Parliamentary Standards Bill

Yes. To some extent, the reputational damage is inevitable, because of the nature of the issues and the way in which they have been highlighted in the press. To some extent, that might seem to be justified, but it means that we have to pay rather more attention than we have hitherto to the human rights dimensions and the need for due process, for example. I shall come on to another aspect of that before I conclude, but I also want to mention clause 8 and the enforcement powers, with which I do not think we should be proceeding at this stage. I believe that, as the Clerk makes clear, they give rise to considerable concern. He says:""Clause 8(5) appears to make the exercise by the House of its disciplinary powers a matter of statute, since it seems to confer a statutory permission on the House to exercise those powers"." That might—and probably will—then make them open to challenge before the courts. As the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) mentioned earlier, the whole protocol business, with a list of bodies that, as far as I can see, is unlikely to be the permanent list because of the changes that keep taking place in the structure of government and the criminal justice system, is a puzzling element and one that could further draw us into proceedings in the courts, with potential for litigation. I suppose I must concentrate on clause 10 because, after clause 6, that is the area that gives rise to the greatest constitutional concern. Clause 10(c) leaves us in no doubt that it is a head-on attack on the Bill of Rights. It directly quotes the Bill of Rights in order to define the area with which it is dealing:""No enactment or rule of law which prevents proceedings in Parliament being impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament is to prevent…any evidence from being admissible in proceedings against a member of the House of Commons for an offence under section 9."" In other words, notwithstanding the Bill of Rights, things will now be different. That is such a fundamental assault on a long-standing and accepted principle that I do not think that we should be rushing it through in three days of proceedings, especially when it is not necessary to do so in order to set up a body that can administer pay and allowances. If there is a rush, that is probably what the rush is for—to be seen to be setting up that body and, indeed, enabling it to start work and to be in a position to implement the detailed Kelly proposals. I can see that there is a case for trying to get that body set up during the forthcoming parliamentary recess, but none of that requires some of the other features that have been so rightly criticised in the Clerk's analysis. In his reference to clause 10, the Clerk points out the difficulty that is""caused by admitting evidence of proceedings in Parliament"." Either one does so in a narrow way, in which case one creates an injustice under the ECHR, creating a situation in which evidence drawn from proceedings in the House can be used against the Member but not material that might be exculpatory to the Member, or one does so in a wide way, in which case one imperils free speech, people's ability to give free evidence before Committees and all the other things that such procedures are designed to protect. We ought not to be proceeding with clause 10. Of course, we ought to be proceeding, as the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges said some time ago, with a privileges Act to ensure that we have a proper range of protection that can cater for some of the things that have now arisen. It is abundantly clear from today's debate that there is so much unease about those features of the Bill that we should not proceed with them in that way.