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Parliamentary Standards Bill

I am grateful for Government amendment 7, which reproduces, at 10 times the length, the four words that I had drafted as amendment 6 to clause 4 yesterday. I want briefly to speak to amendment 2, in the hope that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell) and I might score a final quick single before stumps are finally drawn. The order-making power in clause 13 is wide-ranging and substantial. It provides for the Government and the Speaker to draw up a scheme for transferring property rights and liabilities of the House to IPSA and for the order containing such a scheme to be subject to annulment by either House of Parliament, which may or may not lead to a debate and a vote. As drafted, the clause is objectionable on two grounds. First, it does not guarantee proper scrutiny of such orders; secondly, it gives the other place power to annul a scheme that affects only this House. The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough would deal with both objections by requiring all orders containing transitional provision to be laid in draft before the Commons only and by making them subject to the affirmative procedure order, thus obliging the Government to make time available either on the Floor of the House or Upstairs to provide the opportunity for a vote to take place. I hope that the amendment will find favour with Government Front Benchers.