Procedure and House Affairs committee  To go to the second part of your question first, there is currently no distinction. With respect to your first question about friends and the distinction between friends and others, it's really important and it goes back to—forgive me for sounding like a broken record—the intere

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The gift relationship is very, very important. For many constituents, from a whole range of backgrounds, it's hugely important for them to be able to symbolically show their gratitude to members of Parliament, but again, how does that influence the actions of a member of Parliame

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, there are a number of issues that arise from that. One of them is the perception of constituents that the member of Parliament is not representing them fully, because their priority is with the role that is paying them more than their member of Parliament salary, an

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Through you, Madam Chair, I'd be very happy to respond. The 300-pound limit was set so as to deliberately exclude gifts that are given by grateful constituents—bunches of flowers, boxes of chocolates, homemade cakes and so on. On many, many occasions, constituents will insist o

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Through you, Madam Chair, I'd like to say that those of you who have watched events in Westminster will note that we've experienced some turbulence of late, and that's probably an understatement. It's all linked to standards matters and behaviour around the registration of financ

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Through you, Madam Chair, we concluded recently that there are about 189 members of Parliament who have additional roles. Some of those roles include working in accident and emergency departments in hospitals, working as nurses or working as social care workers throughout the pan

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm honoured to be invited to be with you today. Being elected brings enormous responsibility and huge privilege. It affords power and authority on those elected to change things for those who elected them. Using that power and authority for the greater g