Speeches by Carling.

“I agree completely with my hon. Friend. In the debate in the House of Lords earlier today, Baroness Grey-Thompson gave a good example from when she was a younger athlete of sports coaches’ behaviour that she had observed. She believes that if there had been a duty relating to reasonable suspicion, it could have helped …”

“I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, who I know has done a lot of work on this matter, in particular on making sure that the seal of confession is not exempted from mandatory reporting. I very much appreciate her work on that, which is really important. She says—I am sure that she has the correct figure—that it takes o…”

“Thank you; that is really helpful. Just to move on to a slightly different area, in your written evidence, you have talked quite a bit about how the Electoral Commission works to ensure public confidence in the democratic system as a whole. Can you give us more of a sense of how you do that and how you are measuring yo…”

“Just to go back to a couple of the questions that we were asking around the role of the EIC, I wondered, John, if you could give some thoughts on whether the fact that the EIC will be taking on quite a cross-cutting strategic role across standards could create duplication with the Electoral Commission on those issues a…”

“You mentioned there the statistics on how well run elections are and how people feel about that, which is really important, but there is also, as you say, how people feel about the democratic system, trust in politics, and the process more generally, where there is a lot more concern. When measuring your success, which…”

“No, that is very helpful. Off the back of that and some of the earlier comments that you made, does there need to be some more co-ordination in standards and reporting regimes across Parliament, Government and other areas of public life? I am particularly thinking about the interaction between the ministerial code and …”

“Before the 2024 election, the Standards Committee described the parliamentary standards landscape in a report as being complicated but having “a logic behind the complexity”. Daniel, could you give us a sense of whether the system is well enough understood first by people within Parliament and by the general public mor…”

“Daniel, you touched on this topic just now, but I will ask the question anyway. We have a set-up now where the EIC has been set up and has had its scope and terms of reference set by Government, but it has a remit to cover standards all across public life, including in Parliament. Is it appropriate for a Government-spo…”

“Thank you; that is really helpful. Just to move on to a slightly different area, in your written evidence, you have talked quite a bit about how the Electoral Commission works to ensure public confidence in the democratic system as a whole. Can you give us more of a sense of how you do that and how you are measuring yo…”

“That is a really helpful perspective. In another answer just now, you also talked about having the powers and tools that you need already for a lot of your work, including being able to set up codes of practice and suchlike, but what teeth do you have if a political party or campaign group, or anyone, just decides to i…”

“Just to go back to a couple of the questions that we were asking around the role of the EIC, I wondered, John, if you could give some thoughts on whether the fact that the EIC will be taking on quite a cross-cutting strategic role across standards could create duplication with the Electoral Commission on those issues a…”

“No, that is very helpful. Off the back of that and some of the earlier comments that you made, does there need to be some more co-ordination in standards and reporting regimes across Parliament, Government and other areas of public life? I am particularly thinking about the interaction between the ministerial code and …”

“Before the 2024 election, the Standards Committee described the parliamentary standards landscape in a report as being complicated but having “a logic behind the complexity”. Daniel, could you give us a sense of whether the system is well enough understood first by people within Parliament and by the general public mor…”

“You mentioned there the statistics on how well run elections are and how people feel about that, which is really important, but there is also, as you say, how people feel about the democratic system, trust in politics, and the process more generally, where there is a lot more concern. When measuring your success, which…”

“Daniel, you touched on this topic just now, but I will ask the question anyway. We have a set-up now where the EIC has been set up and has had its scope and terms of reference set by Government, but it has a remit to cover standards all across public life, including in Parliament. Is it appropriate for a Government-spo…”

“I commend the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on bringing forward this debate, which is a really valuable opportunity to talk about this issue. I also thank the many hundreds of my own constituents who have written to me about this from a variety of perspectives—if I have not got back to them yet, I will do …”

“The hon. Lady has been very clear that she wished the Government had just charged forward in some direction or other. I have had hundreds of constituents email me about this, from various perspectives and various concerns about the workability of certain solutions. I would like to listen to them, and I think it would b…”

“That is a really helpful perspective. In another answer just now, you also talked about having the powers and tools that you need already for a lot of your work, including being able to set up codes of practice and suchlike, but what teeth do you have if a political party or campaign group, or anyone, just decides to i…”

“My hon. Friend was a big advocate for kinship carers before becoming a Minister, and he still is. Kinship care is incredibly hard for everyone involved. It often arises from really difficult circumstances, and the family members who make that commitment often give up a lot to do so. Will the Minister join me in paying …”

“That is really useful. In terms of councillor behaviour, is there a difference in the level of issues at the different local authority level, particularly between town and parish councils versus principal authorities?”