Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Norton of Louth

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I can intervene in what seems at the moment like a Second Reading debate. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, mentioned my noble friend Lord Tyler. I point out that although the electorate recalled him, I am pleased to say that they changed their mind a few years later and sent him back, and he served a number of Parliaments before he decided to stand down from the House. That is just for clarification.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords—

[Lord Grocott]

Perhaps I need to further clarify that exactly the same procedure happened in my own case.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, I will get in eventually. I outlined my alternative to the Bill on Second Reading. Addressing the amendments before us, I reiterate my support for Amendment 39 in particular. I cannot see the logic of eight weeks because I cannot see who benefits from that. Obviously, you can argue that it is unfair on the Member over whom this sword of Damocles would hang for that length of time, but I cannot see any benefit to electors. If there is that demand to recall a Member, they will want the by-election as quickly as possible, and this will just delay matters. If they feel that strongly, they would not want that length of time in which to do it. It would make far more sense to provide a much shorter period but with greater opportunities for those who want to go and sign. Therefore there should be a correlation: the more you narrow the period, the more opportunities you provide for those who want to go and sign, and it benefits everybody involved to do it as quickly as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, I argued at Second Reading that this Bill would not achieve its purpose, which is to restore trust in politics. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the other place made exactly the same point. In fact, in some respects, the Bill could be quite dangerous. By focusing on sanctions to deploy in response to bad behaviour, it detracts from the need to encourage strong and positive leadership.

I developed the point at Second Reading that if it is a true recall, electors would be in the driving seat. By that, however, I meant electors—not just a small proportion of electors. I take the diametrically opposed view to that of my noble friend Lord Finkelstein. I would argue for low triggers but a high percentage of electors who would have to trigger a recall. I take the point that it should not be a small number of electors, who could be the opponents of the Member, just being able to sign up and trigger recall.

If someone is elected in a general election and gets 40% or 50% of the vote, I do not see why a further election should then be triggered by 10%, who, as my noble friend Lord Hamilton was arguing, could be comprised of supporters of the opposing parties. There is a compelling case for a very high threshold. To some extent, Amendment 41 might be rather generous in being as low as it is. I can see a stronger case for a much higher percentage. If electors in a constituency really want to remove a Member, I think there should be a much higher threshold. I would move in that direction. It would not achieve what I was arguing at Second Reading in terms of a proper recall vote, but at least it would make a bad Bill less bad.

I support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Hamilton because there is a lack of equity in the arrangements embodied in the Bill. Although I do not think that allowing a counterpetition would necessarily restore trust in politics, it would probably increase interest in politics. It would allow voters who have a view one way or the other to get engaged. If we got that far, that would be the preferable way to go. But, as I say, what we are debating is amendments designed to render what is a fairly bad Bill somewhat less bad.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, this is a heroic attempt to create, as my noble friend said, a level playing field. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, would acknowledge that Amendment 51 could be tidied up but the objective or principle behind the amendment of trying to make some provision for fairness is an important one in a very extended procedure. We know about the time between the Speaker and the petition officer and then the eight weeks that is in the Bill which will all have been preceded by lengthy considerations in perhaps a court or in the committee of the House of Commons, during which time the only case that will be heard is the specific case against the Member of Parliament. During the eight weeks, if the Bill stays as it is at present, the drama, at least at constituency level, will be all about how many have signed so far, “Have enough signed so far? Roll up! Sign up! We’re nearly there”. What is the defence against that? There is no defence.

The principle behind Amendment 51 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, is an impeccable principle. I hope that the Minister, even if he does not like the particular wording of the amendment, will at least acknowledge the importance of the principle.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Norton of Louth

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree. He is right about the international position; we are extremely unusual in the period of transition from Government to Government. I shall come back to that on a later amendment.

The problem with Amendment 37—I shall speak also to Amendment 34—is the premise that there should be a delay for a set period following the election. It may be for only five days rather than 14, but there is a delay, whereas the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, seeks to make provision for an election to follow in the immediate wake of the loss of a vote of no confidence. Given a choice between the two, I incline to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth.

However, the problem that I have with his amendment is that the loss of a vote of no confidence triggers an election as the only option. I believe that that should be, as now, one option rather than the only option. I shall come back to that issue in later amendments. Given the choice between the two I incline towards the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. However, we still need a provision for Prime Ministers to be able to tender their resignation rather than automatically request that Parliament be dissolved.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Newton, repeated an argument that has been used on many occasions, particularly by his noble friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches, that we are somehow in a new kind of politics now, having moved from the traditional two-party system to the less traditional three-party system, and that we therefore need to change huge swathes of our constitution, including changing the voting system and perhaps changing the mechanism for moving from one Government to another, in order to accommodate a fundamental change in our political system. I put it to him, and to them, that I do not take that view; I think that the fundaments of our politics are quite similar to what they were when I came into politics 50 years ago. I put it to them at least that, should any of the opinion polls be right—and we know that we should treat them cautiously—there is a fair bit of evidence that we are moving back towards more of a two-party system, which I for one would welcome. I would be interested to know whether all those who have been saying “New politics means new constitution” will now say that they want the constitution to revert to the way that it operated previously, should there be old politics after all—that is, fundamentally a choice between people who are broadly happy with the way things are and people who want to change them, which is basically what happens in democracies in the United States, here and in many countries of Europe—rather than a yes, a no and a don’t-know as we have at the moment. I make that point simply as an aside but it is worth considering.

This part of the Bill makes an extraordinary proposition. I think that we all more or less subscribe to the cliché “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, but the Government seem not only to be rejecting that idea but also to be saying that, if it is working perfectly, we had still better fix it. My argument is very simply that the no-confidence system as has operated in this country works not just very well but perfectly. We have a test case: 1979. I am very pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord McNally, on the Front Benches; he remembers 1979 as well as I do. That was a perfect example of the no-confidence system, which is not written into our constitution, with there being no clear procedural rules that Jim Callaghan had to follow, working perfectly. He lost the confidence of the House on a motion of no confidence so he went to the country. Will someone please tell me what was wrong with that? One problem that the Government got themselves into in their five days in May, among many others, was trying to write in law aspects of our constitution which are perfectly well understood and which do not need writing in law. It is a bit like trying to write down prescriptively in legislation the procedures that the monarchy needs to go through in the event of a hung Parliament. That would be extraordinarily difficult, and what the Government thought was an incredibly simple Bill is not a simple Bill at all. It has serious complications, and this is the most serious of them.

I simply put this to the Minister. In respect of the 14 days, what is the problem that he is trying to resolve? I shall put it even more simply than that and ask him what Jim Callaghan did wrong. He lost a motion of no confidence; we all know what that is. He immediately went to the country. Under this Bill, he should have entered a period of 14 days’ negotiation, without any consultation with the British public. Worse still—at least from my perspective; nobody could accuse me of self-interest because I have mentioned to the Committee before that his decision resulted in me becoming unemployed—