paul Davies has pointed out previously. Therefore, I would just add a note of caution, without wishing to oppose the policy document, that we should introduce some test of reasonableness and proportionality into what we're doing.