Parliamentary Standards Bill

My name is attached to new clause 11 and I support it strongly for the reasons cogently adduced by the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore). I rise at this point to refer to a more detailed aspect of clause 7, and in doing so I draw the attention of the Committee to the report on the Bill that the Justice Committee produced overnight, which deals with many of the clauses and includes the Clerk's memorandum, the Government's response to it and several academic notes on some of the issues. The issue that arises in clause 7(3) is who would decide on the reasonableness of the commissioner's requests, and whether a Member could seek judicial review of the commissioner's actions. If in the meantime the House had used its disciplinary powers to punish a Member for failing to provide information that subsequent judicial review demonstrated that the commissioner was acting unreasonably in seeking, we would be in difficulties, because that would open the door to judicial review of the decision by the House or the Standards and Privileges Committee on the matter. That may sound like a technical point, but it is potentially important, and the Clerk has drawn attention to it. The issues to which the Justice Committee wants to draw special attention arise mainly in clause 10, for which we recommend a route to achieve at least more measured reflection on all these aspects of privilege by setting them aside for the time being and concentrating on the parts of the Bill that set up the independent body so that it can carry out its central and essential function. In case the Government do not accept that wise advice, we will have to ensure as we go along that we do not build in the potential danger of undesirable judicial review of the proceedings of the House.