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(c) any evidence from being admissible in proceedings against a member... for an offence under section 9.”
That directly excludes the operation of article 9 of the Bill of Rights from the functions of IPSA and the commissioner, and ensures that evidence relating to an offence under clause 9—not anything else—is admissible in court.
Our draftsmen tried to draft the clause in a narrow way. I understand and appreciate the concerns expressed by the learned Clerk, but our view, building on the recommendations of the 2003 Joint Committee on the draft Corruption Bill and further discussions that I have had on the latest Bribery Bill—which contains a similar exclusion in respect of article 9—is that such an exclusion is acceptable. However, I understand the sensitivity of the issue, and I promise that I will listen carefully to the concerns that are expressed.
Peter Luff (Mid-Worcestershire) (Con): Will the Secretary of State give way?
There are Members who will try to argue—some have already done so—that we should delay and delay and delay, but I do not accept that. My view, and the view of the party leaders who speak for us as our leaders, is that such is the depth of public concern and such is the fundamental nature of the failings that we must act, and act speedily—not with haste and not without consideration, but through the kind of process in which we have engaged over the last few weeks.
We shall engage in detailed examination over the next three days. As the House will acknowledge, I have already shown considerable flexibility. The Bill will then be examined in the other place. I regard it as imperative—as I hope the whole House does—for us to have on the
statute book by the end of July a workable scheme to establish an Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and all that goes with it.
5.24 pm
Alan Duncan (Rutland and Melton) (Con): The past few months have been desperate ones for Parliament: the reputation of this House has taken some pretty heavy knocks and Members of all parties have been left reeling. The crisis has arisen from the fact that Parliament has stood still while the world moved on. For more than 30 years we have worked under a system of remuneration that would never have stood up to scrutiny in the commercial world, and while political cowardice at the top maintained the headline rate of pay at an artificially low level, political deceit—I think it is fair to call it that—has invented an allowance scheme that was less than acceptable, lacked any transparency and was corrosive to public trust. One of the most important political trends of the past two decades has been the movement towards greater openness, so when the facts came out, as they were bound to do, it was always going to end in tears. The truth that now must haunt us all is that when the House had the opportunity to fix the system, it signally failed to seize the moment. We must not fail this time around.
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: The Secretary of State implied several times that the Bill is the result of an agreement between the parties. Will my hon. Friend confirm that although there must—I hope—be agreement to reform our expenses regime fundamentally, we as a party have not agreed that these constitutional reforms should be hurried through in this way, and that the Bill in its present form is not a result of cross-party collusion?
Alan Duncan: I think that fairly summarises the position, but I also think it is fair to say that the Secretary of State for Justice and the Leader of the House have been very open throughout the consultation and discussions we have had in trying to put together a Bill that is in many respects workable—and is far more workable than the original draft we saw.
I would like to set out the context in which this Bill has emerged, and then say something about the principles that we should bear in mind as we go forward over the next couple of days. We support the principle behind the Bill of outsourcing the Fees Office, but it is not an overstatement to say that the Bill also touches on the fundamentals of our constitutional architecture. While Conservative Members appreciate that there is pressure to pass this legislation quickly, if we get it wrong it could have a devastating effect on our democratic process and our procedures, which could seriously disadvantage the interests of voters.
Peter Luff: On that point, I hope that we will press the Government on clause 10 in particular. As a Select Committee Chairman who often has to take on quite strong and powerful outside interests in the course of my work, I regard the clause as very detrimental indeed to the Select Committee system and to the wider House of Commons.
Alan Duncan:
I am certain that in Committee tomorrow and on Wednesday that clause will excite a lot of attention and some serious analysis and debate. Indeed, it is because of clauses such as clause 10—although its final
form depends on what happens in Committee—that we reserve the right to return to the legislation at a later date. If there is tidying up to do, we must ensure that it happens away from the politically charged atmosphere in which the Bill is being handled today.
Since The Daily Telegraph began its series of stories, there have been a fair number of discussions in the House and decisions taken by it, and processes have been set in motion outside with the aim of rebuilding trust and ensuring that the claims that have so baffled and enraged the electorate will never arise again. The first action was taken by the Committee on Standards in Public Life and Sir Christopher Kelly, who initiated the report into our expenses and to whom we have entrusted the task of designing an alternative system. As Sir Christopher said, such an inquiry was long overdue, and we welcome the progress that he is making.
Also, in Parliament individual Members and parties have taken steps to assuage public anger by making voluntary repayments and—
Mr. Swire: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Alan Duncan: Not in the middle of a sentence. Individual Members and parties have taken steps to assuage public anger by making voluntary repayments and changing the way in which we make certain claims. I shall now give way to my hon. Friend.
