Chilcot Inquiry

Lord Finkelstein Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Finkelstein (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, for his speech; it was a privilege to listen to it. Earlier this month, I showed the great Beatles historian, Mark Lewisohn, around the House of Lords. He hopes to finish his biography of the Fab Four by 2028—by which time he will have spent almost a quarter of a century on it. Next week, the great Lyndon Baines Johnson historian, Robert Caro, will be here. His first volume on Johnson was published in 1982 and he still has not finished. Proper history—proper accounts of history—take a long time.

Sir John Chilcot has been asked to conduct a proper inquiry into one of the most controversial and complex events of modern times. It is not just, or even at all, a trial of Tony Blair. It is about, of course, how and why we went in, but also everything between 2001 and 2009. We may reflect on whether the terms of reference were correct, but, given the terms of reference, we have to understand that proper history and proper accounts of history take time.

Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel prize-winning social psychologist, says that it is a special cognitive illusion that, this time, things will be different and that our book will be quicker to write than everyone else’s. The Hillsborough inquiry, on a single afternoon, took from 2009 to 2012 to publish. The Saville inquiry took 11 years for the events of a single day. I calculate that if Sir John Chilcot proceeded at the same pace as the Saville inquiry, his inquiry should take 32,000 years—he is actually going quite quickly.

I am a journalist, and there is a trade-off between depth and speed, completeness and deadline. It is one of my central jobs to judge that correctly, so I wish to make two points. First, if Sir John is choosing depth over deadline, I believe that he is making the correct choice. If the House is anxious for an interim report on the Iraq war, I can give it one: it did not go as well as we had hoped. But he is supposed to try to do better. That is the only point of having the inquiry—we have already had so many books, articles, speeches and other inquiries. We have asked Sir John Chilcot to produce an inquiry which provides us with depth and authority, and such things take time.

Secondly, even if Sir John had made the wrong trade-off, the trade-off is his to make: it is an independent inquiry. Hurrying him is an infringement of his independence, and it is being done basically only as an insurance against him reaching inconvenient conclusions. A lot of my colleagues in the press believe that if they can discredit him in advance it will be a useful insurance policy in case he does not agree with what they already think about the Iraq war.

I supported the Iraq war, and that is why I want as much as anyone to hear what was right and what went wrong. It is extremely important to me to learn those lessons. But I do not want to learn the lessons that I already know from all the things that have been published; I want to learn the lessons from the deep inquiry that we have been engaged in. Of course we are all impatient for the outcome of anything we have invested time and energy in and wish to hear the results of, but we need to behave less like children in a car saying, “Are we nearly there yet?” and more like people who have asked for a big inquiry to tell us some very important things—which we are all going to hear, as we all realise, soon enough.

Israel and Palestine

Lord Finkelstein Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Finkelstein (Con)]

My Lords, in this Room there is a surprising degree of consensus. We all support a two-state solution; we regard the status quo as tragic and unsustainable; we oppose the settlement policy; and we all broadly know what the boundaries of the two states will be. That leaves us with two big unanswered questions, which are linked. First, what sort of state do noble Lords believe that the proposed Palestinian state will be as things now stand, realistically, and what will be its model—Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Bahrain, Lebanon, Egypt or Qatar? It is not shaping up to be Sweden, nor is it shaping up to be Israel. This may be controversial, but it is simply a realistic view of what is happening.

Who, then, would wish to live next door to a neighbour likely to prove violent? That is the second question. For 40 years, Israel has been asked by well meaning noble Lords to surrender strategic defence positions to Syria as an act of trust in the Assad family. Who would volunteer to have the Assads running the next-door borough council or to have Hamas there—except in the fantasy version of the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge—or Hezbollah, or ISIS? Noble Lords urging unilateral recognition step around this problem by the extraordinary feat of neglecting to mention Hamas at all, or pretending that it is something it is not. The failure to grapple with this is astonishing.

There cannot be peace in the Middle East until we can imagine a peaceful, democratic Palestinian state, willing to let the Jews live in peace. It is just nonsense to say that there would be peace without settlements, because there was no peace before settlements. Why do we talk of a 1967 border? It is because there was a war in 1967 that created it. We are often told that the Jews should learn the lesson of the Holocaust. That is quite right, and one of the key lessons is not to trust the security of the Jewish people to compassionate, liberal people who cannot recognise murderous extremists when they are staring in our faces and pointing guns.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Finkelstein Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Not there.

[Lord Finkelstein (Con)]

I have heard all these suggestions from various noble Lords that this is completely impossible and impractical. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister might reflect on the United States of America and whether in all the places that are very large—larger even than my noble friend’s former constituency—which have had these petitions, they have all collapsed due to it being completely impractical to organise them, or has it proven in fact that many recall petitions have taken place perfectly simply and not at great expense?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hughes of Woodside (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps the Minister can explain to us why eight weeks is thought to be a suitable term. It cannot be to make sure that people know that the recall petition has to be signed, because that will be no secret. Once the Bill becomes law, the very first MP who is referred to the Standards Committee for some misdemeanour will be fastened upon. From day one of the Standards Committee discussions, the press will be going on about demanding a recall. We do not know how long the Standards Committee will take; it could be five, six, seven, eight, nine or 10 weeks, or three or four months. Some discussions have gone on for six months. Everyone will know about it, and once the petitions officer is informed, there are 10 days for him to take action on it. In those 10 days, there will be fierce discussion in the media. What is going to happen in eight weeks? For what logical or logistical reason can eight weeks be satisfactory?

