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Parliamentary Standards Bill

I should make it clear—I might not have done this earlier—that I can see that there might be some merit in having the commissioner for investigations performing the role of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. Indeed, there has been criticism in the past about the extent to which parliamentary commissioners have been subject to improper pressure from within this House, and that proposal might help to resolve that problem. However, is not the nub of the issue that if we are to have that conjoined role, the powers of enforcement in clause 8 and the relationship of the commissioner vis-à-vis the Standards and Privileges Committee will have to be identical? Otherwise, we will start running into some very difficult areas indeed.