Mr. Swire: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. I understand that he has given evidence to Sir Christopher Kelly. Has he had an opportunity to discuss Sir Christopher’s thoughts on the Bill with him, and has he received any indication as to whether Sir Christopher would like to wait, or, indeed, feels compromised by this Bill?
Alan Duncan: My evidence to the committee is online on the committee’s website. Indeed, I have sent all colleagues on this side of the House a copy—
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Bridget Prentice): What about our side?
Alan Duncan: It is on the website, and has had many thousands of hits already. The Bill had not been published or revealed in any detail at the time that I gave evidence.
Sir Patrick Cormack: Of course, it is right that Sir Christopher should be untrammelled and that he and his committee should be able to make recommendations, which I hope we can accept in total. It is then the job of this authority, as I see it, to ensure that the Kelly system is fairly and rigorously enforced. It does not follow from that that we must have the rest of the constitutional apparatus of this Bill.
Alan Duncan: In broad terms, I fully agree with my hon. Friend.
Mr. Elfyn Llwyd (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy) (PC):
Further to the question that the hon. Gentleman was recently asked, I gave evidence today to the Kelly committee. One question that I was asked was whether I thought it
prudent and wise to rush through legislation in advance of its findings. I have to be honest; I have taken the view, and still do, that it would be far better to wait for the committee’s deliberations and to have a proper draft Bill, with pre-legislative scrutiny, and to do it properly. I say that with respect—we have had a useful process, I do not deny that—but I still think that that avenue should have been preferred.
Alan Duncan: I take that as an intervention directed more towards the Secretary of State for Justice than me.
As the Leader of the House reported in her statement last week, every receipt from the past four years will also be subject to the scrutiny of Sir Thomas Legg. He will make recommendations later this year on the individual actions of Members. I think that the whole House will accept that Sir Thomas Legg is a man of total integrity and is well suited to that purpose.
Mr. Frank Field: I wonder whether the cross-party talks covered the following point—in a sense, I raise it from the trade union side of the House—
Mr. Straw: That’s unusual for you.
Mr. Field: Indeed; I hope that the irony was picked up. Many of the Fees Office staff have felt themselves to be on the receiving end of Members’ blame for allowances that those Members claimed. If the Bill goes through, what will happen to those staff, whose numbers have been increased recently? Will we be making them redundant or will we expect them to be taken into the new authority?
Alan Duncan: That is not determined—it will be up to the authority—but I think it inconceivable that they will all be made redundant, as their expertise and understanding of the system are essential to its working effectively. I do not think that it has been fair to criticise the Fees Office in the way that many have. It is the direction that it has been given that matters more than the conduct of any individuals themselves.
Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North) (Lab): Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
Alan Duncan: Yes. I shall bin some of my speech, give way to the hon. Gentleman and then canter on.
Mr. Winnick: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has made that point, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would wish to do so, too. Criticism of the Fees Office staff has been totally unfair and without any justification. The notion that they encourage Members to claim more does not bear up to any reality whatsoever. At no stage, in all the years that I have been here, has the Fees Office come back to me and said, “You should be claiming more than you have.” That is a slur on the Fees Office and that should be recognised.
Alan Duncan:
Let me place on record that I think that the Fees Office and many of the staff have been put under intolerable pressure over the past few weeks, both by the press attention and by the sheer burden of work that they have had to shoulder in order to prepare all the redacted receipts and so on. Instead of criticising
members of the Fees Office, this House should express its gratitude to them for being hard-working servants of this House.
Mr. Straw: May I endorse what the hon. Gentleman has just said? I paid tribute to the staff of the Fees Office. May I also endorse what he said about providing reassurance to the staff of the Fees Office? In co-operation with my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House and the House of Commons Commission, we are seeking to provide more formal reassurance for the overwhelming majority of staff in the Fees Office.
Alan Duncan: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that comment.
The central provision in this Bill—clause 1—will create what is, in essence, the independent Fees Office that we have been discussing. Conservative Members welcome that, because we support the principle that MPs should no longer determine their own pay and allowances. The public anger to which Members have been exposed originates, in part, from taxpayers’ increasing alienation from a political system that is seen to waste money—that feeling has intensified during the recession. While many people are losing their job and seeing their income reduced, MPs are seen to be being paid in luxuries. We feel that people will never have confidence in Parliament if we continue to vote on our own remuneration.
It is true that in recent months the House has adopted a much more rigorous regime. I chair the Members Estimate Audit Committee, and it is good that significant progress has been made on creating three levels of audit and assurance and on ensuring that all the standards that we set are akin to those of any public body or the most strictly regulated plc. However, as such decisions are still viewed by the public as made by MPs for MPs, we think it better that there should be a dedicated external body to determine our pay and rations.
