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Standards and Privileges

Many Members with this concern will be comforted by that helpful response. When I asked members of the Committee about the issue, I was told that Members would have time to review their position. I asked over and over again what was meant by a review and I was told, ““You'll have time to get your house in order.”” When I asked whether I could take this particular element out of the job description, Officers of the House told me that I could not, because elements of allowances flowed from its inclusion in the job description. The two messages were inconsistent. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, because while my disability is visible and there for all to see, others have disabilities that are not visible. If the hon. Gentleman is correct, people will be comforted—I see that hon. Members are nodding—and the review will be unnecessary in that regard. I am also worried about the very broad range of salaries. Knowing what my constituents are like—I am sure that all hon. Members' constituents are the same—they will assume that everyone is on the top rate. I will get letters saying, ““Isn't there a lot of money going into your house?”” I can assure my constituents right away that my husband is not on the top of the range—neither is he right at the bottom—but Members will receive lots of letters saying, ““I expect you're all on the top rate.”” This process will not be the end; there will be a lot more curiosity. What we are doing should be about serving the public interest, not public curiosity. I hope that the process will feed into the Members Estimate Committee and that we will be allowed to carry on work to examine a proper personnel function that can exist alongside a proper accounting function. While this process serves a function, it will not be the whole story. Rather than looking at what Members' families do, surely the House should look at what all our staff do. As employers, we ought to be looking at the interests of our staff. All our staff need to be doing what they are paid to do. What is interesting here is not the fact that one individual made a mistake about a member of their family, but the fact that there ought to be a proper personnel function whereby an employer employs a member of staff, we know what that member of staff is doing, and we have a proper way to deal with the relationship between employer and employee so that it is properly accounted for. That would satisfy the public that we know what we are doing, that we are a proper professional organisation—all of us—and that we do not make a distinction between family members and others. To say that a member of my family is somehow less of a human being and more likely to be a rogue, a vagabond and a thief seems to be the wrong way to look at things. Any of us could be making mistakes, so we must ensure that the functions of the House are so correctly set up that none of us could make a mistake with any of our staff. That would be the right way forward.