Parliamentary Standards Bill

Indeed, and the louder the Government talk about democratising the House of Commons, the more careful we ought to be to study the legislation that comes forward. There is talk about reforming the House through a Select Committee, for example, but at the moment there is no resolution to establish such a Committee, and no terms of reference that command agreement throughout the House have yet been on the Order Paper. There is ever stronger rhetoric about rebuilding our democracy, but of course the rhetoric can be belied by the lack of means to create that democracy. Indeed, the very means to undermine it further may be in front of us, but some of us may be missing them because of the loudness of the rhetoric about increasing and improving our democracy.