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Parliamentary Standards Bill

My hon. Friend makes his point very well. That is why Ministers favour neither the old-fashioned idea of the elected representative nor the fully modern idea of the full-time legislator who is not a member of the Executive, citing the separation of powers as it exists in the United States. It is no wonder that the Prime Minister has handed us this map without a destination, or that the Justice Secretary is urging us to rush the Bill through the House as quickly as possible. It is not that they do not know where the journey is heading; they know perfectly well. I do not believe that the Bill is motivated by the expenses scandal at all. In my view, it is motivated by the Government's desire to entrench further a political class that will be dependent on the patronage of those on the Treasury Bench. The Bill piles further absurdity on the original absurdities set out in the Nolan rules, to which the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) alluded earlier—namely, that there are only two kinds of interests. One is private interest, personal to Members; the other is the public interest as a whole. However, that is not so much wrong as completely unintelligible. Many other interests must be represented in the Commons for it to be a House of Commons at all. To give but one example, each of us represents a constituency interest; it is possible, indeed likely, that that constituency interest will sometimes clash with other constituency interests, and therefore with the public interest as a whole. The refusal to recognise those truths drives the contortions and contradictions in the Bill. So many examples have been given that I hesitate to add to them, but the House might briefly want to consider an example cited in The Times. If a constituency business buys a Member a cup of tea, and the Member then raises a matter on that business's behalf, will such a Member be in breach of the paid advocacy rules and be hauled before the courts accordingly?