We manage to do a general election by voting on one single day. I am not necessarily suggesting that that would be the right thing—I support the term being reduced to two weeks—but if we vote in those numbers on one day, why has this been stretched out to eight weeks? Again, we are not told why that is the case. I suspect that this is one of those things where somebody had a good idea and said, “We will all look good if we have a recall Bill on the statute book”. This is a limited recall Bill, as I shall hope to discuss in greater detail on a later amendment, but they were saying, “Let us get it on to the statute book”.

The Minister said in a previous debate that we will not have the regulations in time for the general election and they will be sorted out afterwards. Why not leave the whole thing until after the general election and do it properly? It would make much more sense if the Bill were withdrawn and started again. That could be done and would not take up any more time. It might go through much quicker. This is the kind of provision that does not bring any real sense to democracy. What is going to happen during the eight weeks of the signing period? On a later amendment, I will argue what might happen during those eight weeks, but I ask the Minister to have some sense. For goodness’ sake, accept this amendment.

[Lord Finkelstein]

My Lords, there has often been a wonderful use of the words “with due respect” in this Chamber on this Bill, in lieu of actually showing any. The suggestion that people who drive taxis or cut hair are not those who run the country will come as very sad news to the voters, particularly those who cut hair or drive taxis. To suggest that one cannot comment on the recall Bill without being a Member of Parliament would be like suggesting that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, cannot comment on the Deputy Prime Minister’s proposals without having been Deputy Prime Minister, which he was never able to be. I do not think that ad hominem points really help.

This is about handing a simple power to voters. Most people viewing this debate would be perplexed as to why we would wish to deny such a power being handed to the voters to remove people who had gone to jail or—

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

The noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, really should use his words carefully. No one in this Committee has denied that the Bill is necessary; no one in this Committee denies that it should go on to the statute book.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Finkelstein]

If it is genuinely the case that nobody has questioned the need for the Bill then I have not been paying proper attention. I think that it has been questioned several times. I am glad to see that the noble Lord is not among those who question it, but I am afraid that many of his colleagues—not the Front Bench of the Labour Party—do question it.

This provision gives a limited power to voters in certain, very limited circumstances. I hope that those circumstances will not arise very often. If they were to do so, it would certainly be worth all the money that the Bill is supposed to cost to deal with the problem. If we in fact had large numbers of Members of Parliament who were being suspended for long periods, going to jail or fiddling their expenses, the cost of recall would be worth while. If it is small numbers, the cost will not be very large. This amendment is designed—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, knows this—to make it impractical for people to collect the signatures, and to make it more difficult. There is a reason why, I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Snape: the noble Lords who are not in favour of the Bill are all former Members of Parliament. Obviously they will feel that a power to remove Members of Parliament ought to be resisted. I am simply arguing that that power is being given in extremely limited circumstances.

[Lord Crickhowell]

My noble friend has just commented on ad hominem remarks and so on, but I regard that as rather an offensive remark from him. Just because one is a former Member of Parliament and is critical of the Bill, it does not suggest that we are criticising it simply because we think it is wrong that Members of Parliament should ever be removed. I do not believe that for a moment.

[Lord Finkelstein]

The last thing that I would want to do is to offend my noble friend. However, the point was made directly, and by more than one noble Lord, that Members of Parliament understood why this Bill was impractical whereas others did not. Therefore, I am simply arguing that there is a reason why Members of Parliament should feel that way.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, having taken part in the Second Reading and then read it in Hansard, my recollection is that pretty well everyone who spoke in that debate, particularly former Members of Parliament, said they agreed with the principle of recall but were opposed to this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, has not been paying attention.

[Lord Finkelstein]

Well, I would be delighted to hear the proposals for recall that are not the ones included in the Bill. I believe that noble Lords have opposed almost every practical measure that could be considered for recall, but I would be delighted to be told differently.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I wonder if the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, could help me—he is know -ledgeable about these things. Are there more journalists than Members of Parliament in prison at the moment; and what is the mechanism for recalling those journalists who hack telephones?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Finkelstein]

That is an excellent question. Somebody who breaks the law and does not sit in the House of Commons can be removed from their job by their employer. I am arguing that that power should be extended to the hairdressers and taxi drivers who constitute the employers of Members of Parliament. When I made the argument that they employed Members of Parliament, I was told that that was a novel constitutional doctrine. I stick to it none the less. This is a simple power that will be used only in certain, very limited circumstances. Those limited circumstances are set out in the Bill. If others have proposals for recall, the Bill is simply amendable with those conditions, since it is a very simple Bill and very simply structured. I can only translate the fact that no alternative proposals for recall have been put forward except for the one from the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—which, again, opponents of many of the Bill’s central proposals have found even more complicated and therefore did not like. I know of no other proposals that have seriously suggested that this principle of recall should be advanced.

[Baroness Quin]

The noble Lord is talking about hostility to the Bill, but the amendment that we were discussing a few minutes ago was simply to make a modest improvement regarding the number of signing places. Did he support that amendment or not?

