Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Snape Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, I referred briefly to this issue at Second Reading. I confirm my support for the amendment in the name of my noble friends and I agree with my noble friend Lady Quin, who is drawing on her considerable experience as a Member of the other place. I said at Second Reading that four signing places in my former constituency of Bristol East, an inner-city constituency, would have given many people a challenge, because of its geography. It is banana shaped, to the east of the city, and many people would have needed at least two bus rides to get to a signing place. I cannot understand, for the life of me, why the Bill, which is going to cost a huge amount of money, cannot provide for discretion to be given to returning officers—who, after all, know far more about their constituencies than any of us on these Benches—as to how many signing places there should be in order for the Bill, dismal as it is, to have any effect at all.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a remarkable fact that in the course of debate on the Bill not a single former Member of the other place has said a word in its support. That might be because some of us spent too long down there; it might purely be that we are prejudiced against Mr Nick Clegg, whose name appears as the main promoter of the Bill; or it might just be, as I hope the Minister will accept, that years of experience down the Corridor make us scrutinise proposals such as this, to try to put our fingers on fundamental weaknesses.

Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, I represented a borough constituency. I am speaking from memory, but I think that there were nine or 10 different places for people to vote in that constituency, and even then, there were complaints from some parts of West Bromwich, during the time I had the honour to represent part of that town, that getting to the polling station was a problem. We are to have a maximum of four places to sign a petition under the proposals in the Bill, and a minimum of four if my noble friends’ very sensible amendment is accepted. How would the Minister define a suitable place for this petition? I am aware that the memorandum says that this is a matter for the petitioning officer, but as my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, have said, there are not always convenient local government offices where these petitions can be signed. Would licensed premises, for example, be regarded as suitable places? After all, some local authority buildings are licensed for the sale of alcohol. Would that disqualify that building, in the Minister’s view?

Let us not stop at local authority premises. There are a number of working men’s clubs in the constituency that I represented. Would they be regarded as suitable premises under the terms of the Bill? What about political clubs? The last Conservative club in West Bromwich fell by the wayside some years ago—there were probably not enough patrons—but when it was open, would that have been regarded as a suitable place for a petition? Are politically affiliated clubs specifically disqualified under the terms of the Bill? I cannot find any mention of that in the memorandum, if it is the case, but I would be interested to hear the Minister’s view. After all, if a Conservative club, for example, were regarded as a suitable place, it might be possible to advertise the sophisticated humour of Mr Jim Davidson—“Come along and listen to Jim Davidson and sign a petition to get rid of your local Labour MP while you are there”. There are endless possibilities regarding the premises to be used.

What about staffing, of which mention has been made? Look at the likely procedures for signing a petition. We are all aware that when one goes to a polling station, one’s name is ticked off and one is given a ballot paper. In the privacy and secrecy of a polling booth, one puts a cross against the candidate of one’s choice. What happens regarding a petition? How is it laid out? Is it at the reception desk when one goes in? Is it possible to see who else has signed it? I ask that question because, like other noble friends, I am concerned about the number of staff who may be needed—first, to check the address and so on in order to establish that that person who is anxious to sign the petition is bona fide. Then, depending on the procedures, do we need other staff to ensure that the person signs only once? Over the years, we have all become familiar with petitions with false names that have received lots of publicity. Is it not possible, if there were only one member of staff there, for a would-be signatory to sign more than once? These are all valid questions in relation to the amendment, and I hope that the Minister will look sympathetically at it.

I started by saying that I had not heard any former Member of the other House speak in favour of the Bill. Indeed, the only person I have heard speak in favour of it is the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, who is in his place. As far as I am aware, he has never been elected to anything himself, although I understand that he tried to stand on behalf of the SDP many years ago. He writes an entertaining column in the Times; perhaps he will devote some of his future articles to pointing out—although I appreciate that he supports the Bill—some of the problems that those of us who have been involved in electoral processes over the years can see arising from the way in which it has been drafted.

I hope that the Minister, when he replies, will take these concerns seriously and carefully consider accepting the amendment.

