Parliamentary Standards Bill

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The difficulty that the House has, and we have to face up to it, is that either the IPSA is our creature in the sense that it is ultimately answerable to us, or it is not. As I said on Second Reading, I have grave anxieties about the widening of the scope of the IPSA's operation, especially to issues of MPs' conduct. That is in a sense a separate issue that we will have to consider tomorrow, although it will colour my view about the entirety of the legislation. If the purpose of establishing the IPSA is to set up a system for setting our salaries and allowances and ensuring that they are properly paid and that we repay what might have been misclaimed, the arguments for creating a body that is seen to be entirely independent of the House become strong. I have to say that we have got ourselves into our difficulties in part because we have in-house allocation of our allowances and we ultimately control them. I am sympathetic to the Government's aim, as I made clear at the outset, of having our salaries and allowances set outside this place entirely. If we are to achieve that, it must follow that the IPSA cannot be seen to be our creature. If it is appointed on the basis of motions in the House, it will remain so. That is the point where I have sympathy with the Government's position. That sympathy begins to erode when I see how the Government have provided for the IPSA to have other functions and, above all, for the commissioner to have other functions which I believe intrude into areas of conduct, affect the Bill of Rights and our privileges, and are much more controversial. The question that I would like the Secretary of State to answer is: in view of what the Bill says—namely, that the appointment is made by motion of this House but is ratified by the Crown—what is the status of the person who is thus appointed if they are not a Crown servant? On the face of it, it seems rather an anomalous position.