Parliamentary Standards Bill

I am grateful for recognition of the fact that I have sought to respond to proposals from all parts of the House to improve the Bill, and I shall continue to do that wherever I can. Let me say in response to the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan) that the provisions of clause 5 are completely different from those of clause 6, which we hope will be excised in its entirety in a few seconds. Clause 5 deals with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority—and, for sure, various statutory duties are imposed on that. The fact that what was previously referred to as financial rules is now defined as a code relating to finance is a rose by any other name in that it does not make any substantive difference. I think I can see a twinkle in the hon. Gentleman's eye as he understands that point. We will remove clause 6 because we have recognised the serious anxieties expressed, not least by the learned Clerk, and because, as the hon. Gentleman said, it could have encouraged litigious constituents. I might just add, however, that that prospect remains. It happens to be the case that I was the first Member of this House to be subject to legal action from a constituent who believed that they had been badly served by me. That happened at the end of the 2000-01 Session, and a resolution of the House was tabled on that. A completely inadvertent error was made, compounding one made by the local authority, in which the name of an innocent constituent who lived at No. 9 in a street was transposed to the address of a drug dealer against whom the constituent was complaining who lived at No. 11. The local authority transposed the two addresses. My very good member of staff did the same on the basis of the mistake by the local authority, and I was the subject of legal action. The House very kindly decided to indemnify me against the £33,000 that that mistake cost. That risk remains, but I have no wish to compound it. As we are currently discussing clause 6, I shall come on to deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) when we discuss clause 10. I see that an important amendment to it has been tabled by the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) and my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell) to which I am very sympathetic, and I will make a further decision about it in the course of these proceedings. With that, I ask that clause 6 be excised from the Bill. Question put and negatived. Clause 6 accordingly disagreed to.