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Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

I strongly endorse the point made by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan). If we can have a House of Commons travel card for our train or plane tickets, why can we not have it for anything else? The hon. Gentleman made a very good point. People will not be able to take up the excellent suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) about privileges until the Standards and Privileges Committee is established. There is one other thing that Members can do now. Many people have said that IPSA is not accountable, but that is wrong. It spends public money, which, therefore, makes it accountable. The IPSA chief executive is an accounting officer. The Comptroller and Auditor General is an officer of the House of Commons; he is the head of the National Audit Office. His address is 157 Buckingham Palace road, London SW1 W9SP. I encourage all Members of Parliament to write to him with their own experiences, because he is responsible. He is charged by Parliament, under the National Audit Act 1983, with ensuring the effective, efficient and economic use of public funds. In due course, he will need to take an interest in this question. It is a simple suggestion, but people should encourage the Comptroller and Auditor General to look at IPSA, because eventually, if there is enough pressure, he will have to look at it, and IPSA will then have to account for how it is spending public funds. It is that simple.