Parliamentary Standards
Lord Hain Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend is quite right to draw the House’s attention to paragraph 156, in which, contrary to the impression that might have been received, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards said that the Committee might not reach the same view as her on what she described as a “finely balanced” issue. I encourage Members, the press and others more widely to read the whole report. Only by reading the Commissioner’s report, the appendices and the Committee’s report does one gain a balanced view.
Mr Peter Hain (Neath) (Lab)
As a former Leader of the House of Commons, I yield to no one in wanting to protect parliamentary privilege and the independence of the House from external interference, but the truth is that the public think there is one rule for them and another for us. That is an intolerable position for us to find ourselves in, and we have to do something about it. There must be a solution that protects parliamentary privilege and the continuing integrity of the work of the Standards Committee while allowing external regulation of this sort of complaint. Otherwise, frankly, we are not going to be in a credible position.
Mr Lansley
The right hon. Gentleman will understand that, while it is clear from past court cases that the expenses system does not constitute parliamentary proceedings, and that parliamentary privilege does not extend to them, other aspects of the regulation of Members’ conduct clearly do. An important practical consideration is that, if the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards did not report to the Standards Committee as a Select Committee of the House and was instead established as an entirely separate and independent entity, parliamentary privilege would not extend to her investigations. That would make it much more difficult to proceed with those investigations and to get them completed, because they would be subject to legal and procedural challenge. The Commissioner has the power to undertake all the investigations required.