Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

Indeed. There is a problem with whom the compliance officer will work for and the status of the officer. The Lord Chancellor has considered the matter and come to the conclusion that he would prefer the compliance officer to be a creature of IPSA. My feeling is that that could raise complications, particularly in the context of the legal appeal process that is now incorporated in the Government's proposals. I ask the Lord Chancellor to consider carefully what would happen if the compliance officer's position were challenged in court—as I suspect it will be—on the ground that they are a person adjudicating on the actions of IPSA while being complicit in those actions. The level of independence necessary to prevent such a challenge is insufficiently illustrated in the appointment procedure. The status of the compliance officer is a little confusing at the moment. The only thing that we learn from the details of the new schedule is that the officer will not be an officer of the Crown. By definition they will not be an Officer of the House—nor should they be—so it is a little difficult to know exactly where they will lie in the great firmament. It is important that we at least attempt to get an answer to that question. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) has suggested informally that the Judicial Appointments Commission might be a vehicle, and the Lord Chancellor mentioned it in his speech. I think that my hon. Friend would be the first to agree that it is an imperfect answer, but it may be better than all the other imperfect answers that have been brought forward. However, we may need to consider the matter again. I turn to new clause 71, about which I have a simple question. It states that any of the new lay members who are to be added to the Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority under proposed new section 2A(6) of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 will cease to be a member of the Committee if they become a Member of either House of Parliament. Why was that role not included in the list of disqualifications under the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975, which new schedule 6 states will apply to the compliance officer? Why adopt the way of disqualifying lay members set out in new clause 71, rather than simply list them under the 1975 Act? It would be simpler to have people listed in one place than to have to search around various laws for statutory disqualifications. I do not wish to cast any doubt on Mr. Speaker's judgment—heaven forfend—but I wonder whether he should be required to gain a resolution of the House not only on the membership of the Committee, as was the case when the original members were appointed, but on the remuneration and allowances of the members. It does not seem entirely unreasonable that Mr. Speaker should consider the matter and put it before the House for resolution, rather than simply determine almost by holy writ how much the members should be paid. There have been occasions when the actions of previous Speakers and their advisers on the House of Commons Commission have not been as transparent as some Members have wished, and this is a matter on which transparency is devoutly to be wished for. On new clause 72, the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire raised an important point about the advice that IPSA is able to give, and I agree with him entirely that the compliance officer is not the right person to give it. How could the compliance officer possibly advise on the appropriateness or inappropriateness of a particular claim, and then if challenged determine the matter on the basis of his own advice? It is simply an untenable position. The new general duty of IPSA that the new clause will introduce in proposed new section 3A(2) of the 2009 Act as a result of Kelly recommendation 41 is:""In carrying out its functions the IPSA must have regard to the principle that members of the House of Commons should be supported in efficiently, cost-effectively and transparently carrying out their Parliamentary functions."" I wonder whether that could be expanded so that statutory provision was made for advice to be available to Members. The new clause goes part of the way, by stating that Members should be supported, but it does not explicitly state in what way they should be supported. In my view, advice should be part of that support. While I am addressing new clause 72, may I ask the Lord Chancellor about proposed new subsections (8) and (9) of section 6 of the 2009 Act—the numbering is inevitably complicated when we are amending a previous enactment—which deal with how IPSA will make public information about claims? The new clause states that IPSA itself can decide what information it is appropriate to make available and how often and in what way that information should be published. That is fine—it is an independent body—but it will not be fine if we have backsliding from the position on the publication of Members' expenses that we have already reached through great adversity. It seems necessary that we impress on IPSA, even if only by exhortation rather than in statute, that the starting point should be the point that we have already reached. We should not revert to the secrecy that we had before. I believe that the Lord Chancellor has dealt with the matter of retrospectivity in pay. However, it is not abundantly clear from new clause 73 that it is to be dealt with in the way that he suggested. It would be entirely inappropriate for retrospectivity to be applied to a previous Parliament, for instance, and I can see no obstacle to that in the current drafting of the new clause. I notice that proposed new section 4A(3) states:""A determination by virtue of subsection (2) may make different provision for different offices or positions or different classes of member"." I do not recognise different classes of Member of the House.