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Parliamentary Standards Bill

I shall give way in due course, but I ask both Members to allow me to make a little progress before I come to them. If we go through the record of this place over the past century and a half, we find an increasing preoccupation to introduce external regulation over one area of social and economic activity after another. From interventions that insisted on clean water or safety systems in the mines or in factories, to increasingly tight external regulation of finance, business and professions, this House and Parliament has been unrelenting in its view that, however well meaning the individuals and venerable the institution, self-regulation is rarely, if ever, enough. The painful lesson of the past six weeks is that our prescription for others must now be applied to ourselves. Three weeks ago, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced to the House the""immediate creation of a new Parliamentary Standards Authority"." It would take over responsibility for setting and administering the allowance system and apply""firm and appropriate sanctions in cases of financial irregularity."" The Leader of the Opposition said that the Opposition would back the establishment of the authority, but added—and he was right to do so—that""there are still serious questions to be answered, not least about how it will relate to the House and to whom it will be ultimately accountable."—[Official Report, 10 June 2009; Vol. 493, c. 796-799.]"