Parliamentary Standards Bill

It is clear from our debate on clause 7 that the actions of the commissioner and IPSA will be judicially reviewable. I have made my point to the Minister and the Secretary of State. If we confine those external regulation functions to our salaries and allowances, that might lead to judicial review proceedings but it would not have a major impact on the independence of Parliament in doing its work. The difficulty is that, as one starts reading clause 8 subsection by subsection, one sees that it goes further and further into key functions of Parliament and its independence that have hitherto been regulated solely by the Standards and Privileges Committee. They are non-justiciable and are protected by the operation of the Bill of Rights 1689. The House needs to concentrate on that issue if we are to ensure that we can continue to carry out our work properly.