Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

1: Clause 1, page 2, line 4, leave out “10” and insert “15”

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, it would be an abuse of procedural arrangements at Third Reading for me to go into great detail on issues that we have raised during previous stages of the Bill. At Second Reading, I set out the principles driving the amendments that I tabled; in Committee, my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton set out her views and further embroidered my own; and on Report, we dealt in great detail with the 20 days and 10 days amendment. It suffices to put to the House the bare essentials of the argument.

The Government’s original Bill provided for a suspension of at least 20 days before the second trigger provoked a petition for a possible by-election. The Labour Opposition then moved an amendment—which I have repeatedly opposed—reducing the period of suspension from 20 days to 10. Supporters of my amendment have argued that the Labour amendment in the Commons would lead to a cluster of penalties of under 10 days, even where penalties of more than 10 days and fewer than 20 days are more appropriate. We have argued that there will be pressure on members of the committee from all sides of the House of Commons, and perhaps from people on the payroll, to ensure that decisions are taken in that committee to avoid petitions and by-elections. The committee will, in our view, be transformed from a quasi-judicial one into a political one, where even a lay membership will inevitably be compromised. I set out my reasons for thinking that on Report.

The 10-day amendment, when considered in the Commons, was supported by only two members of the Standards and Privileges Committee and was opposed by another four—if I recall correctly—while a further three abstained. It was opposed by all those on the Conservative Benches in the House of Commons. My amendments, at previous stages, would have restored the 20-day provision that was in the original government Bill. I fear that my case has not been helped by the Rifkind-Straw affair over recent weeks.

Today’s amendment is a compromise—better than 10 but not as good as 20. However, there is ever increasing anger over the fact that this amendment was carried in the House of Commons by Members of Parliament themselves, the great majority of whom did not know what they were doing. The few who have defended the 10-day provision have deployed a new argument, which I will address very briefly. They say that my amendments would weaken the Bill by reducing the number of petitions and by-elections. The idea is rubbish. Indeed, my amendments strengthen the Bill, and I will explain how. There will be cases that require more than a 10-day suspension but do not require a possible by-election. My amendment enables the higher penalties of longer periods of suspension to be imposed on Members of the other place who sin.

Finally, I need to repeat that I have supported recall for nearly 30 years, following my 15 years’ experience as a member of the Standards and Privileges Committee in the Commons and its predecessor, the Select Committee on Members’ Interests. I beg to move.

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[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I am coming to the matter of days in a moment. It is right to reiterate what many people outside Parliament feel about when someone is judged to have done something that even their peers in the other place consider inappropriate behaviour. In most other walks of life, one would not automatically be able to continue in one’s job. Therefore, there should be a possibility for recall at that point.

The second point is whether the particular number of days, which is what we are discussing in this amendment, is the right one. A different proposal was made by the coalition Government at the beginning. It was debated in the other place, although it may not have been debated at great length, and it has certainly been debated here, in Committee and on Report. A judgment has always to be made.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I think that I heard my noble friend say that it was debated in the other place. I defy her to find anywhere in the Hansard report any more than a couple of sentences on the issue of 10 and 20 days.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My point is that it was debated there and the case was made for why it should change. The point I am trying to make is that the proposal for 20 days, 10 days, 15 days, five days or 30 days is a matter of judgment. There is no right or wrong answer. It is a judgment on what is the appropriate connection between a decision in the other place and its Standards Committee and the point at which that should trigger a recall petition. That is a difficult judgment and one that I say needs to be made by the House of Commons, which is where this decision was taken.

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[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

As many noble Lords will know, I have helped defeat the Government and sent stuff back where I have believed that the other House was wrong and I wanted it to rethink. We have done that on a number of Bills. We have had victories. We have sent things back and occasionally there has been movement. It is always a judgment call. On this issue, however, my view is that we have the right figure. As I have said before in this House, it is a very delicate balance. What we do not want is such a low number—

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Before my noble friend sits down—

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

She is a long way from sitting down by the sound of things.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

