Parliamentary Standards Bill

I shall speak briefly, because we must try to reach clause 10 somehow, although I fear that in view of the way in which this debate is proceeding, we shall not manage to do so. All the speeches so far have been extremely important, and have focused effectively on the issues at stake. The message to the Government is that we should have been allowed more time to scrutinise the legislation properly, and the message to the other place is that it will have to work very hard to ensure that we do not let slip anything that we should not have let slip. As has been said, when we talk about protecting privilege we are talking about the privilege of our constituents. It is extremely important to remember that. As the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) reminded us, we must acknowledge the context of the wider debate: the fact that we need to rejuvenate by introducing the external handling of allowances, expenses and finances. We should not go too far too quickly, however, and do other damage to the way in which this House works. In the long run, we do need major reforms: constitutional reform, such as a proper written constitution, and other ways to tackle issues that come before the House. That is not going to happen in Committee today, however. Therefore, I urge the House to support amendment 32 and to take on board the wise words of the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) about protecting the role of his Committee. I urge Members to make sure that the Bill remains focused on the key political imperative of addressing the aspects of this House that the public have concerns about. It should not go wider than that at this stage. We should look at other issues in more measured times; thereby we can ensure that we do not do any more damage that could undermine the workings of the House. If we were to do such damage, undoing it would be almost impossible. It is therefore very important that the Bill remain narrow in focus—and that is even more important given this short debate, and the lack of time.