[Lord Swinfen (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, mentioned that in her erstwhile constituency some people might have to take two buses to get to the polling station. In many rural areas and hamlets there is often only one bus out and one back. In some places, there are only a couple of buses a week in each direction. I am therefore a strong supporter of the amendment.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Absolutely, it was absolutely not—it was repetitive. This Bill has been considered by a number of committees. The Government’s proposals for “a maximum of 4” took on board the proposals of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the other place. That is where this proposal comes from. I have listened with interest and I have been thinking about constituencies in which I have worked. Indeed, in the first by-election in which I worked, as a student, I recall that the constituency of Cambridgeshire had 103 villages and no towns. Without question, there was one very convenient place where everyone might gather to sign a petition, which was outside the constituency in the city of Cambridge. We recognise that that is part of the problem we have with constituencies and their boundaries.

When I was the candidate in Shipley, one of my duties was to hold a house meeting in a place where it was a considerable surprise to those who attended the meeting to discover that they were in the Shipley constituency. They thought that they lived in a different place. I am sure that there are also problems that others here have faced in their turn. Again, I stress that this issue has been considered at some length not only in the other place but by a number of committees. This has not been sprung on the House by a wicked Deputy Prime Minister, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, would like us all to believe. I am sure that he has looked at the committee report in some detail. It has been suggested that giving people an eight-week period will allow for a trade-off between those who wish to use postal votes and those who will take the opportunity to sign when they come into the centres in the constituency. That is the flexibility of the trade-off, and we will discuss further the question of whether the period should be of eight weeks or two.

I am conscious of the differences between constituencies in this country. We talked about what is called the Brecon and Radnor question in our earlier discussions, and I am certainly willing to look at whether there is an appetite for a degree more flexibility in all of this. As to the provision of premises, let me stress that traditionally the management of elections in this country is a local matter. It is in the hands of experienced members of local authorities, who look at the provision of appropriate premises. Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Snape, that I think licensed premises are extremely unlikely to be used. As I listened to him, I wondered whether we would allow premises that sell liqueur chocolates to be used, since those of us who are also involved in the Deregulation Bill have struggled with that deep and vital matter.

[Lord Snape]

Has the Minister come to any conclusion on that matter?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Let us discuss it off the Floor of the House rather than detain the Committee further.

Of course, we will be relying on the discretion of the petition officers, who will be the local election officers, on the use of public premises around each constituency. I note the strength of feeling that has been expressed about four centres not being enough in a number of constituencies, although I also note the section of the Electoral Commission’s report which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, did not quote, which states that, equally, four signing locations may be more than is required in some constituencies. There is, perhaps, a greater degree of flexibility and I am willing to take this away and discuss whether a degree more flexibility is desirable.

Let me touch on a number of other issues that have been raised. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, discussed the impact assessment. I can assure him that, under the Bill when passed, the costs of each recall process will be reimbursed to the local authority. The impact assessment covers the fact that the direct and indirect costs, including training, will be reimbursed.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government have been fairly busy with a range of issues. We have perhaps taken longer on this than we should have done, and I note that the House is currently enjoying itself. The question of adequate training is, I suggest, a matter for regulations rather than for inclusion in Bill. I am happy to discuss that with the Opposition Front Bench between Committee and Report. Having said that we will discuss these issues further, I hope that the noble Baroness—

[Lord Snape]

With respect to the Minister, I am afraid that we are discussing the Bill because of discussions between the two Front Benches. They are the cause of the trouble in the first place. Therefore, I do not think the House will be too mollified by the thought of more such discussions taking place. Surely, if the Minister is going to reply properly to Amendment 66 in particular, he ought to be able to tell us how many staff he envisages at these particular places and what training—if any—they are going to get. What guarantees can he and the Government give about security, as far as people wishing to sign a petition are concerned, and what assurances will he be able to give the rest of us that people are signing only once? He has answered none of the questions relevant to Amendment 66. Whether or not the Government have had the regulations drafted after four years is their problem: the House is entitled to a slightly more comprehensive answer from the Minister than it has had so far.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have stressed several things. The details of premises used, and other arrangements, are matters for local election administrators. I have spent some time over the past three years talking to local election officers, and I have the highest respect for those whom I met, both in Yorkshire and in London. That is the way we manage elections; those people understand the local area, including its geography and the sort of premises that are the most valuable. Moreover, facilities for training are a matter for discussion between the Association of Electoral Administrators, the Electoral Commission and the Government. Those discussions have already begun and are well under way, but the final details await the completion of the Bill.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I do not recollect that. I recognise that all those in this House who have been MPs are deeply unhappy about the Bill. I also recognise that outside the Palace of Westminster there are many who would like the Bill to be a lot rougher and tougher than it is.

