Parliamentary Standards Bill

My hon. Friend makes an historical illusion, which is relevant because a part of our history—certainly of the history of this place—is an attempt to keep royal power at bay; so, again, it is rather puzzling that we are importing into this Bill, quite unnecessarily in my view, a system of royal appointment. I suspect that the truth is that this is a kind of proxy for the Executive. They want to appoint the chair and members of this new quango. So my question to the Secretary of State is: what does this bring to the party? If it has no effect, why are we doing it? If it does have an effect, what is it? I certainly believe that this House is perfectly capable of making these appointments, if they are necessary, without having the additional rigmarole of making them Crown appointments. I am grateful to the First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means for correcting the misprint on the amendment paper, because Amendment 52 deals with line 23, not line 3. Such misprints are rare, and I think that this was another example of the fact that this is rushed legislation. The amendment leaves out part of paragraph 5 that deals with the removal from office of members of IPSA. The Bill says that such a removal may be carried out by Her Majesty the Queen—I think she has quite enough to do without having that duty as well—and that any such removal must be done""on an address of both Houses"." I am not sure why both Houses need to be involved, because I understood that this Bill was about this House. Why are importing into the Bill the requirement that the Leader of the House of Lords should also table a motion in another place to bring about such a removal? Is this because, as I suspect, IPSA is in due course to cover the whole of Parliament, not just this House? My amendment 52 would alter the procedure within this House and would mean that the motion for an address could not only be moved by the Leader of the House. To put it another way, my amendment would remove the requirement that such an address can be moved only by the Leader of the House and by the Leader of the House of Lords in another place. My amendment seeks to remove that requirement because I am worried that only the Government can do this. I think it is much better to leave the matter open, so that other Members—perhaps the Speaker—can, if the rules allow it, move such an address to make those removals should they be required. Finally, I come to my amendment 53, which relates to funding.