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On 2 December, Barry Sheerman asked Lindsay Hoyle, Deputy Speaker Lindsay Hoyle: Many of us are very concerned about whether these three proposals will improve the system's ability to ensure that justice is done for people who are referred to my right hon. Friend's Committee. We feel strongly that over the past two or three years, the way in which people have been referred to his Committee has been partial. Some have been referred and a report made, leading to a prosecution by the police. Others have never had the opportunity to put their case before the Committee. Will these three changes bring some sense of justice back to what goes on? Deputy Speaker Lindsay Hoyle responded: Order. Interventions have got to be shorter. Kevin Barron responded: Only one referral of the nature that my hon. Friend sets out has happened in my five years on the Committee, and the matter is out of the Committee's hands. My understanding is that it happens elsewhere and is not done by the Committee. As I emphasised earlier, there has to be an evidence base for any complaint that is taken up and investigated by the commissioner. The last annual report showed that 245 cases had not been pursued because there was no evidence, but that 72 had been, although some of the Members involved will have been found to have done nothing wrong. I commend the motions to the House. David Heath, Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, continued: I am grateful, as I am sure the House is, to the Standards and Privileges Committee for its work in the last Parliament, to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and to the current Chair and members of the Standards and Privileges Committee who have tabled the motions. I am grateful also to the Backbench Business Committee for providing this time today. These are the first substantive motions that have arisen from a Select Committee report to be considered on a Back-Bench day, and the Government are frankly delighted that the House can now make progress on House matters without first requiring a ministerial seal of approval. Should the motions be agreed to, they will prove that Parliament no longer needs to look to Government for help in putting its house in order, but has the independence, power and political will to do so of its own volition. The Government fully support the three motions in the name of Mr Barron. On the publication of information about complaints against Members, the failure to publish details of rectification has clearly led to some negative stories that have tarnished the House's reputation. The lesson from the last Parliament is that openness is the only way to allay public unease and suspicion. The process of rectification is typically used when the commissioner is satisfied that the Member concerned has made an entirely honest mistake, acknowledged the mistake, apologised and repaid any money that was wrongly claimed. Publishing the information will briefly embarrass the Member concerned, but withholding it would be damaging for the whole House in the longer term. I wish to make one point for the record that I hope the commissioner will bear in mind. As those who have been under investigation can testify, the knowledge that a Member is under investigation can itself damage their reputation. That can be exacerbated by the length of time that an inquiry can take-sometimes well over six months. That results in some people concluding that if it is taking that long, something must be up. To mitigate the problem, it would be sensible for the commissioner to be equally open about the process of investigation, for example by providing details of when it began and where the Member has reached in the queue for investigation. That would go some way to ensuring that while we create a more transparent approach, Members are not subjected to open season by political opponents. Barry Sheerman responded: May I renew my plea that, after the reforms come in, we must not have a situation such as in the past, when some people have seemed to get a full investigation and some have been referred to the police? All of us who were in the House remember the cases of Ian Gibson and others whom we believed were not given real justice, either by the Standards and Privileges Committee or in what happened to them subsequently. Has anybody trawled back through what happened to those people, and assessed which parts were correct procedure and which were not? David Heath, Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, responded: The hon. Gentleman has already intervened on the Chair of the Standards and Privileges Committee on that point, and I really do not think it is a matter for Government. It is most important that it should not be. We must have a process that is just to all concerned, but equally rigorous for all concerned. When there have been instances in which Members have sadly fallen far short of what is required not just by the rules of the House but by the rules that apply to any other citizen in the United Kingdom, it is right that investigations should take place elsewhere. Barry Sheerman replied: I am not asking the Government to do anything; I am merely asking that we all reflect on the fact that those of us who were in the House before the election know that some cases were taken up and others, which we thought were even worse, were not taken up. That is the point-justice was not done on an even basis. If the three motions today will set that right, I will be happy with them. If they do not do that, I will be very unhappy. David Heath, Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, responded: I do not think that I can add anything to what I have already said. This is a matter for the Standards and Privileges Committee and for the commissioner, and certainly not a matter for a Minister at the Dispatch Box to comment on, other than to say that I hope that justice will always be done in the most transparent way. Kevin Barron stated: I have two points to make in response to my hon. Friend Mr Sheerman. First, I do not believe that Ian Gibson ever went to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards or in front of the Committee. Secondly, on a wider matter, discussions are currently taking place between the compliance officer, the commissioner and others on a memorandum of understanding about referrals, and whether cases will go to different organisations rather than to the commissioner and then on to the Committee. Barry Sheerman spoke again later in the debate: My right hon. Friend is shaking his head, but people were prosecuted, and people are being prosecuted, without having gone through the Standards and Privileges Committee process; they were just taken down to the police station and charged. Where is the equality there? Do we have recall in both Houses or both- Lindsay Hoyle, Deputy Speaker, answered: Order. We have to be very careful that we do not get into matters that are sub judice. I know that the hon. Gentleman was careful in what he said, but we are drifting into an area that we need to keep away from. David Heath, Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, replied: I shall be equally careful not to enter that area, Mr Deputy Speaker. We have yet to introduce our proposals on the powers of recall; those will be in future legislation. Obviously this matter will be under consideration when we draw up the proposals for that Bill. Clearly, there is the potential for a trigger to reside with the consideration of the Standards and Privileges Committee or in a court decision. The House will have to determine that in due course. We also hope to introduce a Bill on the matter of privilege. Again, we will have to take great care to understand the points made by hon. Members in this debate and in others, and the response of the House in its decisions. We will have to ensure that we have covered, as far as is possible, any points raised on the matter of the draft legislation on privileges, which we anticipate introducing at a later stage. Barry Sheerman spoke again: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. How can we make a decision about this important aspect today, given that the Minister has just told us that the Government have not even decided what they are going to do about recall, or whether recall can be sparked off through the Standards and Privileges Committee or through a criminal case? What sort of rule is this? Deputy Speaker Lindsay Hoyle answered: In fairness, the hon. Gentleman has raised a point, but it is not a point of order and the House is debating the issue .