Draft Financial Services Bill (Joint Committee)

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

I rise to speak briefly to the motion. I agree with the Leader of the House that the Bill is extremely important and raises profound questions about the regulation of the financial services industry and the accountability of the new arrangements. It is important that the Joint Committee gets on with its work and I, like the right hon. Gentleman, am a strong supporter of scrutiny of this sort. As he has said, it is rather unusual for the House to debate such a Committee’s membership—an issue that ought to be quite straightforward.

Let me come to the heart of the matter concerning the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws), as he is the subject of the amendment that some hon. Members have tabled. Hon. Members will recall that following the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges’ report on the right hon. Member for Yeovil and its findings against him, he came to the House on 12 May and made a personal statement, prior to his suspension from the House, and apologised. Now that the House has dealt with this case, whether Members agree or disagree with the outcome of the Standards and Privileges Committee process, seeking to withhold membership of a Committee as a means of taking further action against a Member is a difficult course for the House to pursue. After all, there may be other Members to whom some Members wish to object on other grounds when it comes to the membership of future Committees. We do not generally approach the putting together of Committees on that basis and it is not sensible to do so in this case. Either we are equal in this place or we are not.