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Backbench debate on Thursday, 2 December 2010, in the House of Commons, led by Adam Afriyie. The answering member was Lord Harper.

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Twelfth backbench debate (part two). Closure motion. Agreed to on question. Main question agreed to.

Secondary information

Type
Parliamentary proceeding
Reference
519 c1018-74 
Session
2010-12
Department
Cabinet Office
Procedure
Closure motions
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Proceeding contributions
Speaker | 519 c1044 (Link to this contribution) Order. As is self-evident, a lot of Members wish to catch my eye in this debate. I have therefore de...
Peter Bottomley | 519 c1057-8 (Link to this contribution) I normally reply ““Yes”” to my hon. Friend, but in this instance the answer is, ““No, I cannot.”” Ho...
Show all contributions (124)
Lord Harper | 519 c1064-5 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful for that intervention. I shall now try to make some progress, as I want to leave suffi...
Lord Mann | 519 c1036 (Link to this contribution) I totally and absolutely agree on that point. That is a criticism I would make. However, that should...
Lord Murphy of Torfaen | 519 c1043 (Link to this contribution) That is a valid point, which many Members have raised in the debate. On days when we have to deal wi...
Speaker | 519 c1059 (Link to this contribution) Order. We will hear from the Front-Bench speakers next. They have agreed to show time restraint. The...
Hilary Benn | 519 c1059 (Link to this contribution) I welcome the opportunity provided by the Backbench Business Committee to debate the operation of IP...
Hilary Benn | 519 c1059 (Link to this contribution) I would make two points. First, an independent body is now looking at those receipts and making a ju...
Bernard Jenkin | 519 c1059 (Link to this contribution) Will the right hon. Gentleman comment on the fact that IPSA has said it is not going to publish invo...
Hilary Benn | 519 c1060 (Link to this contribution) I think there is a lot in what the hon. Gentleman says. This debate has produced many ideas and sugg...
Richard Bacon | 519 c1059 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Gentleman says there is a balance to be struck between cost and transparency, but in ...
Adam Holloway | 519 c1060 (Link to this contribution) Members such as the saintly hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) have allowed the impression to be ...
Lord Harper | 519 c1062-3 (Link to this contribution) Before I start, I want to thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for your kind words about our 2018 bid team,...
Hilary Benn | 519 c1060-2 (Link to this contribution) The salaries of the staff who support us in our work are not by any reasonable definition an expense...
Lord Harper | 519 c1063 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is quite right that the message has not got out that MPs have behaved completely ...
Ann Clwyd | 519 c1063 (Link to this contribution) I, too, have seen what IPSA has said in response, but it did not respond to the point that I made. I...
Bob Russell | 519 c1063 (Link to this contribution) Unfortunately, that message has not got into the newspapers. The right hon. Member for Cynon Valley ...
David Winnick | 519 c1064 (Link to this contribution) Why has it taken so long for me to get a parliamentary reply about IPSA's senior management team—who...
Lord Harper | 519 c1064 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Lady makes a good point. When I am perusing the lists of tabled questions, I frequently see...
Helen Jones | 519 c1064 (Link to this contribution) Does the hon. Gentleman think that it would help if IPSA answered parliamentary questions properly? ...
Lord Harper | 519 c1063 (Link to this contribution) I have heard that clearly, but as the right hon. Lady knows, IPSA is independent. It will have heard...
Lord Harper | 519 c1064 (Link to this contribution) Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), who has a key role in the process, can...
Lord Harper | 519 c1064 (Link to this contribution) I can answer only for how Ministers and I deal with parliamentary questions. I endeavour to answer m...
Charles Walker | 519 c1064 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) is right to be annoyed at having to wait so long for ...
Bernard Jenkin | 519 c1065 (Link to this contribution) Does the Minister agree that, as with the House of Commons, IPSA is unlikely to survive a freedom of...
Duncan Hames | 519 c1069 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Edward Leigh | 519 c1068-9 (Link to this contribution) As one of the last Back Benchers to speak, I hope that I can say that we have had a good debate. Eve...
Clive Efford | 519 c1066-7 (Link to this contribution) I should like to associate myself with all the compliments that have been passed to the hon. Member ...
