Parliamentary Standards Bill

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, not only for the amendments that she has introduced but for the way in which she has dealt with this important choice. It may seem to be finely balanced, but it is an important choice, and I regret that we have had comparatively little time in Committee to examine the merits of the two approaches. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, for pointing out the two major differences between these two approaches—one that I had already dealt with, which was the issue of secondary legislation and affirmative resolution as opposed to a sunset clause and a clear break, to use the noble Lord’s phrase. I am not so anxious about the timing. I accept the noble Baroness’s view that the trigger may be preferable. That is a matter of degree rather than principle. However, I cannot accept her argument that somehow the sunset clause would be likely to leave IPSA and the commissioner without statutory authority, in limbo. No responsible Government are going to allow that to happen. Clearly, if the process has worked very well, my noble friend Lord Goodhart is absolutely right in saying that a very short amendment would be necessary to the Bill, which could certainly be passed without an "inordinate amount of time", which was the noble Baroness’s phrase—a rather depressing response to how Parliament works. Parliament can work perfectly effectively when something is obviously working well and simply needs to be endorsed. It really is barking up the wrong tree to suggest that the Government would leave it to the last minute of the two years and then allow the whole thing to collapse. That is simply fanciful. What really worries me is that the noble Baroness is appearing to confuse the two quite different concepts, which are so clearly set out in the Constitution Committee reporting to your Lordships’ House, between a sunset clause—I read the passage—on the one hand and a renewal procedure on the other. I do not think we have reached entirely the end of the road. The real problem is that, as I have said, this is all coming to us rather late in the day in Committee. I regret that. I should prefer that we look at it again on Monday in the context of the Report stage in your Lordships’ House when we can more carefully consider these issues. I am advised by the House authorities that were we to vote on this issue it might be more difficult to examine it again on Monday. Therefore on that basis I suppose that the best we can achieve is for me to ask leave of the House to withdraw the amendment and to hope that the government amendments go through without a Division, so that we can look at them in more detail in Report on Monday. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 80 withdrawn. Clause 10 : Interpretation Amendment 80A not moved.