Heath quizzes Harman

10.59.41am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 23rd Jun 2009

• [Jun 18] David Heath (Somerton & Frome, Liberal Democrat): THE right hon. and learned Lady referred to the tributes paid to the Speaker yesterday. I think that all the tributes remarked on his generosity of spirit in personal terms, and I can only go along with that; that generosity of spirit was obvious to everyone who knew him.

I welcomed Mr. Speaker pointing out in his statement yesterday the lack of leadership and wrong-headed thinking that led to the House rejecting the sensible proposals for reform of our expenses system last year. It was important that he made that point.

Alan Duncan mentioned the Committee, proposed by Mr. Speaker, which is to look at the issue of the police search of Members' offices. I have to say that the right hon. and learned Lady has got herself into a bit of a mess on that. If she remembers, we on the Opposition Benches proposed that there should be no Government majority on that Committee, and that it should be chaired by an Opposition Member. That was rejected by her and her party, and in a whipped vote the Labour party pushed through a motion on 8 December that precluded that option. If the Government have backtracked on that, which is extremely helpful, she needs to put a new motion before the House, because she is bound by a resolution of 8 December that does not allow the Committee to have the composition that it is apparently now to have. Will she put such a motion on the Order Paper next week, so that we can vote on it?

In another place last week, during proceedings on the Political Parties and Elections Bill, there was an extremely important vote on an amendment in the name of Lord Campbell-Savours. That amendment will be strongly supported in this House by Liberal Democrat Members-and a great number of Labour Members, too, as was indicated by the fact that the Government could not manage to get a Labour majority in the House of Lords on the matter. May we have confirmation that there will be ample time to debate that amendment in this House, and that there will be no attempt by the Government to reverse the decision made in another place on non-domiciled tax exiles providing funding for political parties?

The Prime Minister yesterday appeared to have a problem understanding how limited his reforms of the banking sector have been, but he was put right in no uncertain terms by the Governor of the Bank of England last night. Given that the Prime Minister does not appear to know what he is doing on banking reform, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not seem to know either, while the Governor of the Bank of England clearly does know, may we have a debate on the issue so that we Members of the House can put forward our ideas on how the banking sector should be regulated in future?

Lastly, when the Lord High Everything took control of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, and it was then abolished, one part of the collateral damage was the presumed demise of the Select Committee on Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills. Before it had that title, the Committee did a superb job in this House as the Select Committee on Science and Technology. In fact, it did a particularly superb job when I was a member of it. There are many people, both in the House and outside, who feel that having a Committee that is committed to the interests of science and technology is no bad thing, including the learned societies led by the Royal Society of Chemistry. When the right hon. and learned Lady brings forward her proposals on Select Committees next Thursday, will she ensure that we re-establish a properly constituted Select Committee on Science and Technology, with a cross-cutting brief, to ensure that those interests are properly represented in this House?

Harriet Harman (Lord Privy Seal, House of Commons; Camberwell & Peckham, Labour): The hon. Gentleman mentioned the work on expenses. It would perhaps be helpful if I reminded the House that today there has been progress on transparency, with all expenses claims having gone on the House of Commons website. Shortly, we will bring a Bill before Parliament to create an independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. There is also a reassessment under way of all the past four years' claims, which is being carried out by Sir Thomas Legg and independent accountants. Every single claim will be looked at, and any money that was paid outwith the rules will have to be paid back. We will be able to strengthen parliamentary processes as a result of the work of the Committee that is to be chaired by my hon. Friend Dr. Wright. We will get the results of the independent Kelly committee on our allowances, and then the Parliamentary Standards Authority will start work. We have had a major problem, but all the work to solve it is under way.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Committee examining matters in relation to search and seizure and the arrest of Damian Green. There will be no need for a further resolution of the House, because the resolution of 8 December said: "That the committee consist of seven members appointed by the Speaker reflecting the composition of the House."

• David Heath: And now the Government are not doing that.

Harriet Harman: Actually, having read that again, I see what the hon. Gentleman means. If we need to do anything, we can do that next Thursday, but that is not a commitment; it is just a maybe.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned cleaning up donations. Important work has been done over the years to ensure that donations to political parties are clean and transparent. We do not want anyone to have influence over politics in this country that is gained from money coming from abroad. We will, of course, review the Lords amendments.

The hon. Gentleman talked about banking regulation, which can be addressed during today's topical debate on the economy. It is important that we work internationally so that we have the highest standards of regulation for our financial services industry, which is international. We need international guidelines so that we can reach international high standards, and Europe plays an important role in that. Obviously, the structure will have to be operationalised at a national level with each nation ensuring that its national machinery works to high international standards. The Chancellor has made it clear that regulation will be toughened. We want to ensure that the Financial Services Authority and the Bank of England have clear responsibilities, and there will be further work to get this right.

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