Parliamentary Standards Bill

Amendments 76C, 77, 77ZB and the Clause 8 stand part debate are grouped with government Amendment 76B and so there will be an opportunity to have a more rounded discussion on this issue. I thank the noble Baroness for the amendment. It is extremely welcome and I am delighted that she has brought it forward, particularly as it gets rid of the second offence. The Bill changes almost hour by hour and will become law on Tuesday, and so we find evidence of the hasty manner in which it was thrust together. The Bill creates another new offence and I wonder how many new offences have been created over the past 12 years. Perhaps the noble Baroness has that information in her folder. However, under this amendment, she is at least removing the potential new offences, and she is quite right to do so. The Bill will be much improved by the absence of the two offences. The offences being removed are not criminal matters in other fields. They relate solely to the House of Commons and its code of conduct on financial interests. As such, as has been repeatedly established in these debates, it would be inappropriate for breaches to be examined and judged upon in a court of law. The second offence would involve a discussion of the proceedings of Parliament and the third would involve the debates in which an MP takes part in another place. The sole remaining offence in Clause 8, which we discussed earlier, is to be implemented by a statutory instrument, and the commencement date of this SI is not tied to any other part of the Bill under the drafting of Clause 12. Can the Minister give any more information on when she expects the remaining offence to be brought in? Will the Government wait until IPSA is up and running and the new allowances regime is in place, or is the offence to be applicable immediately upon Royal Assent? The noble Baroness is indicating that it is not going to be on Royal Assent. This process has been rushed through Parliament in order to get this one offence on the statute book by next Tuesday, but it is not going to be brought into force until the Government decide that it should be. Can the noble Baroness indicate when she believes that will be? If she cannot do it now, that is fine; it is not critical to the debate. Without going over old ground too much, the clause has now been reduced to dealing with this one new offence, although the noble Baroness is unable to give us an example of what would fall under it or how the prosecuting authorities would make a decision about whether they believed a law had been broken. I wonder whether since the previous debate she has received any further inspiration about the reasons why such a prosecution would take place.