Political Parties and Elections Bill

My Lords, your Lordships' House is famous for the ability, often taken, to divert from the subject on the Bill in hand and go off on a tangent, but I refuse to be tempted by the noble Lord. I promise him a personal seminar in the different systems of proportional representation—of which he, of course, has been a beneficiary in Scotland—after we have dealt with the Bill. I want to make it clear that our amendment is not a charter for party Whips—I confess to having previously been the Chief Whip for my party—star chambers, scrutiny panels or kangaroo courts. I utterly reject, indeed, the selective approach of some party hierarchies to make sure that awkward colleagues are for the high jump at the election, while trusted lieutenants are quietly reinstated. This amendment is about providing due process in Parliament and then clear, transparent processes for the public to censure and dispense with their representatives when it has been proved by the relevant authorities that they have broken the rules. Members of your Lordships' House will recognise that we are somewhat inhibited at the moment by the lack of certainty over the proposed parliamentary standards authority. The PSA is still a gleam in the Prime Minister’s eye and, perhaps, in the Minister’s eye. However, my right honourable friend Nick Clegg has already backed the idea of independent monitoring and an investigative agency of this sort, and I understand that the Conservative leader seems equally well disposed to this. Of course, we cannot specify its precise role in this amendment because it does not yet exist, so we aim to show how responsibilities could be set if and when it comes into being. Incidentally, we do not yet know whether the PSA will have a specific role in these matters as far as this House is concerned. No doubt we will see that in due course when other legislation is brought forward. We can assume that the parliamentary commissioner for standards will be responsible to that authority and not to either or both Houses of Parliament. That, at least, is clear. It is surely a welcome development, which rightly separates the defendant from the judge and jury. Our whole political system, as well as the individual, is on trial at the moment. Only in those cases where the independent judgment has been made, by the proper authorities, that someone has done something so serious that they should be suspended from the House, would we envisage using this new right for the final—and perhaps the highest—court of public of opinion to have its say. I make it absolutely clear that if a Member is thought by his or her constituents to have done something politically wrong—such as voting the wrong way on Iraq—as opposed to breaking the rules, this system cannot be triggered. It is only triggered when the parliamentary standards authority has taken full account of the incident and the views of the Member concerned.