Recall of MPs Bill

David Amess Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

That is the other major drafting difficulty. I do not believe it would be right for me to put something before the Committee that accidentally repealed the Bill of Rights. I think the Bill of Rights provides important protection to Members. My proposals skate on the very edge of what counts as parliamentary privilege and what does not. If the words had been uttered here, they would not be covered by the recall procedure, but I do not think they should be covered by that procedure rather than by having a general election. That is my answer.

What mechanism am I proposing? It is for 100 electors from the constituency—[Interruption.]

[The Temporary Chair (Mr David Amess)]

Order.

[Mr Heath]

Thank you, Mr Amess.

I am proposing that 100 constituents—I deliberately kept the number low—can petition and make a claim of misconduct to an electoral court. That election court will then receive submissions relating to that claim or petition and will receive any rebuttal from the Member of Parliament concerned. The court will be asked not to find guilt—that would provide the difficulty over the clash with the Bill of Rights—but rather to certify that a prima facie case of misconduct has been made. The recall process would be triggered and it would then be for the electorate to decide. The jury would be, as was said earlier, the electorate, and they would decide whether they felt that the case was sufficiently proven and that they would no longer be prepared to accept the individual as their Member of Parliament. The recall process would then proceed.

Is my new clause a perfectly formed amending provision? I do not believe it is because of the very serious drafting issues I have mentioned. If, however, the Committee’s view is that misconduct should be captured, but thought and speech should not be captured, my new clause provides a potential mechanism for doing so. I hope to hear from the two Front-Bench teams—to be fair to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, I have partially heard it already—that they are prepared to take the provisions away, talk to people much more learned in the law than I could be as a layman, try to provide a workable mechanism and then lay the proposals before the House on Report. It is essential to crack this nut of public access to the system. That is what I want to achieve. I will support the Bill irrespective of whether it contains a further trigger, but I would very much like to see a mechanism that gives the general public access to something that is currently exclusively the preserve of this House if not through custodial sentencing.