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Standards and Privileges

We are all grateful to the Standards and Privileges Committee for its work, particularly as it has worked so quickly. On 31 January the House agreed the fourth report, on the employment issues arising from the conduct of the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Derek Conway) and the Committee has come back with a recommendation within two months. There was strong pressure, from outside and inside the House, for a new regime to be in place by the start of the new financial year. In essence, the proposals in the report, if we agree them, will allow that to happen, even though, as has been said, they are only a first step. It is clearly intended that from April there should be a facility for registering family members, with a view to a final, compulsory system being in place by August, to dovetail with the recommendations of the Members Estimate Committee as a whole. I strongly support that proposal, and the proposal that we should have a compulsory system rather than a voluntary one. I also strongly support the proposal that the name of the family member, or other person with a relationship with the Member, should be listed, and that the job that they do should be described. I hope that it will also be necessary expressly to state the pay band that goes with the job, so that people do not have to cross-refer to other documents, and to state the minimum number of hours per week that the person is contracted to work. That was one of the abuses that came to light in the fourth report. I do not have a personal interest in this matter. I have never paid anyone in my family out of my staffing allowance in all my time here, although obviously family and friends have helped with campaigning. That, however, is an entirely different issue, and will apply to all of us. Given that this is such a high-profile issue, it is surprising that when the Committee went through the normal procedure of advertising its call for evidence, only three members of the public responded. Sometimes a tale full of sound and fury signifies a lot of interest, but when it came to people actually expressing a view, there was a pretty minimal response from the public. Sir John Baker might not love me for this, but I would like to put in a plug for people to make their views known. Given that the deadline that he has set for people to make submissions to him is, I think, 10 April—