[Lord Finkelstein]

Yes, I was glad to hear the Minister suggest that he will pay attention to the debate, and I look forward to seeing his proposals. Many very practical arguments were made in its favour. The argument that no practical arrangements can be made to make recall work at fairly limited expense is ludicrous. I am sure that it is not beyond the Government’s ingenuity to come up with those proposals. However, the amendment that we are discussing now is designed to make it almost impossible for anybody to file for recall within a reasonable period. Although the principle of recall has been given apparent support, we have been given no practical alternatives to those of the Government, except for those of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. I would certainly welcome the chance to hear some. I believe that the reason we have not is that people do not wish the electorate to be given this limited power, and I think that that is wrong.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps I can claim a level of expertise about the recall of MPs because I myself have been recalled as an MP. I think I am right in saying that it is only the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and myself who have had this happen—oh no, I see from looking round that there are three of us, so I had better be careful. The electorate decided that they did not want us as their MPs. I am totally in favour of the recall of MPs.

We have a system that works extraordinarily well; it is called a general election. Sadly, and I am repeating myself now, this Government have decided that we should have fewer general elections and that they should be once every five years instead of once every three years and 10 months, which has been the average period between elections since the Second World War. There is going to be a mass recall of MPs on 7 May, eight or nine weeks from now. Very much in keeping with my noble friend Lord Hughes’s remarks, we know that, so far, at least 80 of those MPs will not be there in the next Parliament. I am referring to those who have announced that they will be standing down, who may have very different views about the merits of a Bill like this than those in the current Parliament, which is well past its sell-by date. There will probably be—I never make firm predictions but I am speaking hopefully—a substantial number of other MPs, in addition to those who are voluntarily standing down, who will be asked by the electorate to spend more time with their families, just as happened to me, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and others.

Surely the democrat’s view of this, if we are going to trade democracy across the Chamber, would be to say, given that the Bill has been five years in gestation, with the Government clearly not wanting it but finally feeling that they have to produce some sort of measure: “Look, we’ve waited five years; let’s wait another six or seven months and if necessary, if the mood of the next democratically elected, newly enfranchised and sustained MPs is that we really do want this dog’s breakfast of a Bill, it should be for the new democracy that we will have after 7 May, when the composition of the House of Commons may be very different, to judge, not us in this fag-end Parliament”.

I do not have any difficulty on the grounds of democracy saying that this is a bad Bill that should not be brought in at this time. I have a specific reason, too: the more that you discuss the Bill, the more you realise that no MP in their right mind would subject themselves to this recall procedure. That is why I very much support my noble friend Lord Foulkes’s Amendment 39; at least he is acknowledging the inevitable truth, which is that if there is a period of eight weeks while people sign a petition, why on earth would any sitting MP voluntarily submit himself or herself to that form of torture? If the Procedure Committee and the Standards and Privileges Committees in the other House decide on a 10-week suspension, the MP knows at that point that the overwhelming likelihood is that a by-election will occur in due course because there will be so much negative publicity followed by an eight-week period when people in his or her constituency will have been persuaded by the media at all levels, local and national, that the right thing to do is for this MP to submit themselves to re-election. I would strongly recommend—this is certainly what I would do, heaven forfend, but no longer do I have to worry to the same extent about these things—that the moment they are subject to a disciplinary procedure that will result in recall, they should resign their seat. That is the obvious thing to do.

In a sense, the discussion that we are having is entirely academic because I cannot imagine anyone going through the inevitability of this long procedure and period of negative publicity, when at least a by-election is likely to take a maximum of four or five weeks—

[Lord Finkelstein]

May I just clarify something? Is the noble Lord suggesting that if the Bill is introduced, it will imperil MPs who have come under any of these conditions to resign their seats, whereas otherwise they might have remained in Parliament until the end of the period? That would be a very interesting clarification for us to have.

[Lord Grocott]

It would not impel anyone to do anything; but if this unnecessary Bill was on the statute book it would be a sensible decision for a Member of Parliament to make. I do not want to see that provision in the Bill—let there be no misunderstanding about that. I have already explained that I am in favour of general elections, not of frequent elections, as the noble Lord is.

[Lord Finkelstein]

Just for further clarification, the noble Lord suggests that one of the advantages of passing this legislation is that it will encourage people to understand that their position is no longer tenable, and therefore it would be an encouragement to those people to recognise the condition in which they find themselves and resign.

[Lord Grocott]

I am saying that they would be dealing with the ludicrous situation of an eight-week period—but I am repeating myself. What I am saying is obvious to pretty much everybody else in the Chamber; I am sorry that is not obvious to the noble Lord. Clearly, if that system was in operation—and to repeat myself, I do not think that it should be; it should be up to the electorate in a general election—yes, the least expensive case and, if you like, the more democratic mechanism would be for the electorate to make the decision swiftly in a by-election. However, I hope that this provision does not come into operation.

--- Later in debate ---

This is not just a Bill about recall petitioning—it is in effect about getting rid of an MP. It is very serious because no one could say that in their lifetime as an MP they had not upset somebody one way or another. The figure of 10% is far too low and it should be much higher. That gives us a better chance of getting a result. Without the changes to voting only one way, the dice are stacked against an MP who may have transgressed but not in a hugely serious way. I agree that someone who has committed very serious offences ought to be brought to book but we may be careful that the legislation is right so that it works. I support the amendment which increases the percentage.

[Lord Finkelstein]

I thank my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom for his serious and persuasive speech, and the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for his support for this amendment. However, in both cases they passed over the critical part of the scenario, which was otherwise very plausible. It is that the Member of Parliament concerned has to have triggered the clauses in the Bill before any of these processes could take place. In other words, they have to have been sent to jail, found guilty of breaking the expenses laws or been suspended by the Standards Committee for more than 10 days. In those very limited circumstances, the trigger would be operated.

