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Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

As the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) said, the appointment of the Committee is part of the process that all sides of the House agreed by means of the Act setting up IPSA. The Committee will advise you, Mr. Speaker, in the appointments that you make, and it will deal with consultations, as has already been suggested, and with audit of the IPSA functions, when they are in place. It is essential that we get IPSA in place because we cannot effect the long-term reform of the system of allowances and expenses until it is in place. A great deal of publicity has, quite reasonably, been given to Sir Christopher Kelly's report, which was leaked. I agree about how unfortunate it is that the report was partially leaked. Partial information is the worst sort of information, because it makes people assume all sorts of things which may not be justified once they see the narrative and the text in the round. The Kelly report on its own is not a proposal for the regulation of the House. It is a proposal for the framework that IPSA will then set up, so IPSA's role is crucial. I agree absolutely with the right hon. Gentleman when he asks what the timetable is expected to be. The Members who are being asked to sit on the Committee will have their work cut out if we are to see a Chairman and a board in place in a reasonable time scale that will enable them to do the work that is set out in statute. I have my doubts whether the timetable will be such as to see real and effective change before the expiry of this Parliament. That means that we may find ourselves in difficulties with either a dying Parliament in its last days setting up structures that will then not apply to it, or a new Parliament without experience having to grapple with this as the first matter on its agenda. There is concern about the time scale and any advice that the Deputy Leader of the House can give would be extremely helpful. The other point that the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) rightly made and that I shall repeat concerns the audit function of this body in terms of the total package of costs for the organisation, but also more specifically the remuneration of board members, for instance. As an example to everybody else we need total transparency, and it is important that we and the public outside know exactly what considerations are being taken into account in setting up the new body, how it is to be set up, what remuneration levels will be, what funding levels will be, and how those funding levels will be justified. I look to the Committee when it is set up to ensure that transparency. Members' interventions have suggested a certain familiarity with some of the names that have been put forward, and it is hard to argue with the fact that they are rather familiar names. I suspect that the argument for that is continuity from what has existed before. At some stage we need to make a break, and there is some justification for saying that. But this Committee will have a limited lifetime. It will exist only until the end of the Parliament. It has a very limited framework of work. The motion plainly says""until the end of the present Parliament."" So this membership is for a limited time and we need to look afresh in a new Parliament as to who are the right Members, how they will represent all parts of the House—both in terms of party political representation and their experience in the House—and at their outlook and what they can bring to this. We should look at that carefully immediately following a general election. I will certainly support the proposal in order to get the body up and running and doing its work, because there is some urgency. I hope, however, that the Deputy Leader of the House will hear in what I have said at least some caveats for the future, which I hope we will be able to take into account.