Parliamentary Standards Bill

I endorse much of what my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) said about amendment 73, and what my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) said. Let me set out the strongest case for Ministers being brought into the scope of the rules on declarations. Just imagine what the inclusion of Ministers would show. If the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) were now the Foreign Secretary, it would probably show that he spent 80 or 90 per cent. of his working time being Foreign Secretary. I do not know how many hours he spends being Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice; I would submit that that must account for 70 or 75 per cent. of his working time. That would seem to be a reasonable proportion of his time to spend on ministerial office. For that, he is justifiably rewarded with extra salary as a Cabinet Minister. I appreciate that he does not draw the Lord Chancellor's salary. The inclusion of Ministers in the rules on declaration would, at a stroke, legitimate the view that other Members of Parliament without ministerial office would be perfectly justified in taking outside employment for a number of hours for a degree of extra remuneration. The failure to include Ministers in the rules on declaration seems deliberately to suggest that being a Minister is legitimate, but having a different outside interest, even if it is for the public good, is not legitimate. An invidious atmosphere has been created on the subject of outside interests. That was obviously political, and had absolutely nothing to do with the exposure of the expenses of right hon. and hon. Members by The Daily Telegraph and the Freedom of Information Act 2000. It was a purely vindictive and political act for the Prime Minister to bring that extra resolution before the House. It was done to create that political atmosphere. In parenthesis and perhaps not entirely relevantly, I might add that it has always struck me as slightly odd that a Member of Parliament resigns by accepting an office of profit under the Crown. I have never understood why being a Minister does not count as having an office of profit under the Crown. If we are to go on professionalising the House of Commons, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) said yesterday, we should chuck the Executive out of Parliament altogether, on the basis that to be a Minister is to hold an office of profit under the Crown. That should disqualify Ministers from being Members of the House of Commons.