Parliamentary Standards Bill

It seems to me that amendment 6 is affected by the decision to remove clause 10, which means that, as we understand it, the Bill of Rights 1689 will apply. The amendment would ensure that any investigations under clause 7 were deemed to be proceedings under that Bill. It occurs to me that the commissioner may not be able to conduct his investigations, because he constitutes a body outside Parliament. The Bill states that proceedings in Parliament, which will now include the investigations under clause 7, cannot be""impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament."" It seems to me that the commissioner, and indeed IPSA, will constitute a "place out of Parliament", because, unlike the Committee on Standards and Privileges or the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, they will be independent and outside the jurisdiction of Parliament. That is the whole point of making them independent, and that may reinforce the case for retaining a central role for the Committee on Standards and Privileges, which, being a parliamentary body, can quite properly investigate proceedings that take place in the House.