Security: State Procession

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I apologise if I have caused offence but I was being accused of privatisation. I would, however, beg to differ. I do not believe that these decisions have put the national security at risk and I have been assured that they have gone through the appropriate processes. The properties were designated surplus to requirements, following a thorough review which concluded that the buildings could not within the bounds of costs and internal planning be updated to deliver an acceptable, efficient standard of office accommodation for use in government. The commercial arrangements with the private sector allow for government to incorporate security measures, alongside the Metropolitan Police.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Has my noble friend denoted a massive security risk from the Royal Horseguards hotel, which is just round the corner from the Old War Office?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, I cannot comment on particular aspects of security but I assure your Lordships that all matters of security within the Westminster area are always taken under review.

Regulation of Political Opinion Polling Bill [HL]

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Friday 19th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That is a very interesting suggestion. As usual, the noble Lord is not being mischievous; he is being very helpful. It would be good to have an independent chair of the polling authority. I am not exactly sure whether it should be that pensioner. We must find out who he is and whether other predictions and suggestions he has made have been successful. We certainly should take that on board.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Can I raise a more serious question: is there any point to polling at all? You ask people what they are going to do at the next election. They say, “The next election is not for weeks or months. I haven’t even made up my mind”, so their views are not even very relevant.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That is a very interesting question and much wider than what I am suggesting. If the noble Lord is suggesting that the regulatory body I am setting up should have a wider remit, that is certainly something the House can look at. I would not be averse to looking at it.

As I was saying, in the general election of 2015 we saw almost daily polls for a while—it was astonishing. However, almost all of them turned out to be wrong. The media moguls, who are very rich and own most of our newspapers, commission most of those polls. They publicise them and they become a very powerful election tool. As the noble Lord implied, this has moved beyond a method of independent measurement of voting intention to having real and increasing influence over the result, with potentially serious consequences for our democracy. Polls now play a major part in deciding the future of our country. It is therefore essential that they be carried out in a rigorous and unbiased manner. That is what the minimal and independent oversight that I am putting forward in the Bill sets out to achieve. It is with that aim in mind that I beg to move.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, it is the job of Parliament and this House to be clear in our language as far as possible. I was wondering whether I had time to rush out and check a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary. In all my years in public life, the word “petition” has always involved collecting names and presenting them on a list to whoever you are petitioning. That was certainly the case in the other place, and I assume it is in this House, although I have no experience of it. Should the Government not be minded to accept this amendment, it would involve a redefinition of the word “petition”. A petition involves petitioners, and petitioners are not anonymous people who cannot be traced.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I have been a little confused by this as well. I imagined that when people signed the petition, they would be crossed off the electoral roll—that would be the proof that they had signed. There would be no question of checking the signatures; it would be a question of checking the electoral roll. I would be grateful if my noble friend could fill us in on that.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry to delay my noble friend; I shall not do so for more than a moment or two. I made it quite plain in Committee that I thought this was a dreadful Bill, unimprovable and really unamendable. That remains my position. I could not take exception to the extremely cogent speech of the noble Baroness on the Opposition Front Bench. This is a terrible Bill that the Commons are inflicting upon themselves. I wish they were not. It betrays a lack of self-confidence in a great institution that is superior to any other in this country. Recall is the process that goes on at a general election. That is where I rest my case, and that is why I shall not put myself in either Division Lobby tonight.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

41: Clause 9, page 7, line 1, leave out “10%” and insert “20%”

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[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 41 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Foulkes and Lord Hughes, and myself, and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for allowing me to move it.

I have always taken the view that this Bill is a lot more about organisation than it is about indignation. I believe that with a bit of organisation, it would be very easy to get 10% of an electorate to sign a petition. The only way that we can illustrate this is by taking a particular constituency and going through the process. If your Lordships will forgive me, we will have to consider a rather hypothetical situation. The constituency is not hypothetical; it is Richmond Park.