Lord Harper | 519 c1065-6 (Link to this contribution) That may well be the case, and I think that IPSA has admitted in public that if people apply for rec...
Clive Efford | 519 c1067-8 (Link to this contribution) I would not dismiss that suggestion. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and disagree with my hon. Frie...
Roger Gale | 519 c1067 (Link to this contribution) I know of no Member of the House who wants to overturn IPSA's independence, in which respect the hon...
Duncan Hames | 519 c1070-1 (Link to this contribution) I accept that that view is not shared by other Members, but I have waited patiently to share my view...
Mark Field | 519 c1071-3 (Link to this contribution) No one could accuse my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) of lacking bravery in intro...
Duncan Hames | 519 c1070 (Link to this contribution) I should like to join colleagues in commending the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) for securi...
Edward Leigh | 519 c1069 (Link to this contribution) I cannot give way because I have been told that I have only three or four minutes. Such a flat-rate...
Adam Afriyie | 519 c1073-4 (Link to this contribution) With only a couple of minutes left, I should just like to say a few quick things. First, the debate ...
Lord Mann | 519 c1033 (Link to this contribution) I am just wondering which category I fall into: the rich or the junior anoraks with no experience of...
Claire O'Neill | 519 c1034-5 (Link to this contribution) Many new Members on the Government Benches have no issue with the principle of an independent, trans...
Lord Mann | 519 c1033-4 (Link to this contribution) We hear the same kind of abuse that I got following that debate—some of it to my face; some was behi...
Roger Gale | 519 c1030-1 (Link to this contribution) It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). May I add my congratu...
Roger Gale | 519 c1031-3 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I shall discuss the costs of IPSA now, because I am consciou...
Lord Beamish | 519 c1031 (Link to this contribution) Does the hon. Gentleman also agree that a good example of IPSA completely misunderstanding how an MP...
Lord Mann | 519 c1035 (Link to this contribution) If the hon. Lady supports the motion, she supports a break in the fundamental principle on which we ...
George Hollingbery | 519 c1035 (Link to this contribution) I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and I understand his problem with the motion. As a n...
Lord Mann | 519 c1035-6 (Link to this contribution) When the House passed the relevant legislation, it put in place such processes. Similar processes we...
Lord Mann | 519 c1037 (Link to this contribution) I shall conclude on this: the principles on which we changed—because we were forced to change, becau...
Andrew Bridgen | 519 c1037 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Lord Mann | 519 c1037 (Link to this contribution) I do not think that that would be an accurate constitutional point if there were a constitution. Par...
Jacob Rees-Mogg | 519 c1036-7 (Link to this contribution) I would have supported the hon. Gentleman's amendment had Mr Speaker called it, because I thought it...
Lord Mann | 519 c1036 (Link to this contribution) I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the amount of time that my staff and I have to spend on the syste...
Charlie Elphicke | 519 c1036 (Link to this contribution) I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) on securing the debate. I am a n...
John Stanley | 519 c1037-8 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) has performed a signal service to the House by ...
Mark Field | 519 c1038 (Link to this contribution) I hope my right hon. Friend will recognise that we are not employees in any sense. We are self-emplo...
Bob Stewart | 519 c1024 (Link to this contribution) I am a new Member with a constituency in outer London. Every night, I am lucky enough to return to m...
Joan Walley | 519 c1024 (Link to this contribution) Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the main issues is that IPSA does not seem to have underst...
Adam Afriyie | 519 c1024 (Link to this contribution) Hear, hear! Absolutely. The system seems almost designed to create a Parliament for the wealthy. If ...
Edward Leigh | 519 c1025 (Link to this contribution) So why not go back to a simple flat-rate allowance for everybody?
Adam Afriyie | 519 c1024-5 (Link to this contribution) Exactly that debate was had in 1911. After the Osborne judgment, Labour Members could no longer be f...
Adam Afriyie | 519 c1025 (Link to this contribution) The Parliamentary Standards (Amendment) Bill, which will appear on tomorrow's Order Paper—of course,...
Nadine Dorries | 519 c1025-6 (Link to this contribution) The Chamber is largely full of men today and women are represented only in small number, so I ask th...
