Parliamentary Standards Bill

I support what the noble Earl has said. I was all those years ago—although it is hard to believe—a member of the Senior Salaries Review Body, of which Baroness Seear was then also a member, under the chairmanship of Lord Boyle. I remember that we would year after year recommend increases and found it extremely frustrating that, year after year, those increases were resisted by Members of the House of Commons for reasons of their own. I remember in particular Lord Boyle coining a good expression for that—"competitive self-abasement"—and he foresaw then that it would lead to the sort of trouble that we are experiencing today.