As your Lordships will know, Richmond Park was won at the last election off the Liberal Democrats by my honourable friend Zac Goldsmith. As it happens, Zac Goldsmith thinks that the Bill is a little mouse of a Bill. He thinks that it is a pathetic attempt at recall. He wants recall of MPs on demand. Perhaps when he has read the Official Report of this debate, he may have second thoughts. In the 2010 election, he won the Richmond Park constituency with a majority of just over 4,000, with just under 50% of the vote. The Labour Party polled 5% and UKIP just over 1%.

I shall hypothesise—please do not challenge me on the hypothesis; I am just trying to create a scenario on which we can pin the recall process. Let us say that in the 2015 election, Mr Goldsmith’s majority improves, the Liberal position declines, Labour comes up a little bit and UKIP comes up substantially. I will not go any further than that. Oh, and by the way, there is a Conservative minority Government in power. In two years’ time, the Conservative minority Government are having very serious problems. They are wrestling with renegotiation with Europe and they have the new tranche of austerity measures to push through, and that is not making them in any way popular in the country. They have already lost two by-elections and done badly in another one.

Then the whole question of recall for Mr Goldsmith comes up. I apologise to him; there is no question of him being recalled; we just have to hypothesise that he is. Then comes the question of the petition. Of course, those who believe passionately in the Bill, such as my noble friend Lord Finkelstein, think that it is all about the indignation of the people who live in Richmond Park. It is nothing of the sort. The people who will decide whether there is a by-election are down the other end of the corridor. They will make that decision on the basis of whether they think that there is a good chance of winning the by-election.

They will all get together. I suspect that it will be a clandestine meeting in some room either in the Palace of Westminster or outside. It will be made up of what I shall refer to from here on as the unholy alliance.

The Liberal Democrats will not be part of a coalition, because there is a minority Conservative Government. They think that it is about time that they started winning by-elections again, and of course they came second in the constituency. I see my noble friend Lord Rennard in his place. Is this moment not made for him? This will be the moment when he is rehabilitated in the Liberal Democrats, because this is a wonderful situation for him.

UKIP is also very keen on having by-elections, because it thinks that it has a very good chance of winning them as well. I am not sure that Labour will have much of a dog in this fight—it may have—but it would be wonderful for Labour if the Tory lost his seat, whoever won it. So there will be an unholy alliance sitting around that table. They will say, “What we want in this constituency is 100 volunteers to come in”. I go back to our previous discussion: we need only two weeks for this, we do not need eight weeks; two weeks is quite enough.

I apologise at this moment to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. I rather rubbished the idea that money would play a role in this. I take it all back: money will be very important. Let us hypothesise again that the decision has not yet been taken on the third runway at Heathrow and that the people who are very keen on it have found Mr Goldsmith quite a pain on all this, because he opposes it vociferously. So they come trotting along and say, “Would you like some financial help with this by-election?”. “Oh, yes please”, says the unholy alliance, “I tell you what we would really like. We would like 25 upmarket chauffeur-driven cars for the fortnight of this campaign. We want to have them on call at any time so that our canvassers can ring up and call them to any house or anywhere else”. Actually, it also might be a good idea if they hung around outside schools when the mothers were coming out, with two cars already sitting there. Canvassers could say to the mothers, “Look, if you sign this petition, you can go for a lovely trip with your children in this car”. You would pile two or three of them in. You would get six names there without any trouble at all.

The electorate of Richmond Park in the 2010 election was just under 78,000. I shall hypothesise, without any justification at all, that that rises to 80,000. The only reason why I do that is that I believe in round numbers because they make life a little simpler. So we need 8,000 names in Richmond Park. We have 100 volunteers. That is 80 signatures from each volunteer. They are on the scene for a fortnight, so that is 40 signatures a week per volunteer. Heavens, if they are going to operate for 40 hours, that is only one signature an hour. Come on, I am sure that any one of us could get one signature per hour for that petition.

