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Parliamentary Standards Bill

The amendment standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Cope can be very much more quickly and easily dealt with. In this House, we ran into some difficulties, and I believe the same has happened on occasions in the other place, where an investigation, by whatever machinery might have been in existence at the time, gave rise to the possibility of a prosecution in the courts. The noble Baroness will remember the cases that we dealt with. This amendment seeks to make it abundantly clear—I think that this is the intention of the Government and the House authorities—that two investigations cannot proceed in parallel. If the matter is being investigated by the police on the grounds that an offence against the law may have been committed, all that this amendment says is that, in terms of time, that takes precedence. The matters before, for instance, the Committee of Privileges or the Committee of Standards and Privileges should be suspended until those proceedings by the police and the courts have been concluded. Whatever the result of that, it is then open to the committee to resume the proceedings within the purview of the House. I believe that this is actually what is intended and the present practice, but I thought that it would be helpful to put it on the face of the Bill so that there is no doubt at all. I beg to move.