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Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

I am not going to take up what the independent expenses compliance officer said. I do not think that his comments deserve any response from me; they speak for themselves. However, if the situation has been difficult for returning Members—as many of us are—how much more difficult has it been for new Members? It must be an outright nightmare for them, and that is set against a background in which they would find it far more difficult to criticise the system because their local paper might say, "Look what they complain about the moment they are elected." At least returning Members have constituency offices, however difficult it is to get IPSA to agree on rent and related matters. New Members have to start from scratch, without being able to go to IPSA and say, "This is what we want to do. Is it legitimate? Is it within the rules?" Those are elementary questions, but they will not get any answers because, at the moment, the system does not provide for anything of that kind.