Parliamentary Standards Bill

The shadow of the guillotine is beginning to fall over our debate, so I will not follow up the very interesting speech of the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), with whom I agree about many parliamentary matters, but focus on issues that directly concern the Committee on Standards and Privileges and enforcement. I want to pick up the comment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), who said that the aspect of the Bill that we are considering is not the problem. The problem has not been the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Standards and Privileges Committee. We operate downstream, and the problems have been upstream, with processing and making claims. We do not process claims; we process complaints, and I believe that that part of the system has operated well. The system was set up some 14 or 15 years ago—it is tried and tested and has been improved. The House has been well served by Philip Mawer and now by John Lyon. The Committee on which I serve has tried to operate the rules of the House dispassionately and fairly. In his evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which is now sitting, Anthony King said that that part of the system works quite well. Clause 8 would dismantle it at breakneck speed and try to replace it. By doing that at speed, one may not get it right. The Government are trying to fetter the discretion of the Standards and Privileges Committee because they believe that the tariffs that we have operated are not tough enough. In the speech that the Leader of the House made a few days ago, she referred to the long time that had elapsed since someone was expelled. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) did not make it clear that the Standards and Privileges Committee simply makes recommendations on the tariff to the House. It is open to any Member and to the Government to amend the tariffs recommended by the Standards and Privileges Committee if they think that they are too lenient or too tough. I believe that we could achieve some of the Government's objectives, not by dismantling the machinery, but by re-examining the tariff. If there is a general view that we are not being tough enough, we can tackle that without the proposed paraphernalia.