Parliamentary Standards Bill

My name is attached to the amendment, which I think is entirely sensible and would offer a great protection for those most affected by the Bill. However, since we tabled the amendment, the Government have come forward, at a late hour yesterday, with their amendment. The noble Baroness deserves to be congratulated on it because, once again, she has shown flexibility and no little courage in the face of the declaratory remarks made by her senior colleagues in government in returning to this issue, and on being ready to go much further than the Government’s initial paltry offer. We have taken an enormous step forward from where we were yesterday. She responded immediately when I raised the issue at Second Reading. I was deeply impressed by that and the whole Committee will thank her for it. The Government’s sunset clause has been improved immeasurably by the inclusion of these clauses and Clause 5 in particular. There are many on all sides in another place who worry about the potential impact on another place and the quality of those prepared to sit there of Clause 5 and the regulatory regime that it governs. When I spoke to Clause 5 on Tuesday, I raised several questions about the kind of regime that IPSA is likely to bring in—for instance, how detailed will registration be? Unfortunately, at that time the noble Baroness was unable to give an answer to those questions. Perhaps she will give more detail today or on Monday about IPSA. I recognise that these matters will, in the execution, be largely within the exclusive cognisance of another place, but we are creating statute here and the whole of Parliament must understand the nature of any potentially constrictive regime under which one of its Houses is being placed by the Executive. The continuing uncertainties about the final form of the scheme demonstrate how important a sunset clause may well prove to be. We know nothing about the new requirements that will surround the registration of financial interests and we have not yet seen the Kelly report. Indeed, there is no certainty that the regime put in place under this Bill will be proportionate, reasonable and based on evidence rather than assertion, and there is very little known about the new offices that will administer and investigate it. The offence relating to its breach has, of course, been removed, but a scheme does not need a criminal offence attached to it to do a great deal of damage. Once again I emphasise that this is a matter for another place, but I note the arguments put forward by distinguished commentators and many others outside the House that overintrusive and other requirements—for example, the suggestion that MPs should publish time sheets of every minute spent outside Parliament—may cause a great many people who would be an asset to the House of Commons to decide that politics is not what they wish to do. If errors of proportion are made by this House or another place, we can correct them, but if it is done by statutory authority it is far harder to change. It will therefore be wise to enable the new Parliament to clean up politics and to assess and improve the regime that we are now so hastily putting in place in such exceptional circumstances. Although we welcome the amendment as a chance to ensure that the new Parliament will look again at the whole scheme in two years, there are still a couple of details where the government amendment deviates from that put down in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and the one to which I attached my name. First, the Government are starting the countdown from the moment that the scheme is brought into effect, not from Royal Assent. This moves the break point a considerable way further into the future. We feel that two years from Royal Assent is enough time to assess whether the scheme is working; it is certainly more than enough time for the damage to start happening if the scheme does not operate as well as the Government assure us that it will. In allowing a flawed scheme to run for as long as this, the Government are risking serious damage to the operation of another place. Secondly, the government amendment allows for the possibility of extending the effective period by affirmative resolution. That is not the optimal way forward; I would much rather have a clean break to these clauses within two years. I hope that we can, in these unusual circumstances, return to this issue for clarification if need be, and perhaps for adjustment on Report or at Third Reading, depending on what the Minister says. I thank her for the flexibility that she has shown, but I would like to hear why the Government believe that a clean-break sunset clause as envisaged in this amendment is not the best way forward.