When the trigger is operated, it is certainly true that politics will take place. People will make arguments, spend money and try to persuade other people to sign a petition. The choice that we have in this Bill is whether to have an extremely low trigger where it is easy to trigger recall but very difficult to gather the signatures in the petition, or, what has been chosen by the Government against the wishes of the MP for Richmond Park, to have an extremely high barrier before recall could happen but then a reasonably low barrier in terms of signatures. It is naturally a subjective matter, but I think that is the correct balance. I am sure this House would have a greater objection were it to be the other way round and we had followed the advice of the Member for Richmond Park. As we have gone through various amendments, we have often had the discussion as if the triggers did not exist and this was to be aimed at people merely on the grounds of their opinion. However, this will happen in an extremely limited number of cases where very serious wrongdoing has taken place and where the electorate are being given a chance to think about it.

There then comes the question of the counterpetition. The by-election constitutes the counterpetition and if the recall mechanisms—a very high bar—are triggered and a petition is gathered, at that point people who are against the MP being recalled would have the ability to pitch themselves against those who were in favour. At the end, we could add up who had more. A by-election is a much better procedure for doing that than what would otherwise be a sort of Heath Robinson mechanism of counterpetition. While I can see that this is a serious proposal and I understand that any figure could be picked, the balance between this very high barrier, which I think the House would prefer, when coupled with a relatively low number of signatures, is better than the other way round.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Does my noble friend not accept my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s argument that by that time, the Member of Parliament would probably have been deselected by his party anyway?

[Lord Finkelstein]

It may be that he or she would be deselected by their party but I did not really understand the relevance of the argument, even though I comprehended what my noble friend was trying to say. A Member of Parliament can stand in the by-election caused by this trigger. I cannot, nor can any noble Lord, compel a political party or anybody else to support them in that by-election. If they have a good case and feel that they want to put it to a by-election, they can. It is not the business of the Bill, or indeed the mechanism, to consider whether they might hypothetically have the support of a political party in that by-election appeal.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

Will my noble friend not consider that a by-election cannot be an anti-recall petition in the 85% of constituencies where a majority of votes are cast against the sitting Member? It can hardly be an anti-recall petition when it is assumed that the number of opponents of the MP at the previous election normally greatly outweighs the number of their supporters.

[Lord Finkelstein]

I understand the point that the noble Lord is making. It is not a pure mechanism, merely on recall; that point has been made by other Members. But it is a better mechanism for testing the broad support for the Member than a counterpetition which, under this proposal, has only to reach 10% before it cancels the petition in favour of having the by-election at all. The by-election is a better mechanism for the Member of Parliament’s attributes to be debated and considered by the electorate than a counterpetition, which would not even have the merits of constituting the whole of the constituency.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, Amendments 41 and 51, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, both seem good amendments and I hope that the House will accept them. Amendment 41 deals with moving the petitioners’ threshold of more than 10% being in favour of a by-election up to 20% before the by-election will occur. That 10% threshold is nugatory. As the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, made clear to us in what I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, to have been a plausible scenario, it could be all too easy for a well organised campaign to secure that 10% of votes to precipitate the by-election. Indeed, if we raised that threshold to 20% the team that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, envisaged would need to secure only two signatures an hour. That is hardly very hard work or a really difficult threshold to cross either, so raising the threshold to 20% is the very minimum upward movement that would be needed.

I very much like Amendment 51, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, because he would even the scales of justice. That seems sorely needed in this situation. With the procedure that the Bill proposes, we would otherwise see a Member of Parliament hung out to dry for a period of eight weeks, during which the media would engage in political blood sports and an animus against the sitting Member of Parliament would be all too easy for his critics and enemies to beat up. On the other hand, the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, argues that the Bill is tightly drawn and that only three triggers could precipitate this process. In every one of those cases, the MP would have had to have been judged guilty by his peers in the House of Commons of serious wrongdoing. I take that point but the noble Lord has asked us on a number of occasions to draw comfort from the fact that the Bill is thus tightly drawn.

I suggest that the Bill, without any of the Front Benches intending it to be so, will be a battering ram that will beat down doors through which Mr Goldsmith and those who think as he does—many people outside in the country will be egging them on—will seek to advance in the next Parliament so that they can introduce at least one more trigger, a fourth. That would transform the model of recall that we may be about to legislate into something much more like the American model, in which people who do not like the politics of the sitting Member will have the opportunity to use this procedure to unseat a Member of Parliament of whom they do not approve and whom they resent. That seems massively dangerous. If we are to establish in this legislation a model which could then be used in a much more wide-ranging set of opportunities, that is very dangerous.

The noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, said that the by-election would itself be the counterpetition. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, offered some words of caution on that, drawn from all his enormous experience in the way that elections actually operate. As I think the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, indicated in his response to his noble friend, such a by-election will not be fought on the narrow issue of what the MP charged with serious wrongdoing has done. It will be fought, as all by-elections are, on a large range of issues so that the MP will be liable to be scapegoated for all the unpopularity of his Government—the brave Government doing the unpopular things that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, described. That seems to be a formula for injustice and I hope that we will accept both these amendments.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Finkelstein Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to say a word, perhaps surprisingly, about the amendment, and about the third trigger. I was here at Second Reading, but I did not intervene because I could not stay all day. Anybody who has read that Second Reading debate in Hansard will realise how serious the consequences of this Bill could be. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and my noble friends that this is a dangerous Bill: dangerous to representative democracy—that is the basis of the democracy in this country. That point was overlooked throughout the debate in another place.

