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Parliamentary Standards Bill

Were my amendment to be successful, I would quite understand it if the hon. Gentleman felt obliged to table a consequential amendment to deal with the provisions to which he has just referred. My view is that it is for this House to decide the circumstances in which Members should declare an interest and to decide what to do if they do not. I, thus, believe that the amendment should be accepted and the rules relating to the declaration of interests should continue to be made by the House itself. I just wish to say a word about the Government amendments, which rebrand the rules relating to financial interests as a code of conduct. It is not at all clear to me why what yesterday was a rule about a financial interest must today be a code of conduct. That is certainly not a consequential amendment flowing from the removal of clause 6; it does not follow at all that because that code of conduct has been removed another part of the Bill has to be rebranded as a code of conduct. I think that this has happened merely so that the Prime Minister can fulfil his pledge to introduce a statutory code. If the Government amendments are accepted, there will be two codes. One will be a statutory code covering financial matters and the other will be maintained by the House and will cover everything else. That is a recipe for confusion, and it is totally unnecessary. Finally, I should add that many of us voted against the programme motion yesterday because we were worried that there would not be enough time to discuss matters, and it looks as though that prophecy is about to be fulfilled.