Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

Lord Tyrie Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Adam Afriyie]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and for his work on the Committee. I think that together we came to a very moderate view that we hope will, if the recommendations are accepted, move the whole thing forward.

[Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the key message that must come out of today’s debate and go to the Front Bench as well as to IPSA is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) has just said, that IPSA’s primary duty must be to ensure that we can do our job, and the plain fact is that many of us find it has become an obstacle to our doing that? That is why the legislation needs to be changed. Does he also agree that it is extremely important that these recommendations are not kicked into the long grass, and does he share my hope that Front Benchers will do nothing to obstruct this early implementation, which is clearly sensible?

[Adam Afriyie]

That is another point well made. I will tackle the point made by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) first and then move on to deal with that made by my hon. Friend.

If we think about the rest of society and the work we do as MPs—this is not a sob story, but I am sure that it will be reported as such—we will realise that every other body has a pressure group, a trade association, a trade union or a communications or public relations company working for them. We want our great British democracy to be an icon of honesty, transparency and straightforwardness around the world, so it is curious that Parliament appears to be the only organisation that does not have a similar function. IPSA, which is a small organisation, has two or three people dealing with its communications, but in Parliament there is no one to give the other side of the story. That is not a recommendation of the report, but simply my own observation to back up what the hon. Gentleman said.