Parliamentary Standards Bill

My Lords, I have never been a Member of the House of Commons, but when I am either booted out of this House or I die, it will be the first time since 1550 that there has not been an Onslow in one or both Houses of Parliament continuously for 500 years. I feel an enormous and overawed awe of this place. Whenever I come into it, I am shattered by the grandeur of it. I know that I am a descendant of a hairy-cloaked Anglo-Saxon who attended the Witan of Alfred the Great; because that is what we are. One of my forebears was Speaker of the House of Commons for 33 years, and I promise noble Lords that he would not have descended into wearing one small robe to think that he was bringing the House back into proper repute. Somebody said of him, "Judging by the silence in the room, Sir Arthur Onslow has just made a joke", but he produced most of the rules by which the House of Commons was run. He was a man of the utmost integrity and was unbribable in the days of Walpole. Why has this scandal arisen? The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, alluded to it, as did the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. It was because the executives of both parties chickened out of awarding. So what did they do? They said "No, old boy. Don't take your full pay. We'll make it up to you in allowances". What was constructed was a trough. Over that trough was a large neon sign which said, "Put not only your snouts but your front trotters and your floppy ears into it and go slurp". I suggest to your Lordships that only 20 per cent of the Members of the House of Commons have taken the mickey out of the system and 80 per cent of them have not, as was mentioned by one noble Lord. Those 80 per cent are quite entitled to say, as did Clive when surrounded by the treasury of the Siraj-Ud-Daulah, "Gentlemen, I stand astonished at my own moderation". The House of Commons is the foundation of all our liberties. The confidence of the House of Commons, which has made sure that we can all walk as free subjects of the Crown around this country, is something of magic and awe. If Members there lose their bottle and start wandering around with their shoulders hunched and terrified, we will all suffer appallingly for it. I wish that the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, would divide the House on Second Reading, because I would not walk through the Lobby, I would run through the Lobby with him. This Bill has been completely and comprehensively destroyed. I do not even need to read the bits that I have marked in these two reports, because they are there. The noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, perfectly sensibly said that this problem could be solved by proper structures on the instructions of the House of Commons. It does not need to be outsourced—like being outsourced to a call centre in Bangalore. I will finish my brief remarks by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I say that because when we had our little troubles, she acted immediately and decisively. The Privileges Committee acted immediately and decisively and we suddenly discovered—was it not lovely?—that we had the power to suspend. We had not known that we had it for 800 years but we suddenly found it. She acted with speed and decisiveness and now she has to show a lot of courage. She has to get up at the end of this debate and say—is she listening?