I should make another point in passing. The House has just elected a new Speaker. All sorts of labels were given to the contest by the press; particular mention was made of the desire to promote a Speaker who would “reform”. If this Bill goes through—let us leave aside the Speaker’s involvement in the selection process for IPSA itself—the framework of the new body would have a significant bearing on the office of Speaker and his ability to have any say in reforming this side of our parliamentary life. All the arguments about expenses would be removed from his responsibility. Likewise, there are consequential implications for certain Committees of the House, for instance in relation to the function of audit. The Bill might result in my having to relinquish the chairmanship of the Members Estimate Audit Committee and retain only the audit function for the House estimates, which deal with the parliamentary buildings and the wider estate.
Having established IPSA, the Bill, through clauses 2 to 5, would provide that body with the powers to set our allowances—with reference to the inquiry by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which I have mentioned—to administer our allowances and our salaries and to codify and maintain the Register of Members’ Interests.
Clauses 7 to 9 would create a Commissioner for Parliamentary Investigation, who would work with but separately from the authority, to look into alleged misuse
of allowances or breaches of the registration of financial interests. The House will be aware that that would create duplication with the work of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards—currently John Lyon—so we will need to give detailed examination in Committee as to exactly how to untangle those roles.
In just these respects we would like the Bill to go further. The historic response to the continuing controversy about our remuneration has always been safety valve politics; it has always been about letting just a little more air out of the system in order to buy a little more time. However, by fending off a bad headline one day, we have not avoided 10 bad headlines the next. We have delegated both pay recommendations and a review of our pensions to the Senior Salaries Review Body, and the Committee on Standards in Public Life is investigating our expenses. Those are ultimately three elements of the same overall package, and what has been depressing about the past few months has been the lack of public debate about what impact the final package, whatever it might be after those bodies have made their separate reports, will have on the make-up and identity of Parliament. We need someone to piece together all those fragments and draw together all those different threads. Perhaps if we equip IPSA properly and make it capable of taking rigorous intellectual decisions, it might one day be the authority that succeeds in taking a comprehensive, overarching view to determine our entire pay and rations.
Natascha Engel (North-East Derbyshire) (Lab): Perhaps we need to go a couple of steps further and talk to the people whom we represent, identify what they want us to do, and then create a structure of pay, reimbursement and pensions that reflects that. We are approaching this issue the wrong way round, and the hon. Gentleman is not going far enough.
Alan Duncan: Many hon. Members may think that the hon. Lady has got things the wrong way round. We need a body that can be independent and responsible, which detaches us from any association with determining what we are paid or rewarded. If this is the body that will do it, and it looks as though it will be, the question of who sits on it becomes critical.
The Bill establishes, in schedule 1, an appointments process that is virtually the same as that for choosing the chair of the Electoral Commission. Nobody doubts the integrity of that selection process, or the impartiality of the appointee. Commissioners will be selected by a Speaker’s Committee and their appointment will be sealed with the imprimatur and authority of the House. This is a crucial process, and it would be completely unacceptable if members of the new body were, for instance, hand-picked by the Executive. The origin of the problem that we are discussing has been the interference of the Government of the day at all stages of the determination of our pay. Any further interference from, say, the Prime Minister would serve only to compound the problems that we are today trying to address.
Sir Patrick Cormack: Is it not one thing to have a body that regulates the conduct of elections and another thing entirely to have a body that regulates the conduct of the elected?
Alan Duncan: I totally agree with my hon. Friend. Inasmuch as I have supported elements of the Bill, it is not the influence of conduct that I am discussing. The influence would be on deciding how much we are paid. In other words, this is about money, not about behaviour or the freedoms that we enjoy as independently elected Members of Parliament.
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: The Leader of the Opposition has agreed with the Prime Minister about the need for more accountability in British politics. How will that be achieved by removing such decisions from a body accountable to the electors—ourselves—to an unaccountable, external, unelected quango that will tell elected people what to do? Surely we should have the self-confidence to set our own pay, on recommendation from others, and then to defend it to the electors, rather than give away these powers to another body.
Alan Duncan: The shortest answer to my right hon. Friend is simply that this is the only respect in which we can be seen by the electorate as feathering our own nests and taking decisions that directly affect our own interests. I would like to think that, in all the other work that we do in this House, our intellectual energies are directed towards the betterment of the country. The system has become so discredited that we are now seen to be the people who use our constitutional power to put money in our own pockets, and that is no longer acceptable. It is the one area where it is wise to contract out our power.
Mr. Frank Field: Is there anything in the Bill—I cannot find it—that would prevent a future Government from vetoing those recommendations, as Governments have done with every Senior Salaries Review Body recommendation?
Alan Duncan: Yes, and the Secretary of State may wish to collude with me on that answer. The decisions on pay and allowances merely have to be laid before the House: they cannot be rejected by it, as I understand the provision.
Mr. Straw: The IPSA as currently constituted will deal only with allowances. The authority will effectively make its own decisions and then, according to clause 3, it
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