Parliamentary Standards Bill

I have great sympathy with the noble Baroness the Leader of the House because this is a difficult area of law. However, we are not here creating an absolute offence whereby, if an MP writes something that is at all wrong on a claim form, they can be prosecuted. We accept that absolute offences have to be very rare and that, therefore, there would have to be an intention to defraud and make a claim wrongly. My noble friend refers to the requirement for dishonesty in fraud, which the Law Commission introduced. You can imagine a situation where a Member of Parliament lives at No. 19 in a block of flats and claims for the rent on that flat. He then moves across the hall into flat 20 and does not bother to notify anybody because the rent is exactly the same. There is no dishonesty but he is making a false statement. Rather than going through any complex reorganising or rearranging with the Fees Office, he just makes the same claim. The absence of dishonesty would mean that he would have a defence, but so he would in fraud. It is not part of the hierarchy. I am saying that it is important that Members of Parliament know exactly what is being criminalised. Is it different from fraud and, if so, how? That clarity is what people are urging.