Parliamentary Standards Bill

This relatively small amendment is significant, because it would add the Committee on Standards in Public Life to the list of people and bodies that IPSA would have a statutory duty to consult when preparing or revising the MPs' allowances scheme. I find it astonishing that the Government could have drawn up a long and apparently comprehensive list of people to consult, which includes the Leader of the House, the Speaker, any Committee of the House of Commons, the Senior Salaries Review Body and the Treasury, yet succeeded in excluding the one body and the one person to have been specifically charged by the Prime Minister with examining the issue. The revision of the scheme may well be necessary in the light of the recommendations of Sir Christopher Kelly. It is simply not true to say that his group is looking just at the content of the allowances, as the Secretary of State suggested earlier today—I believe he did so yesterday too. The group is not engaged in a study with the intention merely of making recommendations that can be slotted into the Bill afterwards; it is looking widely at allowances, including the structure of allowances and the compliance structure that lies behind them, as I found out when I gave oral evidence to it the week before last. The absence of any reference to the Committee on Standards in Public Life in this clause—indeed, there is almost no reference to it in the entire Bill—raises the possibility that IPSA could, although I do not think that it would, ignore Sir Christopher's recommendations. We could find ourselves in the crazy position where all the parties are falling over themselves to say that they agree with his recommendations, but because of how the Bill is drafted IPSA could then completely ignore the political parties and those recommendations, and do something completely different. I am confident that nothing in the Bill would prevent such a situation—even my amendment would not. However, my amendment would at least require IPSA to consult Sir Christopher Kelly before coming to its conclusions, which is why it is an essential minimum that we should add to this Bill in order to ensure that his recommendations are given proper consideration. I very much hope that the Government will be able to agree to the amendment.