Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I accept entirely the burden of what the hon. Gentleman says. The issue is how to achieve that. Let us suppose that in such a case, the authority says, "We shouldn't have agreed this amount for training or for cleaning," and the Member says, "Sorry, but you did, and I did this in good faith"—there was no trickery, and on the face of it, the claim was entirely consistent with the rules. One of the things that we need to consider between now and Report is how to ensure that there is a clear power available to the compliance officer, to the first tier tribunal and so on, to say, "There has been a technical transgression here. We accept now that the authority is right to say that there was an error, but this was nothing whatever to do with the Member, so we are not requiring any repayment." IPSA is clear, as are we all, that the rules must be much more categorical. Let us take as an example the issue that has not affected me, but has affected a number of Members, who are understandably sore about it—levels of cleaning costs, which were set retrospectively by Sir Thomas Legg at £2,000. My understanding is that some right hon. and hon. Members claimed considerably in excess of that. I am trying to remember whether cleaning costs are provided for. To the extent that an item is provided for, the parliamentary authority and the House have been much more specific. The first way of avoiding the need for detailed advice is to be clear about what can be paid and what cannot be paid. That said, there will always be areas where discretion has to be exercised, just as the Revenue, day by day, has to exercise discretion, as do tax accountants, about what is wholly, necessarily and exclusively incurred in pursuit of the individual's employment, which is the mantra for schedule E. Since that definition is taken straight from tax law, and is the fundamental test, aside from the specifics of the regulations as to whether an expenditure is acceptable, there is bound to be some scope for debate. I accept that some measure of guidance, good practice and consistency, which we did not get from the Fees Office all the time, will be very helpful. The other side of this is that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority does not want to be in a position where somebody phones up and, in good faith, a member of staff says, "We think you should do such and such." The member of staff may not be a senior member and is just giving informal advice, but that is regarded as holy writ. Nobody is suggesting that that should happen. I promise that between now and Report we will discuss the matter actively with colleagues here to try and reach wording that is acceptable to Members of the House and as far as possible to Sir Ian Kennedy and his colleagues on the authority. New clauses 73 and 84 and new schedule 9 relate to Members' pay and pensions. The Committee will recall that on 3 July 2008 we took the long-overdue decision to end the practice, which was unseemly to say the least, of determining our own pay and voting for our own pay increases. We passed a resolution saying that responsibility for determining pay should go to the Senior Salaries Review Body, and we established a formula for that. The Kelly Committee argued that one body should be responsible for considering in the round, and determining the full remuneration package for, Members' pay, pensions and expenses. We now propose that all that, in respect of pay and pensions structure, be shifted from the SSRB and the House to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.