She says she has the right figure. Let me put to her a scenario. Imagine a case of non-declaration of interests that is worthy of a penalty of more than 10 days but not 20 days. I can remember some pretty difficult cases of non-declaration of interests. Are we saying that in such a case we should invoke a procedure which could lead to a by-election that costs hundreds of thousands of pounds both to the political party and the local authorities, with all the inconvenience of bringing in vast numbers of party workers to defend the party interest, because of a case of non-declaration where the Member’s defence may be that they simply made a mistake but where the committee realises that it has to invoke a punishment of at least 10 days?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

The answer is yes. If the MP’s own colleagues—I do not want to use the word “peers”, as it is a bit confusing—believe that the issue is serious enough for a suspension of at least 10 days, they would do so, although I find it hard to believe that they would so for a mistake. That is what this Bill is all about. The trigger may be 10 days or my noble friend may be right and perhaps it should be 12 days or nine days—I do not know exactly because it is a judgment call—but this Bill is about saying that, where their fellow Members of Parliament consider that the issue is serious enough, that is the trigger for a recall.

It is also important that the figure is not so low that we undermine in any way either the sort of normal protest that could happen in the House of Commons or the mistake—although I doubt that it would apply for a mistake—or misdemeanour that so offends other MPs that they take the MP to the Standards Committee. The essence of the Bill is that a recall will be triggered when the suspension is for a certain length of time.

There is another, separate point. Whether the threshold is five, 10, 15 or indeed 40 days, there will always be the difficulty—as happens when magistrates hear cases—where the knowledge that the decision can trigger a by-election will add an extra dimension to the judgments that are taken. That applies both to magistrates in a court case, if it is about whether there should be a sentence of imprisonment rather than a fine, and to those dealing with these situations. That is tough. Decision-making is tough. I recognise that, but I do not think that the number of days minimises that effect.

We will deal later with a very helpful amendment from my noble friend about the Standards Committee, which I hope will address some of the challenges that will be before members of the Standards Committee. On this amendment, the decision has been taken by the other place and I think it is right. I hope that my noble friend will withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, how can I answer that? I am at a loss. The noble Lord says that he has consulted with his colleagues on the Liberal Benches in the Commons, but I know for a fact that a number of Liberal MPs have expressed concern on whether even they were aware of what they were voting for.

I say to my noble friend Lady Hayter on the Front Bench that many people behind her who support my amendments do not like the Bill. I have always liked the idea of a Bill that deals with recall, and many of us who support the position that I have taken on the Bill support recall. We are arguing about a very small but highly significant detail in the Bill which we believe will have effects which the House of Commons has not as yet taken into account. As I said in an intervention, there was almost no debate apart from a couple of sentences.

I warmly thank my noble friends Lord Howarth of Newport and Lord Hughes of Woodside for their argument that we should just give the other House another opportunity. I am absolutely convinced that everyone who supports 10 days will back down in the event that this matter is put before the Commons. Therefore, although the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, says that he felt that the Rifkind-Straw affair does not weaken the position, it does so in the sense that it has put the fear of God into many Members of Parliament that they cannot meddle with the decision. They would have meddled with it, but they do not want to. That is why that has somehow changed the agenda and made it much more difficult for us to get the amendment through today.

My noble friend Lady Taylor, who spent some years on the Privileges Committee with me, drew on what is at the heart of our amendment. The committee in the Commons will now be politicised; some in the Commons will think, “Well, if we can change it and get more of a lay membership, somehow the climate within the committee will change”, but I am afraid that is not the case. The fact that by-elections can now be precipitated simply by 10 days’ suspension will infect that committee, whether it has lay membership or otherwise. They will be conscious of the debate going on in Parliament more widely on what happens as a result and what happens during the course of a by-election with all the expense involved.

I have listened to my noble friend. I would love to divide the House today, but I will not do so. There will be an incident, a decision and a public row, and those who argued in defence of this 10-day nonsense will come to regret what they have done—and that applies to all Dispatch Boxes in both Houses. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

3: Clause 1, page 2, line 13, after “Commons” insert “(which may include members who are not Members of Parliament, whether or not those members are entitled to vote in the committee’s proceedings)”

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, this amendment was born from an undertaking given by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, in winding up in the last debate on Report, at col. 1144 of the Official Report of 10 February 2015, when he said that he would consider my Amendment 6, which dealt with the issue of lay membership of the Standards Committee. My amendment draws on a report of the Procedure Committee on lay membership of the Committee on Standards and Privileges from November 2011. The report states that the Procedure Committee in the Commons concluded that,

“if lay members were to be given voting rights, legislation should set the matter beyond a doubt. The Committee believed that appointing lay members in the absence of such legislation would carry a ‘strong element of risk’, in that it could ‘lead to conflict between the House and the courts and might have a chilling effect on how the Committee conducts its work even before such a challenge emerged’”.

