Parliamentary Standards Bill

Given the time, I will be as fast as I can. First, the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) asked why we were having specific offences when—he says—someone could be charged for any of the three proposed offences under general law. There is nothing unusual about having general provisions with specific parallels for specific purposes; I have plenty of examples, including what is now section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006 and section 17 of the Theft Act 1968, which apply generally to members of the public. The Local Government and Housing Act 1989 and the Social Security Administration Act 1992—not our legislation, but the Conservatives' legislation—have specific offences for knowingly making a false declaration. Why did the previous Conservative Administration—in my view correctly—make those offences? It is because in practice it is sometimes easier to prosecute. One can have a jurisprudential argument about the difference between "falsely", which involves a clear level of knowledge, and "dishonestly", but there is a difference between those offences for which, in practice, it is on the whole easier to prosecute and gain a conviction, and the wider Fraud Act and Theft Act provisions.