Adam Afriyie | 519 c1026 (Link to this contribution) I am making the same observation, and my hon. Friend highlights the point very well. The motion ask...
Lord Tyrie | 519 c1026 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend makes a strong case and a plea to IPSA to get on with it. Does he agree that it is up...
Andrew Bridgen | 519 c1027 (Link to this contribution) As a Member of the 2010 intake, I have no personal knowledge of the system that ran before, but I ca...
Adam Afriyie | 519 c1026 (Link to this contribution) That was exceptionally well put. One of my big asks of the Government is that they communicate the m...
Lord Beamish | 519 c1028 (Link to this contribution) Does my right hon. Friend also recognise that the new travel card system is far more complicated tha...
Ann Clwyd | 519 c1027-8 (Link to this contribution) I congratulate the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) on his excellent speech and on the way in ...
Speaker | 519 c1027 (Link to this contribution) Order. As hon. Members are aware, Mr Speaker has decided not to select the amendment. Many Members w...
Adam Afriyie | 519 c1027 (Link to this contribution) I thank my hon. Friend very much for that intervention; everyone will have heard what he said. We k...
David Winnick | 519 c1029 (Link to this contribution) It is quite possible that new Members fear the local press in particular, and worry that it might sa...
Ann Clwyd | 519 c1029 (Link to this contribution) I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, and I am glad that so many of us are here to make that...
Ann Clwyd | 519 c1028-9 (Link to this contribution) I thank my hon. Friend. That is a very good point. During the first few months of the new system's ...
Adam Afriyie | 519 c1018-9 (Link to this contribution) I beg to move,"That this House regrets the unnecessarily high costs and inadequacies of the systems ...
Bob Russell | 519 c1020 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate and for his contribution thus far. Does...
Adam Afriyie | 519 c1020 (Link to this contribution) That is a very good question. I have the figure 44 in my head for the number of responses to the ini...
Lord Blunkett | 519 c1021 (Link to this contribution) I should like initially to make it absolutely clear that the dog has claimed no allowances whatever!...
Adam Afriyie | 519 c1021 (Link to this contribution) In which case I shall pursue the issue doggedly!
Speaker | 519 c1021 (Link to this contribution) Order. Can we have shorter interventions? A lot of Members wish to speak in this very important deba...
Bernard Jenkin | 519 c1020-1 (Link to this contribution) To be completely fair to IPSA, the scheme that it had to implement had already been handed to it by ...
David Winnick | 519 c1021 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is certainly making a positive contribution for all of us. Is it not odd that IPS...
Adam Afriyie | 519 c1021 (Link to this contribution) I very much welcome my hon. Friend's intervention. It is quite clear that the Committee on Standards...
Adam Afriyie | 519 c1022 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is a new Member, and he is spot on. That is why the majority of hon. Members beli...
Lord Jackson of Peterborough | 519 c1022-3 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way. Perhaps he would like to disabuse my hon. Frien...
Adam Afriyie | 519 c1021-2 (Link to this contribution) I welcome the intervention and the correspondence between me and the right hon. Gentleman, although ...
Duncan Hames | 519 c1022 (Link to this contribution) I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is an advocate of worker representation, but does he accept that i...
Adam Afriyie | 519 c1023-4 (Link to this contribution) I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing me back to the motion, which is where we really need to be, ...
Brian H Donohoe | 519 c1023 (Link to this contribution) I completely support what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Can we move back to the motion and to trying...
Adam Afriyie | 519 c1023 (Link to this contribution) That is the irreconcilable nature of the task that IPSA has been set. These are quite deep waters an...
Bob Russell | 519 c1023 (Link to this contribution) In answer to parliamentary questions that I tabled, IPSA graciously acknowledged that I am employed ...
Adam Afriyie | 519 c1023 (Link to this contribution) Absolutely. My hon. Friend hits on the key issue, which has not been resolved in the last 100 years,...
Michael Connarty | 519 c1051-2 (Link to this contribution) I am sorry, but I do not have time to give way. IPSA cannot handle the idea that we might want to cl...
