Parliamentary Standards Bill

I am extremely grateful, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire is grateful and, indeed, that the Committee is grateful. Can we now build on that, and will the Secretary of State acknowledge, in a belated response to the point made by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) last night and by a number of other Members of all parties, as he came close to doing when he gave us the little timetable of hours that there is nothing disreputable about Members' having outside interests? Will he acknowledge that it is quite right and proper that they should? It is of course proper that they should declare them, but in declaring them they should not be put into a ridiculous position, such as that mentioned by the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) when he talked about the difficulty for somebody who earns some of his money, as I do, from writing in giving precise and specific hours.