Parliamentary Standards Bill

My Lords, I also thank the noble Baroness, the Leader of the House, for her sympathetic way of dealing with the Bill in her introduction and in her latest very welcome intervention. I also thank her for the way in which she kindly allowed me yesterday, at her request, to talk to her about my concerns about the Bill. I am not a lawyer, nor am I a former Member of the House of Commons. Many others who have spoken and will speak after me are far more expert and articulate than me, but I am a passionate defender of the British constitution and I feel extremely strongly about the damage that is being done by the Bill to the basic constitutional strength on which our democracy rests. I should like to make two very simple points, although others have made them far better and perhaps slightly differently. First, Members of Parliament have certainly suffered a blow to their public esteem. The allegations have applied to a small minority of them but there are no headlines in saying that there are 400-odd honest MPs. No one wants to read a headline like that. After the first few days when the Daily Telegraph had done a necessary job of exposing the dangers of the expenses system, it began to descend into nothing but salacious gossip along the lines of, "Guess what someone claimed for", and so on. That contributed absolutely nothing to the important point that was being made about the difficulties of the expenses structure. However, that is a very small part of what is at issue here. This matter involves one fleeting generation of a very small number of MPs but, because of their behaviour and because of the way in which one or two newspapers blew it up and it was then picked up by the sound media and television, we—corporately, as a country—have allowed the whole reputation of the democratic heart of our Parliament to be put very much under suspicion. We cannot do that. This is a temporary matter, and it will be very temporary. Already down at the Dog and Duck they are not talking about MPs’ expenses and they certainly will not be doing so in another six months’ time. As the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, said, people have other concerns on their minds, and it is very important to look to the long term. We need to help people to understand—perhaps they already have a gut understanding of this—that Members of Parliament are the people. They are not individuals—Mr Bloggs and Miss Jones—but representatives of the people. As I keep saying, they are the heart of our democracy, and the voice of the people is heard through the freedom of speech and freedom of action that Members of Parliament are able to exercise in Parliament. As the only female to speak in this debate after the noble Baroness, the Leader of the House, introduced the Bill so eloquently, I hope that I can be forgiven if I introduce a rather homely example of my concerns. Anyone who has ever taught young children or who has been a parent of young children knows one simple truth: the more they are trusted, the better they behave, but the more they are watched over, suspected and caught out at every opportunity, the more they will behave properly when watched but behave very badly when not being watched. I think that we have seen in the way in which the Bill is worded an example of the danger of failing to trust people. Failing to trust our Members of Parliament is, as I have said many times in the past couple of minutes, a failure to trust the people of this country who elect them and give them the freedoms to which they are entitled. I hope that we can convey to Members of the House at the other end of the Corridor that they must stand up for their own freedoms. To me, it is extraordinary that they have voted through a Bill that now makes them subject to scrutiny from an outside body which is not part of the democratic process. That says, "We are not to be trusted. We are people whom you cannot trust, and the only way that we can restore any kind of confidence is for someone to watch over us and breathe down our necks". Therefore, I believe very strongly that if people’s trust in Parliament and in Members of Parliament is to be restored, it is vital that those Members of Parliament reassert their authority. I was unfortunate enough to be on a public panel last week in which the debate was about who governs: the media, politicians or the people themselves? The point was made that the politicians are the people but every time someone tried in any way to defend the actions of politicians, there were hoots of derision. People commented, "They tried to blame the system but they themselves created the system". It appeared to me as a lay person and non-expert that a very simple measure would be to say, "We as parliamentarians and Members of the House of Commons will create a new system in which the public can have trust. We will not let someone else do it for us but will do it ourselves". Would that not be better than Members of the House of Commons raising their hands in surrender and saying, "No, we can’t be trusted and therefore someone else must come and do it for us". That is a lay, non-expert view of what I should like to see happen. I agree with almost every other speaker that the Bill does nothing to restore public confidence, it does nothing to restore the standing of Parliament and it does nothing to enhance our democracy.