Parliamentary Standards Bill

Your Lordships may be relieved to know that after those heavyweight debates on whether a knowingly false claim can somehow be less than dishonest, and other weighty matters, this is a lightweight drafting suggestion. At present, the Bill sometimes refers to "the Speaker of the House of Commons" and sometimes to "the Speaker". I suggest that the Bill should be consistent throughout. I point out that in Clause 3, the first reference is to "the Speaker of the House of Commons", but later it just refers to "the Speaker". The same formulation is used in Clause 5. Clause 9 refers to "the Speaker" throughout, but, at the end, it states: ""In this section ‘the Speaker’ means the Speaker of the House of Commons"." Clause 10 reverts to the same formulation as Clause 3. Schedules 1 and 2, on the other hand, follow the formulation in Clause 9 and define the Speaker again twice over. Schedule 3 reverts again to the Clause 3 formulation. I have tabled only the two amendments in the group changing it once. I did not think that I should clutter up the Order Paper and make the work of the Public Bill Office, which has done so splendidly over the past few days, even more difficult by tabling all the consequential amendments. Clearly, whichever way the Government decide to jump, there will be consequentials that I have not put on the Order Paper. The third amendment in the group is Amendment 81A. It refers to page 9, where there is a requirement of the consent of, ""the person who chairs the House of Commons Commission"." As the person who chairs the House of Commons Commission is by definition the Speaker, I do not understand why it does not state "the Speaker", because that is who is meant. It is unnecessarily convoluted to use the formulation in the Bill. I beg to move.