Parliamentary Standards Bill

My Lords, the Leader of the House referred to the three reports of your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Constitution on this matter: the 17th report of this Session, published on 6 July; the 18th report, entitled Parliamentary Standards Bill: Implications for Parliament and the Courts; and a further report entitled Fast-track Legislation: Constitutional Implications and Safeguards, which followed the taking of evidence in public. I respectfully associate myself with everything said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, who is a member of the committee; by the noble Lord, Lord Shutt; and by my noble friend Lord MacGregor. Your Lordships’ committee deplored the decision to seek to suspend normal parliamentary proceedings in consideration of the Bill, especially since the Bill seeks, by establishing a statutory external regulator for Parliament, to break the constitutional convention that Parliament regulates its own affairs. Your Lordships’ committee expressed doubt about whether a Bill expedited through the legislative process without proper scrutiny or public consultation would enhance public confidence in Parliament or the reverse. Our conclusion was that it would have the reverse effect. Your Lordships’ committee’s first report on the Bill focused on process and haste. The second report considered the proposals for the creation of an independent parliamentary standards association. We were surprised that there was no mention in the Bill of the party political affiliation, if any, of the members or chairman of that association. Your Lordships’ committee considered the question of members appealing against decisions by the proposed association and parliamentary commissioner. As a matter of constitutional principle, the decisions of a public authority should, in our view, be subject to the possibility of an appeal to a different body. We found it troubling that the Bill is apparently proceeding without the necessary policy work and consultation on appeals being conducted—and perhaps being seen to be conducted. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, said, your Lordships’ committees do not support the creation of new offences applicable to a small number of people whose potential misconduct is already punishable under existing law. As the noble and learned Lord said, the maximum sentence under the Fraud Act for unlawful expense claims by MPs is 10 years’ imprisonment. Under the provisions of the present Bill, it is one year. Your Lordships’ committee examined the possibility of prosecution of Members of Parliament for paid advocacy statements made in Parliament. Under the current provisions of the Bill, they would be inadmissible as evidence in court. Nor is it clear whether prosecutions could be made under Scottish law. We shall examine with great care what has been said by the Leader of the House. Since the expression "parliamentary privilege" was coined, the word "privilege" has, over the years, acquired an understandably pejorative aspect. The Bill before us goes to the heart of the role of Parliament, for which we in this House, our predecessors and those in the other place have made many sacrifices over the centuries. I have touched briefly on a fraction of the considerations rehearsed in the three Select Committee reports currently before your Lordships’ House. I hope that the Government will not seek to rush legislation through this place that would diminish public regard for Parliament rather than enhance it.