Parliamentary Standards Bill

I am grateful for that intervention because that is exactly my experience. We have all been on the receiving end of a great deal of criticism about the expenses regime, and it is essential that we reform that quickly, but, like my right hon. Friend, I have not received any criticism that the House Select Committee on Standards and Privileges is not doing, and has not done, its job well. The Committee and its Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young), have to my knowledge never been criticised for having pulled their punches at all when Members have had to be disciplined. Despite that, we are transferring a large part of these duties to the new Commissioner for Parliamentary Investigations. We will have two commissioners; we have discovered that during the course of our debates on the Bill. My point is that the new Commissioner for Parliamentary Investigations will be outside Parliament. Therefore, according to the Bill of Rights, he will be a "place out of Parliament." If I am wrong on that, I will be happy to be corrected.