Parliamentary Standards Bill

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. and learned Friend. I would submit that, not by virtue of the erosion of our sovereignty but by virtue of the imposition of whipping—the whipping on this Bill on the Government Benches is an example of that—the House of Commons is not losing its sovereignty, but simply giving away our influence. We should use this opportunity to wrest it back. I support the principle of independent regulation. Indeed, I do not think that anyone speaking in this debate has suggested that we should take the principle of independent regulation out of the Bill. The scheme that I propose with the amendments standing in my name would mean that the process of independent regulation would become privileged itself. We should put an envelope of privilege round the entirety of the Bill's operation, with the exception of the criminal offences, which is another matter that I shall not try to address. However, the principle is that privilege should envelope the entire Bill. Therefore, my amendment 65 proposes a new subsection (2A) of clause 8, which reads:""Any recommendation under subsection (2)"—" I am led to understand that that would also mean any direction under subsection (1)—""shall be deemed to be proceedings in Parliament as expressed in the Bill of Rights 1689 notwithstanding any other provisions of this Act."" That would have the effect of making the activities under clause 8 privileged—that is, beyond question by the courts, so that they could take in evidence what Members of Parliament had said in this place, because their proceedings would be privileged. There would then be no question of any of our proceedings leaking into the jurisdiction of the courts outside Parliament. I have also proposed a similar amendment to clause 7, for debate on Report, which would mean that all investigations would be regarded as proceedings in Parliament. My amendment 64 would remove clause 8(8). I have read subsection (8) many times, but I simply do not quite understand what it means. It seems to me to have been drafted highly ambiguously—although that probably means that parliamentary counsel are much cleverer people than I. However, even the explanatory notes say that subsection (8)""preserves the right of the House of Commons to exercise any disciplinary powers which it may have."" I do not know why we need to legislate in the Bill to allow a sovereign House of Commons to continue to exercise its own disciplinary powers. Why is that in the Bill? The explanatory notes continue:""It is not to be limited to acting only following an investigation by the Commissioner or a recommendation from the IPSA."" If we believe that we are sovereign, how could any implication in the Bill limit what the House of Commons does? The very fact that the Government have sought to put this provision into the Bill at all underlines the weakness of their case that so much of this is justiciable: they are putting provisions in legislation to try to prevent the actions of the House from becoming justiciable and limited.