Parliamentary Standards Bill

I am grateful to the Minister for his response. However, I should withdraw Amendment 7 because it is slightly defective in that it refers to the wrong line. I can obviously come back with a corrected amendment on Report or discuss with the Minister whether there is another way to deal with it. I am grateful to him for looking at Amendment 18 in a positive way and I hope that he will come back with another formulation to meet the concern that we have expressed. That would achieve the sort of clarity that we should seek. I do not think that he substantially dealt with the second point on sub-paragraph (2), which states: ""The interim chief executive may incur expenditure and do other things in the name of and on behalf of the IPSA"." It is a pretty messy and open-ended sort of statement to be on the face of a statute of the United Kingdom Parliament. I do not think that it is sufficiently tightly drawn. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw Amendment 7. Amendment 7 withdrawn. Amendment 8 not moved. Clause 1 agreed.