So that comes back to the point that if this ever happens, it will be nothing to do with constituents in a state of revolt; it will reflect the degree to which people outside the constituency organise them into deciding on the by-election and signing up to the petition.

Let me speak also to my amendment, Amendment 51, which says that if we believe in any fairness whatever, it should be possible to counterpetition. That would also, incidentally, answer all the problems raised by the noble Lord, Lord Soley, about the confidentiality of the vote. If it became possible to have both the counterpetition and the petition for a by-election on the ballot paper, when someone walks into the signing centre, or whatever it is called, you would not know which way they had signed. That would cover that whole problem.

It would also, let us face it, be much fairer if a Member of Parliament was allowed to counterpetition. It might mean in certain circumstances that the by-election never happened, in which case it would save everybody money anyway. I hope that my noble friend will seriously consider those proposals.

[Lord Snape]

Has the noble Lord reflected on the fact that he has just undermined the very good case that he has just made? If the second amendment, Amendment 51, is accepted and if, as he said, it is all about money, Mr Goldsmith would have no difficulty in retaining the seat, because there would be far more people signing the petition to keep him than to get rid of him.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Mr Goldsmith would be in a very strong position to hire his own fleet of cars, absolutely. I must confess that the other weakness that the amendment raises is that on the pathetic threshold of 10%, both sides may get 10%, in which case there would be an interesting stalemate to which I do not know the answer.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, the percentage of people required to trigger the by-election is certainly a very serious matter. As the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, has said, the issue of recall will probably not be decided by the constituents themselves, although they are the ones who will sign the petition. It will be decided, first, in the Procedure Committee. Weaning the Procedure Committee away from a quasi-judicial function will be sorely tempting but we do not want that to happen. Secondly, not even they by themselves will decide which particular trigger will be invoked. The decision will largely be governed in the boardrooms which the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, probably attends quite frequently. The editors of the national press will latch on to this as a good idea, as something which the public have been anxious for.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, who is temporarily not in his place, seemed quite taken by the fact that I said that a recall petition would generate great excitement. I perhaps chose my words badly—I should perhaps have said great activity, rather than excitement. By and large the discussions in your Lordships’ House have been sober, serious, not entirely dispassionate but, in the tradition of your Lordships’ House, have looked at matters carefully and seriously. Alas, the real world outside is not like this place—it is going to be governed by people’s particular prejudices.

I do not want to rehearse the speech that I am going to make later about the debate but, in relation to the way in which MPs are perhaps no longer free from the scrutiny as they once were, I remember one Friday in the other place when we were discussing a repeal of the Steel abortion Bill. It was a very difficult subject. Whichever side of the argument one was on, it was controversial. In some constituencies it is hugely important.

I was in the Lobby with a colleague who was unhappy about voting against the amendments to the Steel Bill. He said that he believed that the amendments should not be passed and the Bill should be left more or less as it was, but he was concerned about what might happen back home. I said, “Well, don’t vote. Stay out of the Lobby”. He said he would have to vote because it was the right thing to do. So we went through the Lobby and we voted. When we passed the Tellers, he almost turned to jelly. He said, “I’ve lost my seat. What am I going to do? It’s dreadful—I’ll be hounded out of the constituency”. I told him to nip into the other Lobby and cancel his vote out.

How did I know that that was possible? I knew because my then pair, the late Iain Sproat, had asked me if I would time-pair with him so he could take his wife out to dinner and I agreed. I was in the Library reading—a euphemism for having a snooze—and the Division Bell went off in the Library. My wife says that even now after I have been out of the Commons for 17 years, when the alarm clock goes off in the morning, I throw the blankets off, shout, “Division!” and start running down the stairs. I got up and automatically went through the Lobby and then realised on that occasion I was time-paired. All of us who are former Members of the House of Commons know perfectly well that the greatest sin one can commit in the House of Commons is to break a pair. I asked what I could do and they said, “Nip in and cancel it”. I was in mortal terror for two or three days that the local press would discover it and make a fool of me, but they did not notice. So I had good cause to tell this colleague to cancel his vote out and he did. That much I can vouch for. In those days, we were not under the same scrutiny.

