Parliamentary Standards Bill

No, it is not. The rules will come into force and, despite what the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield has said—that at the moment a breach of the code would not give rise to a criminal offence—it is certainly the case that, because a failure to comply with the requirement in the financial interest rules code will give rise to an offence under clauses 9(2) and (3), that requirement will have to be very carefully drafted. Indeed, it will have to be more carefully drafted than what is currently in the code. This is not supposed to be a debate about paragraph 24 of the current code of conduct, but I just want to make one point. There are 168 hours in a week—that is not a matter for argument across the Chamber; it is just true. I merely offer hon. Members who are worried and their constituents this reflection. The European working time directive, whether one likes it or not—some do, some do not—prescribes 48 hours as the standard maximum that one is supposed to work in one job. [Laughter.] Hang on. If colleagues are sleeping normally—eight hours a day—that will them give them 56 hours. Adding those two together gives 104 hours. If we take that away from 168 hours we get 64 hours, which gives hon. Members nine hours a day, more or less, to do what they want with and still fulfil their constituency duties. [Interruption.] I am merely trying to be helpful.