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Parliamentary Standards Bill

There are three good reasons why we need a sunset clause. First, as the Secretary of State said, this is emergency legislation, and emergency legislation should generally carry a review or a sunset clause. Secondly, the Government have themselves published guidelines with which to judge whether Bills or regulations should have sunset clauses. On the list of criteria deemed to be particularly appropriate for sunset clauses, there is""regulation responding to a particular crisis or to political and public pressure"." I cannot think of anything more apposite to describe the need for a sunset clause. Indeed, the Secretary of State used the word "pressure" only a moment ago. The third reason, which we all know about because we have been sitting here for three days, is that the Bill is in a thoroughly shoddy state and needs to be fundamentally reviewed. It will not be properly done in a few weeks in the other place; we will have to do it ourselves in a year's time—hopefully, when my party is in government.