Parliamentary Standards Bill

My Lords, I, too, was going to save my few words for the Bill do now pass debate, but I will follow the custom of everyone else in speaking to the amendment. I welcome the amendment, which the noble Baroness rightly proposed on the suggestion of my noble friend, and I am sure that the Bill will be improved as a result of it. The Bill was born in the most unusual circumstances and immediately created more heat than light, which continued almost until the very end of its process through both Houses of Parliament. I suspect that none of us can tell whether it will have the desired effect. Over the past 15 years or so, there have been almost countless commissions, investigations, inquiries and Joint Committees to look at these great problems and I am not sure that we are any nearer finding the solution than we were before. In some respects, we may have made it even more difficult for Members of another place to stick to the rules and to attain the standards of integrity and probity that we all wish. As other noble Lords have said, it is unquestionable that the Bill that we return to another place is considerably better than the one that we received only a few days ago in parliamentary terms. I hope that another place will be grateful for the work that we have done and for the improvements that we have made. Of course, the professional politician has been with us for very many years over generations. It is right that we should continue to have people who have devoted their lives to politics. The complaint that people make inside and outside Parliament is that that balance almost has a ratchet effect in favour of more and more people who know almost nothing apart from politics. No doubt we can argue about the statistics. Anything that creates the impression that people who have had experience in politics, as researchers and such like, have the upper hand in being elected to another place is something that we need to correct. Everyone who has spoken has congratulated the noble Baroness the Leader of the House on taking on what was undoubtedly an extremely difficult and complicated task, not least because of the speed with which we did it. But the House has demonstrated its flexibility in being able to match up to the challenge of time. I thank the noble Baroness and her team. We have also had the noble Lords, Lord Bach and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and this afternoon we had a very special guest appearance from the Attorney-General. So well did she speak that I sat very firmly in my seat and did not pass comment on her words. Why would I have done when I had over one shoulder my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern and over the other Lord Kingsland, who is somewhere looking down on us and approving of everything that we have done? We have done a good job and I, too, join the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, in wishing everyone as from tomorrow afternoon a very happy Summer Recess. Amendment agreed.