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Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

I should like to join colleagues in commending the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) for securing this debate and for the tone in which he set it, which has, surprisingly perhaps, reflected well on the House. As a new Member, I have persevered in seeking to catch your eye this afternoon, Mr Deputy Speaker, because although I agree with many of the critiques of the current situation, I do not agree with many of the suggested solutions, including that suggested by the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh). As a new Member, my experience of this place is that there are many hard-working, dedicated colleagues on both sides of the House, and, having observed their work ethic, I am in no doubt that they perceive their role to be that of a public servant. However, when it comes to our terms and conditions, our mode of operation and even our autonomy in deciding how we provide that service to the public, I have been surprised by the number of colleagues who seem to adopt the mindset of someone who is running their own business. In fact, we have heard contradictory accounts today about who employs whom in this place. I have run a small business, but as a newly elected Member I could really have done without the freedom and responsibility of choosing my own constituency premises, negotiating the lease and sourcing the necessary equipment for my staff to use. None of that is what I came here to do. I suspect that some Members here might not even feel qualified to do it. We have all this administrative freedom to set things up exactly as we wish, but with that freedom comes administrative responsibility, as well as the unusual transaction requirements whereby MPs pay for everything first and claim the money back in what we have come to refer to as expenses. I would argue that Members need to realise that, in cherishing that administrative autonomy, they make a rod for their own backs, by turning what for most people are the fundamentals of their workplace accommodation into what for us are treated as expenses. I would rather that we let go of all that and allowed independent, or indeed parliamentary, authorities to provide, manage and pay for our constituency offices—