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Standards and Privileges

I thank the Standards and Privileges Committee for its work. The report is based on consideration of the issues, followed by a consultation exercise. I thank the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) for chairing the Committee and for the clarity with which he introduced the report. As is the convention, we found time for the report to be debated promptly following its publication. Let me say a little about the background. I remind the House, as a number of hon. Members have done, that on 24 January—before the publication of the report on the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Derek Conway)—the House decided that we must deal with the question of our pay and how we decide on it, and also with the question of our allowances. In respect of pay, we acted on the proposal made many years ago by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) that our pay should be pegged to an external comparator, and that there should be an independent review mechanism so that we need no longer vote on our own pay. On 24 January, the House accepted that proposal. Sir John Baker is now conducting a review which will propose a comparator and a mechanism. He is taking evidence, and will produce a report by the end of May. Hon. Members will have an opportunity to vote on his recommendations before the House rises for the summer recess. The process was already in hand before the breaking of the scandal relating to the abuse of public funds by the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup. At the same time, we discussed allowances. I made clear then, as I do today, that we ought to treat the matter of our pay—our remuneration—separately from that of reimbursement. We need to ensure that Members can be reimbursed for travelling to and from their constituencies, and that they can be compensated for the extra expense of having two homes, one in London, so that they can represent their constituents at Westminster, and, in the case of out-of-London Members, one in the constituency. All Members of Parliament also need proper, well-funded offices to support them in their work. If we believe that legislation should be scrutinised properly, they must have proper staff in their offices to assist them with that scrutiny. If we want people to be properly represented in the constituencies and helped with individual case work, there must be a proper staff complement. Remuneration for travel, for living away from home and for staff offices is important. We decided on 24 January that we would refer the question of allowances for a root-and-branch review to the Members Estimate Committee, and, before the issue of the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup arose, the Speaker's Committee took on the responsibility. It has been agreed that that should come back to the House by July. I had originally thought that to have a separation between pay and allowances—