Parliamentary Standards Bill

When I came to this debate today, I was not sure whether the anxieties I felt about this legislation would be reflected across the House. There is no doubt that Parliament has fallen to such a low in recent weeks that it is sometimes very difficult for us to believe that we can make objective judgments about ourselves. It is also very difficult for us to reason through what we need in order to do our jobs. Indeed, the point has been well made in the course of the debate that if we had had more courage in the past to have public debates about what we reasonably needed by way of remuneration and allowances, and if we had debated those things openly rather than brush them under the carpet, we would not have got into the dreadful pass we are in today. I found it particularly compelling that, as each hon. Member stood up and explained themselves, there came a series of comments expressing misgivings about the legislation that the Government have brought forward. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) pointed out the incompatibilities of the legislation with the report on privilege in 1999, and his concerns about article 6 and fair trials and the way in which due process would be observed. There was the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) who, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman), went on about an issue that we seem to have just brushed under the carpet—that this place is about a clash of interests. It is not just a matter of the public and the private. Parliament is supposed to put competing interests together and to meld them, through debate, to produce outcomes, yet the rules under which we appear to be running pay absolutely no regard to that fact. That highlights some of the problems that we will have if we try to impose a public service model of conduct on ourselves.