Parliamentary Standards Bill

No, I want to make some progress. Clause 5 places a duty on IPSA to prepare rules relating to Members' financial interests. How it does so is also set out in the clause. No such rules can come into force unless approved by a resolution of this House. Clause 6 goes wider than this, and says that the House is to continue to have a code of conduct incorporating the seven Nolan principles on conduct in public life, and any other matters determined by the House. The starting point for any code of financial rules developed by IPSA will, necessarily, be the existing code of conduct of the House, which was most recently revised and published last Monday 22 June. It runs to 52 pages. As many Members may not have had reason to examine the code in detail before the expenses scandal broke, they might have assumed what was on the tin marked "Code of Conduct" was in the tin, in respect of all 52 pages. But if one examines the document, one finds that the code of conduct itself is couched in very general terms at the beginning of the document. It covers just three and a bit pages in all, of which one page is a recital of the Nolan principles. In contrast, the rules relating to the financial conduct of Members, and the guidance on those rules, run to 33 pages plus appendices, and almost all those rules and guidance concern Members' financial interests and conduct thereto. We have been clear that, if the new independent authority is to have teeth and achieve the public confidence so urgently needed, it must, among other things, be able to propose the rules on Members' conduct in the areas related to its functions. That means that it will take over responsibility for the whole of the guide relating to the conduct of Members, although, as the Bill makes clear, the content of any clause 5 rules will be subject to approval by the House. Some amendments have been tabled to clause 5, and they will be discussed tomorrow, but none is in any way fatal to it, and I believe that the clause generally carries the approval of the House.