Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Debate between Jack Straw and Jim McGovern

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Straw]

I was going to come on to that very important point.

Just to go back slightly, it is true that this is the first time that there has been a body adjudicating on the conduct of Members of Parliament. However, the reason for that is not an invention of the board of IPSA; it was because of the egregious and outrageous conduct of some Members of the previous Parliament. We know what happened. We also know that the Commons, during a period of years, although it was never presented with the full facts, failed to take—

[Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Straw]

This will be the last intervention that I take.

[Jim McGovern]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. When he mentions the “outrageous conduct” of Members of the previous Parliament, does he not agree that it is a fundamental principle of British justice that someone is innocent until they are proved guilty?

[Mr Straw]

Of course I accept that point. The truth of the matter was—we know this—that quite a number of our former colleagues, although they were of course a minority, were being unjustifiably imaginative, to say the least of it, in their expenses claims, especially for second homes and associated expenses. Because of variable decision making by the Fees Office, bluntly the system came crashing down and confidence in the body politic was brought to the lowest ebb that I have ever seen in my political lifetime.

It was because of that situation that the party leaders agreed in May 2009 that we should set up a separate authority, and the House endorsed that decision. It then fell to me as the Justice Secretary at the time and to a team of very good officials to try to hold discussions with the other parties and to bring forward what became the—