[Lord Snape]

The Minister will have to do a bit better than that. Outside the Houses of Parliament there are those who will not be satisfied until Members of Parliament live in a tent on the Thames and pay to come to work. He will have to find a slightly better argument than that to convince the House.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, as I walked down the main street in Saltaire on Saturday, I saw on the noticeboard outside the hairdresser a scribbled note that said, “Kill politicians, not trees”—we are currently culling some of the trees in Saltaire. I went in and had a minor altercation with the hairdresser about whether or not he would have been equally open to putting “policemen” or “Muslims” on his “Kill politicians” thing. It was a long altercation, and my wife did her best to calm me down. Let us recognise that we are in a situation in which politicians are not among the most popular or respected people in Britain, and the Bill is in part a response to that—and I stress that it was in the manifestos of the three political parties last time. Noble Lords do not like that response, but that is the situation which we are in.

[Lord Snape]

Having had the courage to say that to the hairdresser, did the Minister have the courage to stay for a haircut?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Not there.

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[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Well, one of them has come in, but the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, was not elected: he got in on a free ticket.

[Lord Snape]

In fairness to the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, he does write jokes for the Prime Minister.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That surprises me. They are not very good jokes, are they? They are not as good as mine anyway, that is for sure.

Amendments 38 and 39 are very serious amendments. As I said, I hope that we will get some response from the Minister. I was very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Norton, for whom I have the greatest respect—he is a great expert on the constitution and these matters— saw the link between those amendments, particularly Amendment 39, and the ones we have just been discussing.

Amendment 38 would change the day on which a recall petition will be available to sign from the 10th working day after the petition officer receives the Speaker’s notice to the 21st working day. The petition officer has other responsibilities. He is usually the chief executive or a senior officer of the local council and has lots of other things to do. The amendment gives him time to start looking for places that could be used for signing the petition and for getting staff organised and everything prepared for the petition signing. I think that 10 working days is asking too much of those hard-pressed individuals and is pushing ahead far too quickly with the procedure. He or she should be given more time.

I then propose reducing the length of the petition signing period from eight weeks to two weeks. In a general election, of course, we have only one day to cast our vote—the postal vote provision gives us other opportunities, but it is very limited. To provide eight weeks for the petition to be signed seems to me to be designed to make life really difficult for the MP. There is an opportunity for a bandwagon to be built up. Later, we will be discussing expenditure and the various organisations that may spend money—political organisations, religious organisations, pressure groups of one kind or another—which could build up their campaign against a Member of Parliament that has nothing to do with the reason why the Member of Parliament has been subject to a recall petition. Again, we will be discussing this later, but it would be possible under the present proposals.

Let us say that when the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was a Member of Parliament for his constituency, he, sadly, suffered a recall petition. It would have been open for other people who did not like his views on the environment or any other aspect to try to get rid of him for those reasons, not for the reasons of the recall petition. Eight weeks gives opportunity for such campaigns to be got up. It would also be possible for people to oppose the Member of Parliament for things that he had done, such as votes that he had taken for or against changing the abortion limit. They might not like his religion or his views on any other aspect. Eight weeks gives the opportunity for that bandwagon effect to take place. Two weeks seems to me to be quite long enough for anyone who pays some attention to why the recall petition has been instituted to think about it and to sign it. Even in the islands, they could get from Canna to Lewis in two weeks to sign the petition. It certainly would not need eight weeks.