That comment in the report came in response to a Commons resolution of 2 December 2010 inviting the Procedure Committee to bring forward proposals from the Committee on Standards in Public Life for lay membership to be appointed to the Standards and Privileges Committee, which, indeed, is precisely what has happened.

However, the voting aspect is not a new issue for the House of Commons to consider. It was first considered in 1876, when Sir Thomas Erskine May, then Clerk of the House of Commons, argued that it was not an illegal act to appoint lay members with full voting rights to committees on Private Bills. However, since then, I understand that both the Clerk of the Commons —I think in the last Parliament, but perhaps even earlier in this Parliament—and the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege opposed lay members being given the right to vote. I have therefore tabled this amendment to give the Government the opportunity to clarify their position on that matter.

I consider that this is an important issue. That is why I am moving this amendment. On 10 February, at col. 1131 of the Official Report, I argued for a very different approach to the handling of complaints by the Commons Standards Committee based on a majority lay membership—which I support—with a right to recommend, but not vote, and with its recommendations being either accepted or rejected by a committee minority of elected Members of Parliament—as elected Members of Parliament, they would enjoy full parliamentary privilege—as against the majority lay membership. If the Minister has difficulty addressing all the points I am making on this matter, I will perfectly understand if he wishes to write to me after the debate. However, it is very important that at some stage in the near future—certainly in this Parliament—we establish the Government’s attitude to lay members of the Standards Committee being given that right to vote. I beg to move.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 5, which is linked with the amendment just moved by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. I am delighted to follow his forensic and forceful analysis of the very serious issues arising from this part of the Bill and have considerable sympathy with his views.

Ever since Second Reading, the noble Lord, and indeed noble Lords on all sides of the House, have rightly raised concerns about the effects of the Bill on the fragile, non-partisan nature of the Standards Committee in the Commons. I think that many Members of your Lordships’ House remain concerned about that. Indeed, it was a theme of the debate we have just had on previous amendments. I note that a number of prominent former Members of the Commons expressed those concerns, particularly those who, like me, have had to deal with the Standards Committee in a variety of official roles.

In the same vein, and right from the start of this Bill’s passage through Parliament, beginning in the other place, there have been cross-party endeavours to ensure that the process for triggering a recall petition is independent of MPs and is seen to be independent of MPs. My noble friend Lord Norton raised this issue in the early stages of the Bill’s consideration here, and it was the theme of the important report of the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House. In my view, and that of my colleagues across the House, it remains the one crucial weakness at the very heart of the Bill, and it has been the subject of widespread concern in both Houses.

Ministers have been open throughout to suggestions for improvements and I am extremely grateful, as are my colleagues, to them and officials for being so ready to discuss changes that might be made. The Minister in charge of the Bill, Greg Clark, made a promise at the end of the Commons stages that,

“the Government were clear on Second Reading that we are open to ways to improve the Bill and we stand by that commitment”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/11/14; col. 681.]

He has been true to his promise, and there has indeed been constructive engagement in your Lordships’ House. However, I am sorry to report that attempts to find another route for triggering recall that would have obviated MPs and the Standards Committee altogether have failed. We tried but it has not been successful.

In the interim, the Standards Committee has produced an extremely thoughtful, positive and authoritative report on its own future and role. As Members who were here on Report will recall, the report was published that very morning. It is therefore not surprising that few of us were given the opportunity to read it in detail. For that reason, I hope that I will be forgiven for reading a critical paragraph of the report, paragraph 34 on page 40, in full:

“A number of criticisms are levelled at the House of Commons disciplinary system both by outside observers and parliamentary insiders: MPs sit in judgement on themselves; the Commissioner is not truly independent; there is incomplete separation of powers with the Commissioner acting as investigator, prosecutor and to some extent adjudicator; the system is disproportionate; the rules are not clear; MPs cannot get advice; the sanctions are insufficient. It is these criticisms which this Report considers and, where appropriate, makes recommendation for addressing”.

