---

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

I would have supported the hon. Gentleman's amendment had Mr Speaker called it, because I thought its tone admirable. My point concerns the independence of any regulator of a sovereign Parliament. The difficulty is that, although that regulator may be independent in title, what the House of Commons gives by legislation it can take by legislation. Constitutionally, therefore, IPSA cannot be independent of Parliament—and nor should it be, because if it were independent of Parliament, it would be independent of the British people.