The noble Lord, Lord Norton, raised the issue of the cost of this whole process, which will be huge. I will be interested to see the reply and the information that the Minister gives to my noble friend Lord Howarth. The Minister said that he would provide the basis on which the £50,000 forecast was based. I must say that I am very sceptical about this, particularly the aim to keep the signing places open for eight weeks. It was originally proposed that the signing places were to be open from 7 in the morning until 10 at night—the whole time when people are normally able to vote. Now it looks as if it will be 9 am until 5 pm. That is still a full day for eight weeks. That is a very substantial amount.

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[Baroness Corston]

My Lords, I support Amendment 39. I will follow on from the comment made by my noble friend Lord Grocott against the eight-week signing period. In every election I fought I was preached against from pulpits on the issue of abortion. A general election takes about three or four weeks. I can imagine what would happen to a Member of Parliament in a constituency when an issue such as that moulders on for eight weeks, and the degree to which that single issue could influence the outcome of an election. However, to return more specifically to the issues raised by my noble friend Lord Foulkes on the necessity for returning officers to become petition officers and oversee the recall mechanism, can the Minister tell us in his response what discussions the Government have had with the Local Government Association about the way in which it sees this legislation working—and, if there have been such discussions, what was its response?

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, I support Amendments 38 and 39. I will ask the Minister a couple of genuine questions. He talked about the consultations that have taken place and will take place with local government officials about the administration of the Bill. I presume that the petition officer is more than likely to be the chief executive of the local authority—that is a reasonable assumption to make. Bearing in mind the numerous duties that chief executives have, it would be perfectly sensible for the Minister to look again at Amendment 38.

He has already said that among the matters to be resolved is the suitability of premises in which the petition is to be signed. Obviously, that cannot be done in a matter of hours; presumably it would take up a substantial chunk of the chief executive’s time. I do not want to go over the previous amendment again, but in his reply the Minister indicated the number of matters that are still subject to discussion between the Government and local authorities before the Bill is implemented. So I put it to him that surely, for those reasons, it would make sense for the number of working days to be increased from 10 to 21.

On Amendment 39, I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Norton. My noble friend mentioned abortion and the difficulties she had in her former constituency. Some years ago I was asked to speak about capital punishment on a television programme called “Central Weekend”, which might be familiar to at least one of my noble friends on this side of the House. Shortly before the programme went out there was a particularly brutal murder in the West Midlands. The question of capital punishment was raised—and understandably so—by local and national newspapers, in particular the newspaper covering my own constituency. I received a considerable amount of correspondence and some degree of odium because of the stance that I took. I would hate to think of someone in a similar position facing eight weeks of this sort of barrage, as well as whatever he or she had been charged with in the first place. An eight-week period would allow the media in effect to make the decision for the electorate, by putting on the sort of pressure that my noble friend faced on the subject she has just mentioned, which I faced some years ago and which many of us face. So both the amendments are sensible and I commend them to the Minister.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, the discussion about the role of different professions is interesting. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, will help me. One of the little pieces of doggerel that I have remembered for years—I am sure that he will know the source of it—is about a journalist:

“I am the daily mentor who

Tells the Premier what to do:

And when he’s done it, I go on

To tell him what he should have done”.

Perhaps by the end of this he will let me know the source of that, which I learnt as a little girl.

The major amendment in this group is of course Amendment 39, which, as has been said, reduces the petition period from eight to two weeks. I have some sympathy with this as a probing amendment, simply to get the Government to spell out why they chose eight weeks rather than two, four, six or, indeed, even 10 weeks. Why was this thought to be the appropriate period? I assume that it was not chosen in the way that the Government chose the figure 500 as the number of seats they wanted in the House of Commons—by plucking the number from the air. I assume that there was more to it than that, but I have failed so far to find out what it was.

As an actual amendment, I am less sure that the two-week period per se would work. Let us think of this as more akin to an election. Before it we have that long run-in, or phoney war, which I am afraid we know too much about at the moment and which alerts people that the election is coming. If there were just two weeks to actually sign in that situation, that would be one thing. As noble Lords have said, the amendment has great attractions in terms of costs. However, as a realistic time for the whole process of alerting people to the issue, their right to sign, where the venues are—whether there are very few or more than few—and, importantly, to get postal votes if they cannot get there, two weeks is not the answer.

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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.