Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

Guto Bebb Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I beg to move amendment (a), to leave out from “House” to end and add

“thanks the Members’ Expenses Committee for its First Report on the Operation of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, HC 1484; and refers it to IPSA to be considered as part of its Annual Review.”.

It is not often that I rise in the House as the villain of the piece, and that was certainly not my intention. If I have in any way shown a lack of courtesy towards my Committee Chairman, I want to apologise in front of the House. There is not another Member who is more courteous to other Members, and his chairmanship of the Members’ Expenses Committee was a model of courtesy. I apologise if my e-mail of this morning was slightly too late in arriving at his desk.

I want to make it clear that I signed up to the report and support it, and that I have been astounded by the vilification in the press of the modest proposals made in it. However, it is important to point out that there are recommendations in it that need to be taken seriously and taken forward. During the course of yesterday, it became increasingly apparent that there was a real likelihood that a vote would be called on today’s motion, and that it might be defeated.

[Bob Russell]

Would my hon. Friend like to inform the House whence that information came?

[Guto Bebb]

I am grateful. It came from various colleagues, and indeed from some Parliamentary Private Secretaries, who despite the fact that there is a one-line Whip are staying around today. That might indicate why I had my concerns.

The report is an important piece of work and contains proposals to better the situation. Crucially, and in contrast with the media comments on it, a large part of the Committee’s work examined not the unfairness of IPSA towards Members—we have spoken at length about that in the Chamber—but how it has discriminated against our staff. That issue has been ignored time and time again when we have discussed how IPSA operates. It has created real barriers to promotion for staff members, and they have found themselves worse off for child care. There are serious proposals on that in the report, which IPSA should take into account.

It is frankly astounding that IPSA has not formally spoken to any organisation responsible for our members of staff. There are recommendations in the report that it should be allowed to think carefully about and take forward. I would not want to end up with the report being rejected by the House, allowing IPSA to ignore its responsibility to consider those recommendations seriously.

Before becoming a Member of the House, I ran a small business for 17 years, so I believe in a pragmatic approach to what can be done. There are 19 recommendations in the report, and I stand by them, although I would say that we need to explain recommendation 3 in detail. I take full responsibility for the wording of it, because I was a member of the Committee, but it has allowed the media to attack us on the basis that we want to bring the expenses system back in-house. A Committee of Members came up with that wording, and I am as responsible as anybody else.

We need to consider carefully whether the administration and governance of the system can be split, and whether better value for money can be achieved by allowing IPSA to subcontract the work of administering it. The media’s conclusion from looking carefully at the wording of recommendation 3 has been unfortunate—I do not believe the conclusion that has been drawn was the intention behind the report. As my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) and the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) have made perfectly clear, that was not the report’s purpose. If there were transcripts of our discussions in Committee, they would make that apparent.

[Adam Afriyie]

I respect the work that my hon. Friend has done with the Committee. I have already pointed out my slight frustration and disappointment with the fact that we have not spoken—there would have been other ways of achieving his goal, but his actions ruled them out.

I simply observe that the report is not a legal document. It is not a Bill or a piece of legislation but a general set of recommendations for small changes to legislation that are not that controversial. The absolute precision of the wording—one word here or there—does not make any difference. The report does not commit anybody to doing anything with such precision.

[Guto Bebb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and accept his comments, but that has not been my argument. My argument is that Members need to have a great deal of confidence in IPSA to believe that it would not see a rejection of the report by the House as an excuse not to take its recommendations seriously.

[Mr Andrew Smith]

To clarify what the hon. Gentleman’s amendment means, is not the crucial difference that the original motion would have the House approving the recommendations in the report, whereas agreeing to the amendment would mean that the House was not approving them but simply passing them to IPSA for consideration? I might be able to live with the amendment, but I would not have been able to vote for the motion; indeed, I would have voted against it.

[Guto Bebb]

I am grateful for the intervention and delighted that the amendment will make it easier for Members to ensure that IPSA examines the issues in the report. I joined the Committee with a great deal of reservation, because as a newly elected Member the last thing I wanted was to be vilified as being part of an attempt to make MPs’ lives easier.

[Mr Bone]

I entirely understand the position of the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith), but I really do not understand that of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb). He voted for the report in December and supported it, so how can he move an amendment that would prevent the House from voting on it? It is very bizarre.

[Guto Bebb]

I have attempted to explain my reasoning. I believe that there are several recommendations in the report that should be taken forward, but I have clearly stated my concern and suspicion that if the House divided on the motion, the report would be rejected. That would be a great shame.

[Bob Russell]

Pursuant to my previous point and the one made by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), I am not sure whether the Committee had 12 members, but of the Members who were prevailed upon to sign the amendment, only one is in the Chamber. Can my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) tell me who leaned on him to table the amendment? He had sufficient time to find people to sign the amendment, but no time to discuss it with the Chair of his Committee, which produced a report that he had previously approved.

[Guto Bebb]

I enjoy the hon. Gentleman’s contributions, but I think I have already responded to that point fairly clearly. I refer him to my earlier answer.

[Mr Bone]

My hon. Friend is being exceptionally generous in giving way. Will he tell the House when the wording of the amendment came into his mind? It is great that Back Benchers are moving amendments, but did he have a little help? Did anybody perhaps give him a draft of the amendment?

[Guto Bebb]

Again, I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. In reality, when Members table amendments they do so in their own name and stand by them, so the implication of his comments does him a disservice.

I shall refrain from speaking about the report in general, because I agree with the comments that my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor and the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich made. There is a lot to be commended in it, and it contains 19 recommendations that can stand up to scrutiny, but it appears that three of them create a problem. I would rather IPSA considered them, and implemented 15 or 16 of them for the next financial year, than not consider them at all. That implementation would make a difference not just to Members but to our staff. More importantly, it would create more transparency and better value for money, and it would result in our constituents looking upon the House with more confidence. We would once again have proved that we are not looking to feather our own beds or change the situation in our interests. We are looking to change the situation in a way that is practical, effective and deliverable. In my view, delivering some of the recommendations soon is better than taking the view that we have to ensure that all of them are delivered now.