What has been said—and I cannot vouch for this—is that if someone in favour of abortion wrote to that colleague and asked how he voted, he could send them the page of Hansard which showed that he voted the way that they wanted. If someone was against abortion, he could send them the other page of Hansard. It was a wonderful strategy, except that nowadays, within five minutes of a vote being declared in this place or in the House of Commons, it is published on the internet. That sort of strategy would not work now.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

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[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that further contribution. The Bill is about these three triggers. The Government believe that they are the correct triggers for recall. Whether they are for serious wrongdoing or wrongdoing obviously is a matter of opinion; but the Government’s view is that these are three triggers that the other place viewed as being examples and the three triggers for recall.

I ought to make some progress on this. The intention of establishing the recall petition is to allow constituents to hold their Member of Parliament to account. We believe that 10% of constituents is the correct figure. In most cases that would be over 7,000 constituents. Under this Bill, the level of popular support that the Member of Parliament has would be properly tested at the by-election, not through a counter-recall petition.

I am most grateful to noble Lords for this debate. The Government remain of the view that the 10% threshold is the appropriate level, and therefore I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

I am very disappointed with my noble friend, because I think that we proved very conclusively how very easy it is to reach this threshold. My other worry is that I suspect that this Bill is just a start for more recall Bills, given that—let us face it—people who believe in the recall of MPs are not remotely satisfied by the Bill and will be coming back with additional ideas of circumstances in which Members of Parliament can be recalled. In the mean time, we will have the 10% threshold locked into the Bill, which will be virtually unchangeable and, as I hope we have proved pretty conclusively, very easy to reach. However, although I am very disappointed with my noble friend, I will of course withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 41 withdrawn.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree entirely. Perhaps I may make one very important point—I had a conversation in the corridor not that long ago with a very distinguished Member of this House, whose name I shall not mention, to this effect: we must always remember that denigration of politics is a denigration of democracy. Democracy and politics are hand in hand; they are opposite sides of the same coin perhaps, but they are the same coin and we should never forget that.

My second point is on the Standards Committee. There is a sense being expressed tonight that it is Back-Bench Members of Parliament who take decisions—they are often the right decisions—but the committee always works on the basis of a report and investigation done by the commissioner. Yes, the commissioner works for the committee, but it does not take a decision just on the basis of some wild allegations that have been made.

As I know to my own cost, the commissioner makes a thorough investigation, perhaps lasting several weeks if not months, and then reports to the committee. In most cases—not all of them—the committee goes along with that report. We should bear in mind that this is not just some ad hoc committee taking decisions on the basis of allegations; it is a serious committee receiving reports from the commissioner and making decisions based on a very thorough investigation.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

But does the noble Lord not accept that, if the recommendation of the report is that the Member should be found guilty, the sentence is in the hands of the committee? This is what we are really arguing about, because it is when it comes to the sentence that party politics come into play. Therefore, because there is a party balance in one direction, you shove it over the 10 days, and because it is a party balance in the other direction, you put it at nine days. It is the sentence that is the critical thing, not the verdict.

[Lord Maxton]

I agree with the most of that, but the commissioner’s report makes a recommendation on sentence as well. In most cases—not all of them—the committee will agree with that report. However, I accept that, given the circumstances that we are now in—which is why I support the amendments—that might change and the commissioner’s report would not necessarily be upheld in the circumstances that the noble Lord outlined. At the moment, the commissioner gives a recommendation as to what sentence should be given. In quite a lot of cases, that recommendation is that the Member should appear before the House of Commons and apologise for their behaviour; it is often no more than that.