We have a responsibility to raise some of these issues, though I share the pessimism of my noble friend over our actually making any real difference here. It may be too late in the day. Why will it be too late? People at the other end will not want to revisit the issue. Why will they not want to? Yet again, it will be used as an opportunity to whip MPs—not in our whipping sense—to criticise them and to imply that they are all badly motivated, on the make and have something to hide.

Quite honestly, that is why we have the third trigger. The first trigger was not enough, nor was the second. We must find another way of attacking the implication that MPs are doing something wrong that needs rooting out. This is extremely dangerous for democracy as a whole, and it has not been taken on board as far this is concerned. The third trigger, as with the other two, is also dangerous, in the sense that it gives the public the impression that all that they have to do is get a little petition and that they will make those decisions. I think that this is an illusion that will not lead to greater confidence in our parliamentary system, but quite the reverse.

Finally, I agree that this is a slippery slope. People are saying that this will not be about issues; the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has just suggested that. It might not be about issues today, but it will be about issues tomorrow.

[Lord Finkelstein (Con)]

I rise, noble Lords, as a friend of the Bill. I am sorry that I was not able to speak in the Second Reading, but I had a family matter to attend to.

Not for the first time, I do not find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. It was obviously diverting to hear a list of Members of Parliament whom he admired. I felt, uncharacteristically, that he was ill informed about Zac Goldsmith. Even if I do not agree with him on all matters and even if the noble Lord is correct in observing irrelevantly that he is a multi-millionaire, he is actually an assiduous constituency Member of Parliament.

Might we have a self-denying ordinance in which we stop debating something that is not in the Bill? When we have presented to this House the bottom-of-the-slope Bill or the thick-end-of-the-wedge Act, we can have a discussion about the matters that concern those who have spoken in this debate and that would affect my noble friend’s concerns, but they are not in the Bill. There are a number of individual items, where we have to make a judgment as to whether it is sensible to give the public a chance to remove Members of Parliament if they feel that what has happened is significantly serious and that they should be allowed to do this.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said at the beginning that he was concerned that people would add triggers to the Bill. He went on to suggest a number of triggers that he would like to add to it. This seemed to me to be completely incoherent, although by the end I was reaching for a trigger myself.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Perhaps I did not explain myself properly. I was not saying that I would like to add triggers, because I do not want any of them included. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that the general election provides the opportunity for recall. What I did say was that if you have the three triggers that are in the Bill now, why not have the others? They are just as logical; indeed, perhaps more sensible and logical. I am not saying that they should be in. However, there is a better argument for them than for the ones that we have in the Bill at the moment.

[Lord Finkelstein]

It would be up to the noble Lord to propose amendments on those, but we are discussing this amendment on the third trigger. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, made an important point when he asked what is special about these kinds of offences that would not apply to other offences. The answer is that they are offences against the parliamentary process. They are ones that go to the heart of people’s confidence in the system here and therefore they are distinct and different. They ought to carry with them a greater threat to Members of Parliament. None of the proposals in this Bill would create a by-election; they merely introduce for the public an extra power which they do not have at the moment. I cannot see that that would be a threat to democracy. When someone proposes something where the proposal itself is the threat to democracy rather than hypothetically a threat to democracy, or a threat to democracy because someone else had proposed something earlier, I will be against that. When someone proposes the thick end of the wedge, I will be against it. For the moment, however, I cannot see the objection to giving the public the ability to use this trigger if they feel that the issue is something that is important to them, and I can see many circumstances in which they would use it. This is therefore a valuable addition to the Bill and I support the amendment.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a Bill which in my view we cannot change. The House of Commons must be sovereign in determining its own rules. However, the fact that we cannot change it is not a reason why we should not, and indeed I think that we are under an obligation to express any reservations we have. That is what we are here for. We should express sincerely and frankly what we feel about the legislation that comes before us.

I agree entirely with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and with some but obviously not all of the comments of my noble friend Lord Foulkes. What I am most concerned about in the Bill is something which may strike noble Lords as a rather theoretical danger; that is, that people might be sent to prison for reasons of conscience and principle—for acting in a way which, from their point of view, is part of their politics and, as a result, part of their responsibility towards their constituents. Although that may seem rather theoretical, it has actually happened several times over the past 150 years.

I am thinking of Charles Stewart Parnell and John Redmond. There were never finer parliamentarians in either House than those two men. They were both sent to prison under the Irish Coercion Acts that we had for governing Ireland at the time for matters of purely political action on their part. Pacifists in the First World War were sent to prison under provisions in the Defence of the Realm Acts which made it a criminal offence to make comments that were inimical to the interests of recruitment. I think that I am quoting the law accurately. Arthur Jenkins and others whose names I am afraid I cannot remember—I remember Arthur Jenkins because of course he was the father of a very distinguished statesman who many of us knew personally —were sent to jail in the 1920s for organising an illegal strike. I cannot think of any recent examples, but someone may well be about to challenge me by asking when it last happened. It is certainly the case that it has not happened recently.

[Lord Rogan (UUP)]

The noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, served time in prison in Belfast for a political rather than a criminal act.

[Lord Finkelstein]

Is it the noble Lord’s judgment in those cases that recall would have been successful?

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I do not think that recall would have been successful in the case of the Irish patriots I have referred to, but I suspect that it would have been successful in the emotional circumstances of the First World War, and possibly in the 1920s. However, I do not think that that is relevant at all. The important question is whether we are going to have a Parliament consisting of individuals who, when it comes to the crunch, are brave and willing enough, when it is necessary to do so, to stand up for what they really believe in. In those circumstances is it right to deprive them of their seat in Parliament as if they were common criminals? If they are common criminals then, as has been said, there are provisions for a majority of MPs to exclude them, and the House of Commons is perfectly willing to do that.

