Parliamentary Standards Bill

I do not demur from what the right hon. Gentleman says about a general consensus emerging a few weeks ago among party leaders and others about having an arm's-length body to deal with financial aspects, allowances and so forth. All that is to the good. What was not agreed—and is not agreed—is the idea of bringing in a statutory code of conduct and, worse still, impinging on our rights and, even more importantly, the rights of our constituents as within the Bill of Rights. At that stage, nobody foresaw the attack on the basic freedoms of our constituents and on our basic freedoms, including, crucially, our freedom of speech.