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Parliamentary Standards Bill

The hon. Gentleman needs to look at Lords Hansard from yesterday, where he will find the amendment from my noble Friend Lord Tyler that precisely said that a sunset clause should come into effect after two years to deal with the clauses in question. The hon. Gentleman will find that my party supported that, while his did not. If he wishes to argue that case, I hope that he will read Lords Hansard. [Interruption.] He had better have a look before making another intervention. Let me deal with the specific offences dealt with by the Bill. I am in some difficultly, because there are already clear offences on the statute book covered by the Theft Act 1968, the Fraud Act 2006 and the common-law offence of misconduct in public office. I accept that they are all English laws and do not apply in Scotland, but they are the laws that should be applied. The difficulty with creating laws that are specific to Members of Parliament is that it reduces the scope of those offences and provides a lower tariff than would otherwise be the case. The one offence that is left in the Bill as a result of the amendments in another place provides for a much lower tariff than the cognate offences in the Theft Act and Fraud Act. The other difficulty is that the offence in question does not require proof of either dishonesty or material gain, so it is almost an arbitrary offence. There was a case for having a range of offences—the range of offences that we discussed earlier in connection with paid advocacy, which I accept may be covered by the draft bribery Bill or the offence of false registration. To reduce that range of offences to a single offence that is clearly covered by other offences that carry a higher tariff poses some questions. However, that is something that we can re-examine when the provisions come back. Let me finish by addressing the issue raised by the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash). I always listen with enormous care to what he says on such matters, because I know how well he researches his facts and I know the care with which he presents his case. I am pleased that we now have a clear declaratory statement about article IX of the Bill of Rights 1689. I have looked carefully at his arguments for extending it in words to the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, but I am afraid that I simply cannot see doing that anything other than otiose, nor can I find the circumstances in which it will make a difference. As has been said, the European Court of Human Rights is a matter of international treaty. It is the right of any individual to make an application to the Strasbourg court, and nothing that we write into our statutes will prevent that from happening, unless we decide to withdraw from our treaty obligations. Therefore, the proposal will not affect that right. Indeed, in the case to which attention has already been drawn—A. v. United Kingdom of 2003—it is clear that the Strasbourg Court very much had regard for article IX of the Bill of Rights, despite the fact that the Court is not bound by it, in the strong majority decision that was made. I cannot envisage any circumstances in which a British court would refer a matter to the European Court of Justice in this regard. If anyone could provide a clear case in which the measure might be appropriate, I would support the hon. Member for Stone's amendment.