When will debate day come?
Apologies for the unbearable lightness of blogging for the last couple of days; other programme commitments have intruded.
But when, oh when, is the Commons to debate the appointment of Professor Sir Ian Kennedy to the chairmanship of the ?
An earlier post in which I recounted rumours that the whole thing would go through on the nod was properly corrected by poster Ermine Yaks, who rightly pointed out that under the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority Bill, a 90 minute Commons debate on the appointment of the new Sleazefinder-General was required...
But when?
The latest rumour is that the debate will not be held until there are nominations for all five members (including the chair) of the IPSA.
These have to be produced by the Speaker's Committee set up to deal with IPSA, and the membership has to include a senior judge, an NAO-qualified auditor and a former MP (but one who has not sat in the Commons in the past five years).
Two names are being bandied about for the emeritus MP: white-suited independent Martin Bell, or, intriguingly, Howard Flight, the Conservative who had his career cut short in the run-up to the last election, when he speculated about the possibility that a Conservative government might make deeper than advertised spending cuts.
It might be a while until a suitable panel of worthies is identified and vetted - the last thing anyone wants is a exclusive on their expenses.
So when the process is done, MPs can look forward to debating the whole lot in one big economy package. One day.
I'm Mark D'Arcy and I'll be writing about what goes on in the chambers and committee rooms at Westminster.
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