[Lord Finkelstein]

In one sense they are common criminals, and that would be the point of sending them to jail. The noble Lord is suggesting that their electorates are not allowed to exercise a judgment over whether, when a person has broken the law, their crime ought simply to be overlooked. All this Bill will do is give the electorate the opportunity to make that judgment.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am saying two things, and I hope that the noble Lord will listen carefully. First, I do not believe that it can be in the interests of this country that people are thrown out of Parliament when they maintain what may be a very consistent position of principle which puts them at odds with the law at that particular moment. There have been occasions when we have passed laws in this country which have nothing to do with the ordinary notion of criminality, but have been passed under emotional circumstances, such as the ones I have already described. We do not want a Parliament of ciphers; we want a Parliament of individualists. We want a Parliament of people who are responsible directly to their electorate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I could not have said it better myself; in fact, I did not say it better myself. That was an excellent explanation of it with which I completely concur. I tried to say that with increasing degrees of inability to do so.

My last question to the Minister is equally serious. Let us suppose that someone is given a suspended sentence. Does that count? It would be perfectly possible for me to say, when the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, appeared before me, “I sentence you, Lord Finkelstein, to a year in a prison, but I’m going to give you a chance and I’m going to suspend the sentence to see if you behave for the next year. If you behave, then that sentence will not be imposed”. Would that apply? I am not clear whether suspended sentences are counted in relation to the Bill. There is no guidance. It is just something that occurred to me. No doubt there will be many more problems in relation to the Bill which will come out during not just this discussion but if, heaven forbid, the Bill was to be triggered—to use that awful word—which we all hope it will not be.

Amendments 4 and 13 are probing amendments, but Amendments 3 and 16, which have been drafted by the Law Society of Scotland, are serious and important, because there is that inconsistency about offences committed overseas and there is also the question, raised in the second Law Society amendment, about offences committed before a general election. If the Minister cannot accept the amendments today, I hope that he will say that he will have a look at them between now and Report and see whether these two problems might be properly dealt with. I beg to move.

[Lord Finkelstein]

My Lords, I very much hope that if I am ever accused of a serious offence, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, will not be the judge. I want to run through a list of offences for which you can be sent to prison for less than a year: assault with intent to resist arrest; assault on a police constable in the execution of his duty; racially aggravated common assault; domestic burglary; fraud; false accounting; and sexual assault—this is obviously not a full list. In other words, it is possible to be sentenced for very serious offences for less than a year. All that this Bill does—and it is a very simple Bill; it is not, as has been repeatedly and falsely suggested a complicated, burdensome, cumbersome and expensive Bill—is to provide the general public with a simple mechanism which allows them to remove Members of Parliament should they see fit in circumstances that are limited in it. There are a very few common-sense circumstances in which people would expect to have such a power. We have discussed at great length today many ridiculous ideas which are not in the Bill and said how strongly we are against them, and I think that we can all agree that we would be against them if they were in the Bill or if anyone proposed them in future Bills. Therefore, there is great unity in the Committee on the subject of hypotheticals.

However, if we confine ourselves to the subject of what is actually in the Bill, is the House of Lords seriously saying to the general public, at a moment of disillusion with politics, that we wish to deny a limited range of powers to them which would be available to the boss of any employer in any company and would be used in the circumstances set out in this Bill?

[Lord Grocott]

As the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, is saying that we need to be in the real world rather than dealing in hypothetical examples, could he give the Committee some examples of Members of Parliament, let us say in recent years, who would have been caught by this less than a year’s sentence of imprisonment triggering a recall, so that we can have some idea of the evil that we are now trying to put right?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Finkelstein]

As the noble Lord is well aware, there have not been very many such Members of Parliament and they have resigned, and I suspect that that will happen. That is not an argument to suggest that this power would not be used. From the noble Lord’s own Front Bench, it was correctly stated that it is very much to be hoped that the Bill would not be required to be used very frequently, but cases have often come before the House of Commons where a Member of Parliament has, for instance, used the House of Commons facilities to promote their travel company or employed members of their family in the House of Commons and been given suspensions that would fall under the Bill, which currently the power does not exist to cover. While there may not have been many instances in recent years that are covered in the Bill where people have not resigned, that does not mean that the power would not be valuable.

The issue has been raised of Members of Parliament who are sentenced to jail on issues of conscience and whether it is right that a recall mechanism be available. It may not be right to provide for a situation in which those people are automatically expelled for that act, but it is certainly right to provide the electorate with the limited power to review the conduct of that Member of Parliament in the light of them committing the very serious act as a Member of Parliament of defying the laws that they have created.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My noble friend is clearly passionate in support of the Bill. Could he deal with the point, which I have made twice previously, that in the real world, in practical terms, where a Member of Parliament found themselves in this position, it would be highly unlikely that the leadership of a party would sign and allow them to stand again as a party candidate? Therefore, there is no opportunity for the electorate to take a view if they wish to be represented by a particular political party as opposed to a particular individual.

[Lord Finkelstein]

I think that this is a misunderstanding. The leader of the party has to sign to allow them to use the party logo in an election, and they may not be permitted to stand for a political party, but that does not prevent them standing in a by-election. I suspect that if Jimmy Maxton had run in that election, he might well have received the signature of the leader of the Labour Party, but in other circumstances it might have been withheld. It does not prevent someone running again in the election; they are not denied this chance; and the electorate are not denied the opportunity to support them. It just means that they will not be allowed under their party act to run as a party candidate.

