---

Members' Salaries, Pensions and Allowances

I do not know who is grandstanding. The hon. Gentleman may be the one who needs to explain to his constituents that there are two wrongs. I presume from that that he would like to push his pay above the public sector norm. That is for him to discuss with his constituents. I shall simply deal with the specific issue of our pay. The genuine action is the request to Sir John Baker to institute a review for the long term. The important points have already been established in exchanges in the House. I hope that the Leader of the House will take on board the legitimate concerns that have been expressed about the timetable, and about independence. I know from my conversations with her that she believes those matters to be of the utmost importance. The timetable matters, because if it were to slip and the process lasted beyond the summer, all hon. Members would be unhappy. That would echo the delays in the publication of the SSRB report, and that is unacceptable. It would be equally unacceptable if there were no adequate timetable for consultation with hon. Members and consideration of Sir John Baker's recommendations. We need to examine the details and ascertain whether they achieve what we all want. We must ensure that genuine independence emerges from the process. Independence is a two-way street. Independent recommendations have been mentioned. We are not seeking independent recommendations but an independent mechanism; there is an important distinction between them. We need a mechanism that we believe to be independent and that we respect as being independent of Members of Parliament. It must also be independent of Government. Those of us who have been in the House under Governments of different complexions know that the heavy hand of—I shall not name individual Ministers, so let us say that it is the heavy hand of the Treasury that bears down on us. The mechanism should be independent of Members of Parliament, the Government and the Treasury. That is the prize that we must seek. In the past, I believed that I had voted for that independence—which was then, alas, snatched from us. We must ensure that we now establish genuine independence, which will not be subject to pressure from any side.