Parliamentary Standards Bill

I wish to clarify a point that I made in an intervention on my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve). I said that he had reached a false conclusion; perhaps I ought to have said that he had reached an illogical conclusion. The logic of his argument—it is an argument with which I agree—is that if we disapprove of clause 9, we should say so and understand the consequences of having said so. It strikes me that the points that my hon. and learned Friend made in relation to the Fraud Act 2006 and, for example, section 17 of the Theft Act 1968 are unassailable. No one who has had a look at the relevant statutes and then compared them with clause 9(1) can reach any conclusion other than that we are creating a law for Members of Parliament who commit fraud which is special and lenient and different from that which applies to ordinary members of the public. I take the view—it may be thought to be rather old-fashioned—that the common law should be universally and uniformly applied. If someone is a crook, they are a crook regardless of whether they are a Member of Parliament or a butcher, a baker or a candlestick maker. I do not understand the motives behind the Government's inclusion of clause 9(1). I fully endorse the criticisms made in relation to the new criminal offences under subsections (2) and (3). There are other professions—lawyers called to the Bar, solicitors, architects—where perfectly acceptable disciplinary rules apply that are dealt with by their disciplinary bodies, and where those who break them are not required to go to prison or to be fined. Just because we are in a lather about expenses does not mean that those who are guilty of contravening the rules of the House or of IPSA should be treated in such a way. The rules of IPSA are yet to be defined and set out; we do not know what rules clause 9(2) and (3) refer to, because they have yet to be written under the provisions of clause 5. We are creating yet more criminal laws. We have created about 3,500 new criminal offences since 1997 through 65 criminal justice laws, and here we have another one, and yet we do not know its detail. If we are going to create new laws, we should know what they look like; the Bill should say what they are, but it does not. It is intellectually deficient, lazy and inept not to do so. If we think we are doing ourselves a good turn by appealing to the public by doing this, I suggest we are wrong. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan) said, eventually somebody will be brought before the courts, or at least the relevant authorities, and be prosecuted for failing to declare—whether by accident or not does not matter at present. We need to anticipate this. We need to think about it. This is a thoughtless clause in a thoughtless Bill, and I urge the Government to think again—or to think at all.