[Lord Maxton]

The fact is that Jimmy Maxton would not have required, and would not have got, Ramsay MacDonald’s signature on any candidature; he was selected by the ILP in Bridgeton to be the candidate.

[Lord Finkelstein]

And he could run as a candidate, if he wished, in an election, and could receive or not receive his party’s support; I am arguing just that the electorate should have the opportunity to decide, in circumstances in which someone has decided to defy the law, whether to continue to support them as a Member of Parliament. This power will not be imposed on Members of Parliament against the wishes of the electorate; it is a power granted to the electorate. What we have to decide as a House is whether it is reasonable that the electorate be given a limited power in certain circumstances that they can use to enforce standards. I believe that that power is reasonable and limited.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am sorry to pursue this—perhaps I have just misunderstood the Bill, as the noble Lord suggests—but if someone finds themselves in circumstances where there is a recall and there is going to be a by-election, certainly in the Conservative Party you cannot stand as a Conservative candidate unless you have the signature of the leader of the party. That is how it operates. I do not know about other parties. The Liberal party is a bit looser in its arrangements—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Finkelstein]

No, the noble Lord is not missing anything, but he is failing to add the question of why that would be wrong. If a Member of Parliament is recalled, it may be that their party stands by them because of all the honourable reasons that have been suggested might hypothetically happen; if, however, they have been recalled because they have decided to promote their travel company by using the facilities of the House of Commons, the Conservative Party might not decide to stand by such a candidate. The candidate would still have the right to run by themselves. I do not think that the noble Lord has misunderstood it, but perhaps I have not understood why the noble Lord would regard that as a flaw in the Bill. It seems to me an advantage that has been programmed in, rather than a bug.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I regard it as a flaw in the Bill because the point that my noble friend has been making throughout this evening is that it should be a matter for the electorate to decide whether or not they are going to take whatever the offence is, or whatever has caused this, as one which would prevent them from re-electing that person as their Member of Parliament. I am saying that in practical terms, if someone has got themselves into that kind of trouble, they are going to be out anyway because the parties are not going to support them. Therefore we are going through a very expensive process which will generate lots of publicity and lots of difficulties, and the end result will be the same as it would be under our existing procedures.

I am not sure what the problem is that we are trying to solve. If someone has fiddled their expenses or run a travel company or whatever, first, the whip is going to be withdrawn and, secondly, they are not going to be able to stand as a candidate for a particular party and they are not going to get re-elected. My noble friend seems to be arguing that we need to have a complex procedure that gives them the second chance to challenge what would have happened anyway.

[Lord Finkelstein]

I actually used those examples for a reason. The whip may have been withdrawn, but those people did not have to resign from Parliament and remained in Parliament until the end of the period, whereas if they had been employed by anybody else they would not have been able to do that. This power exists to enforce that which does not exist at the moment. In other words, I used precisely the examples—in the case of the travel company and the family member—where those Members stayed until the end of the Parliament, and would not be able to unless their electorates were willing to allow them to.

[Lord Cormack]

Is my noble friend seriously suggesting that a Member of Parliament is employed by his constituents? That is totally contrary to the constitutional doctrine of Parliament.

[Lord Finkelstein]

I am absolutely suggesting that.

[Lord Soley]

I intervene very briefly with a very short contribution. It follows what the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, is saying. The flaw in his argument is something he said some minutes ago, when he said any employer would have these powers in a private company. The mistake he is making is to assume that Parliament is like a corporate body. That assumption underlying his speech is a serious flaw because Parliament is and must be different. It must answer only to the electorate. The whole thrust for the past few hundred years in this country is that we have general elections when Members are elected to do their job as an elected representative, and that is it. We have already done too much of this—perhaps the noble Lord is following a tradition that has unfortunately developed in recent years where we are constraining the power of Parliament and treating it as though it is a corporate body, when in fact it is not.

[Lord Finkelstein]

Naturally, I am not against the power of Parliament to do dignified things. I am against allowing Parliament to do some of the things that this Bill would provide redress to the electorate to do. The power of recall does not belong to anybody else except to the electorate. The electorate will determine whether somebody is recalled. The electorate will determine the result of the by-election, and nobody else. The relation to Parliament, of course, must be independent on political grounds and on political issues. But the Bill proposes limited circumstances which have real effect, and have taken place—as in the examples I gave suggested, where Members of Parliament have remained in the House without challenge by the electorate. This Bill would enable the electorate to have the powers they ought to have.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, in response to my brief intervention, my noble friend said that he regards MPs—he said, “I was precisely saying that”—as being employed. Now this is standing our constitution on its head. Words almost fail me to describe my abhorrence, shock and dismay at my noble friend suggesting that the other place comprises 650 employees. That really is extraordinary.

[Lord Finkelstein]

For words to fail the noble Lord, this really is a serious crime.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, first, I will answer one question. This does indeed cover suspended sentences, which is clear in the Bill. I am surprised—my noble friend normally reads every jot and tittle in it—but it covers suspended sentences as well.

House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Bill [HL]

Lord Finkelstein Excerpts

Friday 21st November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather (CB)]

My Lords, I am totally in favour of this power being given to us. When we had the latest expulsions, the amount of flak this House received from the public was amazing. Everywhere I went, people were saying to me, “You are no different to the Commons. You are a cheat. Everybody cheats in the House of Lords”. It is very important that we can show that we will not allow people who cheat on their expenses to remain in this House. Anybody who has been found to be cheating should have to leave the House, because unless we do that, we will never recoup our reputation and position in the public’s mind. In any other place where anyone else works, they would never get away with the behaviour of some noble Lords. They would never be able to keep their jobs and stay on, so why should we not do the same?