Every Member of your Lordships’ House who has been following the progress of the Bill must recognise that that paragraph and the whole report are critical to the way in which the recall Bill is supposed to proceed; they are vital. That is why we have tabled new amendments to make sure that there is a direct linkage between action that is taken to fulfil the recommendations of the Standards Committee and the implementation of this part of the Bill.

The Standards Committee also says in terms that it needs a more robust, more sizeable independent element. This is why it links so well with what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has just been saying about the lay members. The committee’s recommendation at paragraph 90 is:

“After considering various Committee sizes we recommend a marginal increase in Committee size from thirteen to fourteen, with seven lay and seven elected members”,

thereby building the independent role of those lay members in all matters that would be relevant to the recall Bill. The report, and that specific recommendation, is the inspiration for Amendment 5, for which I am grateful to have the support of my noble friends Lord Norton and Lord Lexden and the noble Lord, Lord Alton.

It is in that specific section of the Standards Committee report that we should be putting our faith, trust and confidence if we are to make sure that the Bill has any credibility in the outside world, let alone fulfils the full obligations of the committee and deals with the problems to which so many Members of your Lordships’ House have been referring. Our amendment would ensure that the committee’s key recommendation was implemented before the Committee on Standards was asked to get involved in this potentially invidious way in the recall process. Alongside the other committee recommendations, such as that,

“the body of any Report makes clear whether or not the lay members agreed with the Report”,

this change would at least be a start in showing that the recall process is reasonably independent from MPs, and is seen to be so.

I hope that my noble friends on the Front Bench will be able to respond positively to this amendment. Although the composition of the committee is of course a matter for the whole House of Commons, I understand that the Leader of the House and his colleagues are taking this matter of the relationship between these proposals and the Recall of MPs Bill extremely seriously. Surely we can now have a firm assurance from the Government that they would not want to see this recall mechanism operated by a committee with an insufficient number of independent lay members sitting on it.

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[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, not for the first time this afternoon I find myself in complete agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport. This amendment, well intended as I am sure it is—I have the highest regard for those who have put their names to it—is damaging to Parliament. It is inimical to the spirit of Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights. Frankly, like the noble Lord, I am astonished that people whom I regard so highly as doughty defenders of Parliament should in fact be complicit in an amendment that, if passed, could have the effect only of further emasculating Parliament. I also agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, when he expresses concern that the committee in another place should have recommended this lay participation. That is inimical to the whole doctrine of parliamentary privilege, which is of incalculable importance and, when used correctly, is a bulwark of our liberties in this country.

There was no prouder day for me than when I was elected to another place. A number of your Lordships who were there are present this afternoon. It is interesting that those who are expressing particularly acute concerns about the Bill are mostly those who have served in another place. When I entered that place, I felt, in the words of, I think, Admiral Rodney in the 18th century, that there was no higher honour that any Englishman— of course in those days there were no women in Parliament—could aspire to than being a member of a sovereign parliament in a sovereign nation. That we should be whittling away at the very foundations of our parliamentary and civil liberties makes me profoundly sad. I could not support this amendment; I cannot support the Bill in any way, shape or form.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I am sorry to part company from my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport, but I support Amendment 5. Perhaps it is a bit of a selfish reason as to why, which is that it helps facilitate the alternative approach that I put forward on Report. The amendment says that the committee should have,

“a number of members who are not Members of Parliament at least equal to the number of members of that Committee who are Members of Parliament”.

Of course, had the arrangement that I proposed on Report been in place, there would be more lay members of the committee than ordinary members. That falls precisely within the definition set out in this amendment, in that Ministers could actually introduce the scheme that I was suggesting in legislation—or indeed the House could, but it would need legislative support.

