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Legislative Process

I do not believe for a second that the net cost will be as the hon. Lady describes. As colleagues know, limited funds are already available for some communications work through the incidental expenses provision and the House’s stationery and envelope regimes; but extensive use of the IEP for those purposes means squeezing other resources, and the House’s prepaid envelope regime was not designed with wide proactive constituency mailings in mind. The motions are tabled in my name but, as the right hon. Member for Maidenhead knows, they follow extensive discussions on the subject in the Commission and the Members Estimate Committee over some time. I have also kept the Senior Salaries Review Body in touch with what is being proposed. It may provide the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) and other Members with some reassurance to know that the motion does not at this stage commit the House to any particular form or level of allowance; nor does it commit the House of Commons Commission to any particular action in respect of the prepaid envelope regime, although I think it is well understood that the arrangements for that regime would take into account any new allowance. That is an important part of the package. However, the motion commits the Members Estimate Committee to working out a scheme for a communications allowance, the rules for it—taking into account the recent report to which I have just referred—and a proposed level. It would also indicate what the boundary between political work and parliamentary work should be, and how it should be approached in the context of the existing rules in that area.