Michael Connarty | 519 c1049-51 (Link to this contribution) I welcome the sea change from a system that was clearly not transparent as far as the public were co...
Richard Bacon | 519 c1048-9 (Link to this contribution) It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), who made a fair and balan...
Jo Swinson | 519 c1047 (Link to this contribution) I also remember—albeit from the other side of the House—opposing the Bill to exempt MPs from freedom...
David Winnick | 519 c1047-8 (Link to this contribution) I hope that I will have time to deal with the valid point that the hon. Lady makes. I remember her j...
Bob Russell | 519 c1044-6 (Link to this contribution) I would rather not, because of the time limit. We must not say that all journalists are averse to f...
David Winnick | 519 c1046-7 (Link to this contribution) One point arising from the speech made by the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) that I shall ...
Desmond Swayne | 519 c1044 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Roger Gale | 519 c1057 (Link to this contribution) Can my hon. Friend possibly explain why IPSA is incapable of paying a bill directly and insists that...
Kevin Barron | 519 c1055 (Link to this contribution) I travelled from my home in south Yorkshire to Huddersfield university a few Fridays ago, as the cha...
Tony Lloyd | 519 c1055-6 (Link to this contribution) The sad thing is that, in refusing what most people would consider a common-sense, legitimate claim,...
Peter Bottomley | 519 c1056-7 (Link to this contribution) Parliament should create its own website, on which any Member of Parliament with a legitimate claim ...
Charles Walker | 519 c1052-4 (Link to this contribution) I am a sinner and I embrace sin. In the previous Parliament, I used the expenses system almost to it...
Tony Lloyd | 519 c1054 (Link to this contribution) I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), who made an extraordinary speec...
Lord Bruce of Bennachie | 519 c1054 (Link to this contribution) Does the hon. Gentleman think it odd that IPSA wrote to tell me —presumably, it also wrote to other ...
Tony Lloyd | 519 c1055 (Link to this contribution) Yes, it is odd. These issues are odd and arbitrary and IPSA must recognise that the system needs ref...
Michael Connarty | 519 c1042 (Link to this contribution) I have to disabuse my right hon. Friend of the idea that IPSA can handle treating personal expenses ...
Speaker | 519 c1040 (Link to this contribution) The country is suffering sub-zero temperatures, towns and villages are being cut off, some people ar...
Andrew Bridgen | 519 c1040 (Link to this contribution) On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I point out to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) tha...
John Stanley | 519 c1038-40 (Link to this contribution) There is an important point on the status of MPs, to which I shall come later. If they were self-emp...
Stephen Pound | 519 c1040 (Link to this contribution) On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In view of the tragic news from Zurich and the sounds of cel...
Liz Kendall | 519 c1041 (Link to this contribution) As a new Member, I think I am right in saying that one benefit of the old system was that when a new...
Lord Murphy of Torfaen | 519 c1041-2 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend makes an important point. I hope that her comments and those of all hon. Members who ...
Speaker | 519 c1040 (Link to this contribution) That sounds to me like a continuation of the debate.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen | 519 c1040-1 (Link to this contribution) May I add my disappointment, Mr Deputy Speaker, as another Welshman, over England's bid and congratu...
Lord Murphy of Torfaen | 519 c1042-3 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is right in the first instance. There is and was a great need for public trust in...
Ian Davidson | 519 c1043 (Link to this contribution) Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the IPSA issues that is not transparent is the cost that...
Paul Flynn | 519 c1043 (Link to this contribution) Recently, there was an application for a job in my office from a candidate who described herself as ...
Lord Murphy of Torfaen | 519 c1043-4 (Link to this contribution) Yes, indeed—my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Given that some years ago the then Prime Minister ap...
Bob Russell | 519 c1044 (Link to this contribution) It is important that IPSA has a voice in this Chamber. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Basse...
Lord Murphy of Torfaen | 519 c1042 (Link to this contribution) The result, of course, is that the service that we provide our constituents becomes less and less ef...
George Freeman | 519 c1042 (Link to this contribution) Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the expenses scandal represented a deep crisis of trust wri...
Subjects
Administration Costs Allowances Bureaucracy Families Payments Members Location Members' constituency work Members' staff Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority
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