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[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, perhaps I am slightly out of turn in mentioning this at this point, but it will save time. My suggestion that Clause 5 should not stand part of the Bill is included in this group. I tabled it simply to enable me to make a point that I cannot find a way of making by means of an amendment, but it is something which goes to the heart of the Bill. My view is very simple indeed, because I like simplicity. We have a very good system for recalling MPs—it is called a general election. That is the point at which MPs should be judged and perhaps removed by their constituents; that is, on the basis of their performance over the preceding period of time.

I love the word “anomaly”, which has been used today. It seems to me to be rather anomalous, or perhaps inconsistent, that this Government, who deliberately and as a matter of public policy decided that general elections will be held less frequently, should be introducing a Bill to provide for recall. Of course, if you have general elections every four years instead of every five years, then as we know from Clause 5, the recall does not operate during the six months prior to the election. If there were elections every four years, there would be more occasions when the recall provisions would not apply, which I suppose is a legalistic way of saying what I am arguing. Recall becomes redundant when general elections are held.

If the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, is to reply to this debate, I should say that I have found that not many members of his party agree with me on getting rid of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, but I am heartened by the fact that I know members of his party—I do not want to disclose names—who think that fixed terms, if they exist, should definitely be every four years, not every five years; indeed it used to be his party’s policy. That is a less bad situation as far as I am concerned, and it is undoubtedly and unarguably a more democratic and accountable system. In trying to appeal to the values that are frequently claimed as being a particular characteristic of the Liberal Democrats, perhaps I may put it to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that on the grounds of democracy and accountability, it is better to have elections every four years rather than every five years. Should that happen, we would have less need to invoke the provisions of this Bill for recall.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Was it not a very great mistake, if the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill was going to be introduced merely to suit this coalition Government, not to have given it a sunset clause so that it does not go on into the next Parliament?

[Lord Grocott]

That is absolutely right, but of course we know why the five-year provision was enacted in the first place. We owe it to David Laws, who gave us an explanation in his book, which I would recommend noble Lords read, if they have not done so already: 22 Days in May. In it he states that in the course of the negotiations between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives:

“We mentioned that our own policy was for four-year, fixed-term parliaments. George Osborne made the point that five-year parliaments were better, as they allowed governments to get into implementing their plans before having to start worrying about the timing of the electoral cycle. We—

that is, the Liberal Democrats—

“made no objection to this, and Britain was on its way to five-year, fixed-term parliaments”.

So, as described by David Laws, the five years were introduced so as not worry about the timing of the electoral cycle, which I think is a polite way of saying “without having to worry about the electorate”. Will the Minister at least acknowledge that the best way of dealing with this business of accountability may be to have rather more frequent general elections?

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

I am not sure that the noble Lord was here during the debate on that Bill, but I was and took an extensive part in the debate. I was very concerned about a number of elements, including the way in which MPs seemed to be all too easily restricting their own responsibilities in terms of exclusive cognisance.

I want to go back to the whole rationale for trying to find a route in this particular direction. My noble friend Lord Forsyth, who was as generous as ever in recognising the contribution to the work of this House of his coalition colleagues, identified very precisely that there was a recognition throughout the House at Second Reading—as was made so clear by the Constitution Committee—that putting this new responsibility on the Standards Committee was a serious weakness in the Bill. That is where we are coming from.

My noble friend the Minister has been very generous in his response but there has not been any government reaction to that very serious weakness. Frankly, I do not think that this is a good Bill, but it is made even worse by the responsibilities and the danger of serious politicisation of what has previously not been a political process in the Standards Committee—again, I regret very much that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is not here.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I thought I remembered the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, saying quite distinctly that there was an awful lot of political interference in the Standards and Privileges Committee, which he was on for a long time.

