Parliamentary Standards Bill

I will also speak to Amendments 24, 25 and 27 to 31. This group follows the previous debate very neatly; I hope that we need not spend long on it. It picks up on exactly the points that so many noble Lords have just made, and I will use their own language. The amendment is to ensure that the legislation does not dictate to Sir Christopher Kelly and does not create a straitjacket. In this group of amendments I have sought neutral terminology. Rather than using the term "allowances" I have sought to use a rather simpler and more neutral term: "payments". The public understand an allowance to be an amount of money set aside for a designated purpose, and that the person entitled to the allowance can claim up to the amount of the allowance. An expense is paid in reimbursement of money paid out and, generally, a receipt would have to be produced. Without wanting to re-open the wounds of what has been happening, a big difficulty has been confusion between what expenses and what allowances are, with one being used for what the public would see as properly the other. I seek to avoid anticipating the scheme that may be designed and precluding any possible arrangement. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said that Clause 3 does not pre-empt but lays the architecture and only that. I fear that by using the term "allowances" it does a little more than that. It pre-empts, and I hope that the Bill can, as so many noble Lords clearly wish, leave the House of Lords without us having pre-empted what may be decided quite soon. I beg to move.