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Parliamentary Standards Bill

We are not resisting criminal law. The point has already been made in this debate that the new offences are unnecessary. We are already subject to rules against fraud, false accounting and theft. The new criminal sanctions in the Bill are redundant. We are not resisting criminal law; I certainly will not. I agree that the full force of the law should apply, but that is not at issue. This point certainly does not have general assent, but I think that the ability to make rules about salaries and expenses should remain with the House. We should take advice, we should listen, and there should be outside bodies to make suggestions, but I believe that it is up to Parliament to explain and justify to the people who sent us here what those rules should be. We could borrow from American experience. Under a constitutional amendment, Congress does not set its own remuneration, but must set rules that come into effect after an election. That was the most recent amendment to the American constitution. It means that Congress does not set its own rules; it sets rules for the subsequent Congress. In the next day or two, I shall propose an amendment to say that we should vote on new rules, but that they should apply only after the purging effect of a general election, so that we do not set our salaries and allowances but those for the next Parliament. The only other part of the Bill to which I wish to refer is clause 10, which reproduces much of the wording of article 9 of the Bill of Rights and seeks to override it. That is extremely dangerous. The Bill of Rights is not an entrenched Act; it can be repealed, and that is effectively what we are doing, with highly unpredictable consequences. Clause 10 protects freedom of speech, both in Parliament and on behalf of our constituents, and is wholly unnecessary. No one denies the importance of parliamentary reform, and that is the point I want to end on. Let nobody accuse this House, and certainly not me, of wanting to resist reform of our expenses. However, we must not carry out that reform by weakening Parliament, by exporting our powers to other organisations and bodies, and by overturning centuries of constitutional development, all of which is being done in a fruitless attempt to save a Government from extinction.