Parliamentary Standards Bill

After that discussion I do not feel at all confused. I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have participated, and especially for the clarification given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, and for the intervention by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that, of course, the Government take these amendments extremely seriously. First, I can see no way in which the provisions of the European Communities Act would be relevant to this Bill. The Bill deals with the conduct of Members of the House of Commons and the arrangements which must be put in place to restore public confidence in the way we are regulated. The provisions of the ECHR and the Human Rights Act are, of course, relevant as the provisions of the Bill must be compatible with the first and the bodies set up by the Bill will be covered by the second. However, none of these considerations is, I would suggest, relevant to the question of the status of the Bill of Rights 1689. At introduction, the Bill did include provision that would have allowed proceedings in Parliament to be adduced in evidence in court. There was much debate in the other place about these measures and they no longer form part of the Bill. The Government believe that parliamentary privilege plays an important role in facilitating free and honest debate in Parliament and we would not wish to undermine this. We do not accept that any other aspects of the Bill undermine parliamentary privilege and it is certainly not our intention to do this. But we have also been listening to noble Lords about the concerns raised about the relationship between this new body and Parliament. We have accepted that the IPSA should not have a power of direction or recommendation, but rather the commissioner should be able to refer his or her findings direct to the Committee on Standards and Privileges. Furthermore, as noble Lords have stated, on Tuesday we accepted that a new clause should be added to the Bill—it has been added—which provides that: ""Nothing in this Act shall be construed by any court in the United Kingdom as affecting Article IX of the Bill of Rights 1689"." Given that that amendment was made, we can see absolutely no need for further amendments of that character to be made to the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, asked about referral by UK courts to the ECJ and the ECHR. A UK court must refer questions of the interpretation of EU law to the ECJ when it considers it necessary, but this is entirely distinct from questions relating to Article IX of the Bill of Rights. A UK court, of course, will not be considering issues of the proceedings of Parliament because of Article IX, and it is clearly not a question of EU law. The wider question of whether the Bill of Rights prevents any international court looking at proceedings in Parliament is a separate issue. MPs have human rights too and could conceivably ask Strasbourg to enforce them if the parliamentary disciplinary mechanisms were deeply unfair. However, they are not; they are fair. Therefore, we deem the amendment necessary. I broadly agree with the eloquent and learned explanation of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, concerning the relationship between our courts, the ECJ and Strasbourg. I agree with his conclusion that the amendments are not necessary. I am grateful for the repeated suggestion from my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours about a note on the difference between the two codes. We agreed that we would provide such a note to Members of the House, which I have not done yet, but I will do so before Report. The commissioner referred to in the Bill is the Commissioner for Parliamentary Investigations. He will investigate matters on allowances and the register of interests, and will refer findings to the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee. An existing non-statutory commissioner for standards will report to that committee under current Standing Orders of the House. He investigates breaches of the current Commons code of standards. I think that I dealt with the issue pertaining to commissioners in the letter which I circulated earlier, but I undertake to circulate a note on the code. In relation to IPSA and privilege, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, again clarified the position in many ways. To the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, I would say that the current position on registration of financial interests and payment of allowances is that they are not regarded as proceedings of Parliament and are therefore not covered by Article IX of the Bill of Rights. That will not change under the arrangements of this Bill. If higher authority is needed for that position, I refer noble Lords to the evidence which the Clerk of the House and Speaker’s Counsel gave to the Justice Committee. The Government’s clear position is that it is right that IPSA and the commissioner as public bodies are subject to judicial review on ordinary administrative law principles. They are statutory public bodies. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, said, the functions of IPSA and the commissioner in the Bill, as amended, do not relate to privilege matters. Judicial review of their functions does not pose a danger for parliamentary privilege. Parliamentary bodies mentioned in the Bill—in particular, the House of Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges—will continue to be protected by parliamentary privilege. I note the point made by the noble and learned Lord about whether the reports from IPSA are covered by privilege before they arrive in the House of Commons committee. I shall certainly look at that and come back to noble Lords on Report. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, I think—or maybe it was the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin; I hope noble Lords will forgive me—is right that the Government considered extending the scope of privilege at one point but concluded that the best way forward was to ensure the independence of IPSA and the commissioner, which are statutory bodies dealing with non-privileged matters. The question posed was: why should these bodies receive a form of protection which is reserved for Parliament on specific public interest grounds? It was concluded that it would be very unusual and controversial to deem the functions of IPSA and the commissioner to be proceedings in Parliament for the purposes of Article IX of the Bill of Rights. That is the Government’s position on privilege in relation to IPSA. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours referred to the possible presence of the Attorney-General on Report or at the beginning of Third Reading. Obviously, this is an issue she would deal with in her presentation to the House or, if she cannot be present, in writing to the House.