To remind Members of what that scheme was, essentially there would be 10 members of the committee, with seven lay and three elected. The three elected members would enjoy parliamentary privilege because they are elected. The seven lay members would be effectively advising the committee. They vote and make their recommendation, but it is for the three elected members to decide whether to reject or accept the recommendation of the lay members. The elected members essentially have charge—a responsibility for approving the recommendations so that they can be submitted to the full House of Commons. For that reason I accept the amendment. It takes us partially down the route that I want to go down, and I hope that the Government, at some stage in the future, will finally select that route.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate—and not simply because it is an easier one to respond to. As I said when we discussed this subject in Committee, or possibly on Report, we strongly support having more lay members on the Standards Committee. We believe that it is crucial for that body to have the confidence of the public, so opening up its work to people who are not MPs is an excellent step towards gaining that confidence. In other areas of life—in the medical profession, the legal profession and other professions—outside independent members are now the norm in any disciplinary process. That gives confidence to patients and clients that someone other than the cohort of those whose behaviour is being judged is involved in the decisions. Indeed, I think I am right in saying that in most of those other professions there is now a lay chair of the relevant disciplinary body.

As my honourable friend on the Front Bench in the other place said, we want to see a,

“radical overhaul of the Committee. That would include the removal of the Government’s majority and an increase in the role and authority of its lay members. We propose that at least half the Committee should be lay members and that the Chair of the Committee should not be a Member of Parliament”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/14; col. 69.]

It is encouraging that today there has been backing from all sides of the House on the need to move forward in this respect. The Government may say that the Bill is not the appropriate place to make such a change—although I note the astute amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and others—but whether that is the case or not, we are sending an important message that all the political parties are determined to see the Standards Committee work effectively, fairly and transparently, and in a way that gives voters confidence in its work.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I also give way to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Can I clarify the position and go back to what I was asking? What is the Government’s position on voting in that committee in the event that it were to proceed to implement the increased lay membership, to which the Minister referred?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am trying to be as helpful as I can on a very recently published Standards Committee report. I remind the House of some of the history. When the Kelly report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 2009 recommended that there should be lay members on the Standards Committee, the recommendation was accepted in principle and referred to the Procedure Committee. That committee, in line with parliamentary precedent, reported that, while there was a long history of non-voting lay committee members, there was also a long-established precedent that only Members of the House could vote. The Government do not see any reason why we should override that long-standing precedent.

To add a further dimension on the complexity of the constitutional issues with which we are dealing, the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege in June 2013 advised very clearly against legislating on the lay membership of the committee. To do so would risk bringing the operation of parliamentary privilege, as it currently applies to the standards and other committees, into question. The membership and operation of the Standards Committee is a matter for the House of Commons and the provisions in the Bill have been designed in such a way as to fit in with its disciplinary arrangements, however they are constituted. The second recall trigger would work in exactly the same way whether there were three, seven, 10 or 15 lay members on the Standards Committee, so it would not be justified to stop the second trigger from operating unless the number of lay members was increased.

The Standards Committee report also specifically says:

“The Committee has said that it will work to implement whatever Parliament decides on recall”.

Whether or not the other place decides to act on the Standards Committee’s recommendations—and, as I have said, the Government certainly see no reason why it should not in respect of the lay members of that committee—the committee’s essential role in holding MPs to account for their conduct will remain unchanged.

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, asked me to guarantee in the remaining short weeks of this Parliament that the Commons will reach that decision before Parliament is dissolved. I am unable, standing here, to give any such absolute guarantee, but I will certainly take that back to my colleagues in the other place and make the point.

Having given as warm assurances as I can to this House, I hope that enables the two noble Lords to withdraw their amendments.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I am indebted to the Minister because he has made the position clear. We now know that the Government do not support the Standards Committee’s lay membership being given the right to vote, which brings me right back to my Amendment 6 which I moved on Report, which I now believe is a real option. I was also against the lay membership being given the right to vote informal proceedings, which was what I was trying to flush out, because it makes my amendment more sensible.

All I would like from the Minister is an assurance that the debate that took place on Report, and if I might modestly say in particular the proposal in my amendment, will be considered by the appropriate authorities. I would ask those who are charged with reading these matters in the other place, as invariably they do when we deal in this place with House of Commons business, to read the debate and consider that amendment. I think that my proposal was a very reasonable way to proceed. It would ensure that the lay membership really felt they were making a contribution and it would not take us down road concerning the issue of parliamentary privilege, which my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport was essentially alluding to. On that basis I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 3 withdrawn.