[Lord Tyler]

He made it absolutely clear, as would other noble Lords who were there, that the way in which the Bill will now act—if it goes through in its present form—lays an additional and very dangerous responsibility on that committee, with all the potential damage there might be. I say simply to my noble friend the Minister that I have done my best, with my noble friends—I am very grateful for their help and that of other Members of the House—to try to find a solution to the problem that our Constitution Committee put its finger on. We cannot simply walk away from that. As so many Members have said, from all sides of the House, we have a responsibility, in this respect, to save the House of Commons from itself. This part of the Bill is a mess. I do not pretend that my solution is the final answer, but just ask my noble friend the Minister to think again between now and Report to see whether we can find a better way to deal with this particular problem. In the mean time, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I need notice of that question—and he is my noble friend! I believe that the Minister will have the actual paragraph by the time he comes to reply.

Amendment 3 would allow a conviction and imprisonment outside the UK to count as a trigger. My noble friend Lord Foulkes hinted that he knew someone would raise the question of Saudi, as indeed I will do. I am sure that he does not mean that someone who was perhaps a transgender person driving a car in Russia, which we have just learned is going to be unlawful, or a woman driving a car in Saudi, or indeed a gay person in Iran or Nigeria who is imprisoned, should trigger a recall in this country—

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

That is obviously one example, but how about the paedophile in the Philippines or somebody who is drug-running in some country that has a reasonable legal system?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I was about to come to another example and say that that does not prevent the Standards Committee considering whether that brings Parliament into disrepute. The option is still there, but it is not mandatory. I think that is the right way of approaching it. I heard on the “Today” programme yesterday—the Deputy Prime Minister had not heard of it at the time although by lunchtime he had and he condemned it—of someone being flogged 1,000 times in Saudi. Well, if that person happened to have been one of our MPs and was imprisoned as well, that again would automatically trigger recall under this amendment. I am sure that is not what would be wanted. The ability for it to be considered under the other mechanism is still there but it would not be automatic.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I have the greatest possible reservations about the Bill. In his opening remarks my noble friend Lord Gardiner mentioned that the first trigger point was the question of whether a Member of Parliament was serving a prison sentence of less than 12 months, and said that that should therefore trigger this referendum option. People would be absolutely amazed to hear that it is possible for a Member of Parliament to languish in prison for six months and still remain a Member of Parliament. I cannot quite understand why the Bill has not grasped that particular nettle, saving everybody an awful lot of time, and said that any prison sentence should result in a Member of Parliament being expelled from the House of Commons. That is my first reservation.

When we come to the second trigger, which is the whole business of this suspension that will then trigger the option for a petition, I have very great sympathy with the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. He served on the Standards and Privileges Committee for much longer than I did; mercifully, I was on that committee for a very short time. I am afraid that I have to put the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, right on this. The whole idea that this was totally objective justice is not quite as I saw it, sitting on the committee. Party politics played a very big role on that committee. Obviously there was the necessity to produce a judgment that would reasonably wash with the public outside, but one should never underestimate the degree to which party politics played a role.

The problem with the period of suspension is that if nine days does not trigger a petition and 10 days does, that critical difference between nine and 10 days will be a very party-political issue indeed. Even if you extend that period up to 20 or 30 days, or any other period you like to mention, there is still the question of whether you are under the threshold or over it. We should have very great reservations about all this, because party politics plays an enormous role.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on the Opposition Front Bench, mentioned the question of how you organise these petitions. It is a question of organisation rather than the indignation of constituents. As my noble friend Lord Cooper of Windrush—who has done an awful lot of polling—mentioned in his excellent maiden speech, the bottom line is that most people’s constituents do not even know who their Member of Parliament is, so do not let us fancy that we were all wildly well known throughout our constituencies when we were Members of Parliament; most people do not get involved in politics at all. However, a very much larger number of people will sign a petition. Therefore the question of a petition is not about the indignation of the constituents—“By God, we must get rid of this Member of Parliament”—but a question of organisation and of getting people on the ground. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said, “Well, money could be involved in this”, and it could. I rather like her view that if you are pro-abortion, a massive amount of finance will be used against you by people who are anti-abortion. It could be the other way round. The abortion clinics could decide to finance somebody who is pro-abortion from the profits they make, so it could cut either way. However, money is only half the question.

