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Parliamentary Standards Bill

Yes, on the guillotine and against it. All I am doing is asking the House to face up to these things. A week ago, 10 people stood in front of this House. It was the only time, however, that I bet that any of them had been able to address a Prime Minister in this Chamber uninterrupted with him sitting there for the entire five or six minutes. That is a privilege that is never extended to anyone else in this House. That reveals the contempt that is shown by the Government time and again to the Members of this House, who have to justify their pay and their allowances—or whatever—to their own electorate. The Government have forgotten about the electorate in this. It is about what the Prime Minister thinks he can carve up with other Front Benchers. That is no way to be a proper representative body, and we are now going to hear a winding-up speech justifying all this nonsense. The Government have withdrawn something, but we should vote this Bill down if we ever got the opportunity—although the whole Whips' apparatus must ensure that we are nothing.