Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

Tom Harris Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s point, which is an important one.

The House set up a proper way in which to express its views when it legislated to create IPSA—statutory consultees include Members. IPSA also has an annual review, as the amendment makes clear. The proper thing to do is to state our views through that. IPSA has published a document in which it acknowledges quite a number of the concerns that Members have raised today and in the report, including, for example, those on staffing. IPSA has made dealing with staffing one of its focuses. It seems to me that Members need to respond to IPSA. The consultation stage is open until 20 January. I urge every Member of the House who has a concern about how the system works to take full advantage of that opportunity and to feed their views back to IPSA.

[Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

I am not following the Minister’s argument. Is he saying that the 2009 Act, alone among every Act over the past 100 years, is the one piece of legislation that is so perfectly crafted that it will never require any amendment ever again? Unlike any Criminal Justice Bill or any other Bill that has been introduced by the previous Government, this particular Act is sacrosanct. It has been set in stone and must never, ever be considered for amendment. Is that really the Government’s position?

[Mr Harper]

No, it is not the Government’s position and it is not what I said. If we were simply transmitting this report to IPSA, I would have no problem with it; the report has a number of sensible recommendations. However, if we were considering the motion, which asks this House to approve every single one of the recommendations in this report, I would have a problem and I would be urging members of the House to vote against it. What this says is that if IPSA has not implemented all the recommendations, the Committee thinks that legislation should be brought in to implement them. I am simply saying that that is not appropriate if we are going to have independent regulation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I am happy to agree with my hon. Friend that we have explained the matter enough to the House. I have set out my view of what the Committee report states, and he has set out his. The House will be asked shortly to take a view on that, and I am happy for it to do so.

The creation of IPSA was an essential step in cleaning up politics by bringing to an end the discredited system of self-regulation. IPSA has handled expenses for some time now, and the House recently resolved to commence IPSA’s powers to determine our pay and pensions. Those powers had been on the statute book since the previous Parliament, and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House commenced those powers after consulting Members from across the House. I mention that because the Leader of the House said, in moving that motion, that under the relevant legislation MPs would not vote on their pay again, and his opposite number, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), confirmed that the principle of independent determination was right. During those debates, several Members on both sides of the House were very firm in their view that the House should never again vote on our pay, pensions or expenses, and I think that recommendation 17(c) is incompatible with that, which is why the Government cannot accept it.

[Mr Tom Harris]

I apologise to the Minister for intervening now, but it took me some time to find the reference to his previous point about recommendation 17(c). He seems to be saying that he opposes the recommendation because it advocates a particular allowance system in six months. Actually, he seems to oppose it because it recommends that in six months

“the House should have the opportunity to consider the merits”

of the recommendation

“and to make a decision”.

Surely he is not saying that the House should be denied an opportunity to consider whether this is acceptable. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. A lot of private conversations are going on in the Chamber. It is very distracting, particularly for those who wish to take part in the debate. If people want to have private discussions, perhaps they should leave the Chamber, so that the Minister can be heard.