I utterly support the Bill. We need these powers to protect all of us who do not cheat or behave badly, because one or two people can make all of us look bad. I hope that we can get on with this and that the Bill passes.

[Lord Finkelstein (Con)]

My Lords, the last thing I would want to do is delay the Bill in any way. I was shocked recently to discover that this proposal has been debated since the 19th century without being passed. Of course the principle is absolutely right, but I just question whether Amendment 1 is really a very good idea. We talked just now about expenses. Obviously, if we pass the amendment, that conduct, which would have taken place before the Bill came into force, may only be exposed after it came into force. The amendment would make it impossible to deal with that conduct. In other words, the amendment makes it difficult to deal with some of the worst conduct. To use an entirely hypothetical example, if someone committed perjury in a libel case and it took four years for that perjury to be revealed, in the course of which the Bill was passed, the conduct would no longer fall under the Bill. I wonder whether the amendment is quite what we want.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the Opposition fully support the noble Baroness in her endeavours. The noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, raised an interesting point to which the noble Baroness will no doubt respond. There is time between now and Report if clarification is required. I take his point.

The Bill can be fairly assured of passage through your Lordships’ House. The question is, when it gets to the Commons, what help will the Government give it? Without government help, I suspect that it will be very difficult for the Bill to pass, so it is right for me to press the Minister on what the Government’s attitude will be. At Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, helpfully said, as the noble Baroness reminded the House, that the Government have no settled view on the Bill at present. He kindly said that he would take back the speeches and consider with colleagues what response the Government could make. I hope that today he will be able to tell us that the Government are prepared to give this a fair wind in the other place. The other place does not have much work to do; the Government have sent MPs home. They now do Mondays to Wednesdays, so there is plenty of time for the Commons to consider this if the Government so wish.

There is an appetite in this House for sensible change. Discussions are taking place about the noble Baroness’s Bill and other noble Lords are discussing the issue of retirements, which we are going to have to face up to. Yet more noble Lords are discussing improving the governance of the House. I hope that the Government will allow for these discussions to take place and that we can have some more general debates about the issue of retirement. I think that we could reach a consensus on retirements in your Lordships’ House. The Minister is looking at me but there is an overwhelming appetite among noble Lords all around the House to sort this out. We have had the remarkable example of the Lord Speaker making a statement some months ago, giving notice of her intent to leave the House at a certain time. That was a marvellous example. Why are the Government not allowing the House to come to a sensible view on these matters?

The Minister may say that it is because substantive reform is just around the corner, and he may quote me as having said that in the past. It is difficult to assume who is going to win the next election, but let us assume that we have a Government after the next election, after some time and of some sort. Let us assume that they set up some kind of review—a convention or whatever—to come forward with proposals on substantive reform. I would say that the first opportunity of that coming into practice would not be before 2020, if we are realistic.

Voluntary and Charitable Sectors

Lord Finkelstein Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Finkelstein (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, for calling this debate and for her excellent opening speech. I associate myself with everything that has been said about the variety of charities and the wonderful work that they do.

I shall concentrate on a single point in what I hope will be a brief contribution. I want to issue an invitation in the interests of clarity and understanding. I preface this invitation with two points. First, I declare an interest as the chairman of the Policy Exchange think tank, my involvement with other charities as in the register of interests and my history of working with charities and as a patron and trustee of them. My experience has made me fully aware of the scope and limits of political activity under charity law.

Secondly, I recently interviewed the author Anne Applebaum about her excellent book The Iron Curtain, and she explained that in the first months after the Second World War the Soviet-backed communists allowed some political liberty but made sure to control the institutions of civil society. They recognised these bodies as the most important guarantors of freedom and the strongest challengers to the hegemony of the state. The lesson taught, of course, is that we must jealously protect the political rights of the voluntary sector, but it is also that it is disproportionate to respond to every discussion of the regulation of charities and voluntary sector campaigning as if it involved the imposition of east European-style dictatorship, as I fear is sometimes the case.

This brings me to my invitation. When I joined this House, a measure was being considered that limited the expenditure of voluntary bodies on election campaigns. This modest proposal brings all campaigners in line, at least to a limited extent, with the restrictions on candidates themselves. It prevents someone setting up the Schmonservative Association and spending whatever they want defeating a Labour MP. Instantly this was called a “gagging clause” even though broadly the same provision for a political party was called “a sensible limit on election spending”. The provision has continued to be referred to in this way. I wish to demonstrate my respect for the concerns of voluntary organisations by attempting to establish how much truth there actually is in the gagging allegation, which would certainly be serious if proven. Since lots of public affairs people associated with the voluntary and charitable sector will be watching this debate, I invite any of them and any other charity or voluntary body which believes it is gagged because of the new law to write to me. To be clear, I want them to do so if in this election year they have specifically been prevented from an action that they can carefully describe—I am looking for actual and not hypothetical examples—as being gagged. I wish to establish whether any such gagging ever takes place, whether indeed the action being prevented is against the law, which I believe it rarely will be, and whether those few against the law are simply reasonable spending limits or unreasonable limits on free speech. I look forward to hearing over the coming months—or possibly not hearing—and I will let noble Lords know the outcome.