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Parliamentary Standards Bill

These are technical amendments, and the need for them may reflect the haste with which the Bill has been drafted. Paragraph 25 of schedule 1 provides for IPSA to lay its annual report before Parliament. Papers may be laid on the Table only by a Member or an Officer of the House, so in practice someone will have to lay the annual report and other papers on behalf of IPSA. Of course, IPSA is independent of the Government, so it would not be right for the papers to be laid by a Minister of the Crown. The Government may assume that the Clerk of the House will lay them, but the legislation should not rest on assumptions, and, to the extent that there are precedents for this, they are not very good. It will be for the House authorities to decide whether any Act, drafted in the current terms of the Bill, provides sufficient clarity and authority for papers to be laid on behalf of IPSA. It would be much better to specify the laying authority in the Bill, and the Speaker, as Chairman of the Committee established by virtue of clause 1, is the appropriate person to lay the papers both on behalf of that Committee and, indeed, of IPSA. He already lays papers on behalf of similar independent bodies, such as the Electoral Commission. If the Government do not agree, they should at least make it clear in the Bill who will lay those papers.