The saga of the Parliamentary Standards Bill continues. On my way to a meeting this morning, a former Labour Cabinet minister saw me to say what an awful Bill it was. This afternoon, a senior cross-bench peer summed up his view of the Bill and the way it was being dealt with. He was succinct: “What a shambles”. His view appears to be widely held.

The Bill has a second day in committee tomorrow. The fact that it has a second day is not a concession but a necessity. We are dealing with the content, but fundamental problems remain in terms of the process.

The first and fundamental point is that no clear case has been made for rushing it through. The justification given by the Leader of the House last week was “The public want action and they want it now”. In other words, the ‘something must be done’ approach. The public may want action, but neither the Government nor anyone who voted with them to fast-track the Bill have offered evidence that this Bill constitutes the action that the public want. There has been no time to consult them.

The second point is that no clear reason has been offered as to why it is necessary ahead of the report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. This point is actually becoming stronger in light of the amendments accepted by the Government. The more the Bill becomes primarily a measure for creating a body to administer pay and allowances, the less obvious the reason for pre-empting the recommendations of the Committee. What if the Committee recommends (as it may) a flat-rate salary and no allowances for MPs? What then do we do?

The third point is the obvious one that the House is being denied adequate time for reflection. The Bill went into committee yesterday. The previous day, a letter from the Leader of the House was circulated, accompanied by the amendments that the Government was tabling. This gave hardly any time for members to consider them. Then early Monday evening we were told the Government were tabling more amendments! There is a second day in committee tomorrow: that is, Thursday. The Government want the House to take Report stage and Third Reading on Monday – a gap of one working day between Committee and Report stage – with any ping pong between the Houses taking place on Tuesday, the last day of sitting before the summer recess.

We are legislating in haste – setting aside our normal rules – and for no clearly demonstrated reason. We may have been given a reason for a Bill, but not for this Bill. We may make the Bill less bad between now and next week, but that doesn’t address the fundamental point that we don’t know why we are passing it. This is no way to legislate.