If somebody is over the threshold, whatever that is, and is given this suspension, and it is possible with a petition to have a by-election, the political parties at that stage will say, “If there’s a by-election now, is there something in it for us?”. We do not have to cast our minds back very far to remember a time when virtually every by-election was won by the Liberal Democrats. We should pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, who used to organise Liberal Democrats from all over the country to flock into the constituency where the by-election was being held. Of course, in future, perhaps not the Liberal Democrats but UKIP will win all the by-elections. UKIP is learning a lot of lessons on campaigning from the Liberal Democrats, so it may gather up masses of UKIP supporters from all over the country, herd them into the constituency and say, “Right—your job is to get signatures on this petition. We want to have this by-election because we think we’re going to win it”.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, mentioned the problem of travel and whether people could come to a big rural constituency to put down their signatures. One of the things I would insist on if I were organising that is that all my volunteers should have cars. They would say to people—a lot of them old people, I suspect, who have not got an awful lot else to do—“Why don’t I give you a lift down and you can sign your name on this petition? Then we can have a by-election, which will be very interesting”, and so forth. They would not really have to establish what politics people have and which way they are going to vote; they would just say, “This is an opportunity for a vote; you can vote any way you like when the by-election comes along”. Getting the petition is going to be a matter of organisation. It may be a matter of money; it may be a matter of political parties seeing some advantage to them. Obviously, the more marginal the seat, the more likely they are to go for it and to organise themselves to do this.

I take the view of the noble Lord opposite that this is a slippery slope. There is no doubt that Zac Goldsmith’s ambitions went way beyond just having recall on some trigger imposed by the House of Commons. What he wants is for constituents, whenever they feel strongly about something, to be able to petition against their Member of Parliament. It will not be a question of that; it will be a question of outside influences, using a moment of vulnerability and organisation to get a petition going. If we end up with that, we will have a House of Commons that has completely lost its independence. It will be made up of a lot of people constantly looking over their shoulders and our democracy will suffer desperately for that.

Hansard Society: Audit of Political Engagement

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord, as so often, demonstrates his wonderfully conservative approach to all matters of constitutional reform. I do not agree with him. I think part of the lesson of the Scottish referendum was that a remarkably long campaign produced enthusiasm and a real focus, my Scottish friends tell me, on some of the underlying issues, which is perhaps something we need to do in a national campaign.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Does my noble friend accept that although the turnout for the AV vote was lower than that for the Scottish referendum, the will of the people was clearly expressed and should be accepted by everybody in this country?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am not entirely sure that I accept that. However, I accept that it was a lower turnout.

Referendums

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on the catholicity of his tastes in reading. I had indeed read that article because the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, was kind enough to give it to me.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, as it was a Liberal Democrat commitment to have a referendum on Europe, surely there should not be too much difficulty for the coalition partners in agreeing that this is the way forward?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we will wait to see what is in the manifestos of all the parties for the coming election. The proposal by the Prime Minister in his capacity as Conservative Party leader is to hold a referendum, after some considerable further renegotiation, in the mid-point of the next Parliament.

Lobbyists: Register

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I have to admit that I do not know the answer to that question and will have to write to the noble Lord.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Does my noble friend agree that if we restricted the activities of lobbyists and it resulted in fewer all-party groups, that would be a very good idea?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

There might be no more cakes and wine, I am afraid. Let us be clear: lobbying is an entirely legitimate part of the political process, which would be poorer if we did not have lobbying. The problem is that we have lobbying from professional companies, advocacy groups—many of which are also charities—the CBI, trade unions and others. It is a very complicated area to try to pin down to a single statutory register.