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Standards and Privileges

I said very clearly that we cannot legislate retrospectively in such matters, but from 1 August onwards, the rule should be that only one person from the family can be taken into employment, and that where one family member is already working, a second cannot be taken on. We must not be unfair to people presently in employment. I wish to raise two final issues that colleagues across the House are concerned about. First, the question that we are debating is a different one from protecting the privacy of our members of staff generally. Mr. Speaker and the Members Estimate Committee are addressing a matter that it is important to get right—how we protect the safety and integrity of our members of staff. That is a wider debate, but I do not think it applies to family members. In the case of family members, there is an overriding obligation to disclose, which is what we should do. The second wider issue—again it is a separate matter and not directly affected by what we are debating—is the need to ensure that the home addresses of family members, as of Members of Parliament, are not exposed to unnecessary risks. As I say, that is a wider issue. The issues for today, however, are different. Should we adopt the report? Yes, we should. Should it be only an interim report? Yes, it should. Should the system become compulsory in August? Yes, it should, but I hope it goes further than that. I hope that it will be made clear from then onwards that one family member employee, at most, is quite enough. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) rightly called on us to restore public confidence and trust as quickly as possible, but unless we limit the number of family members that we take on, we will, bluntly, fail to achieve that. I hope that we are tough with ourselves and robust in our decisions, and that we sort the problem out quickly, rather than leaving it in the long grass.