Recall of MPs Bill

David Davis Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Lady makes an important point in the context of Northern Ireland. My understanding is that the Bill would not apply to those Members because they have not taken the Oath to sit in the House, but she will no doubt wish to raise that point in Committee.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I favour a recall Bill and understand that my right hon. Friend has found it difficult to get an agreement, but might we at least have some logic in this process? Under the mechanism set out in the Bill, a Member of Parliament who was arrested at a demonstration and imprisoned would be forced to take part in a new election if 10% of his constituents disapproved of his position.

[Greg Clark]

My right hon. Friend clearly exposes one of the aspects of our debate. The decision would be in the hands of that Member’s constituents in two respects: a petition of 10% of the electorate would be required to occasion a recall by-election; and then that Member could stand in the by-election. My right hon. Friend has experience of standing in a by-election—not caused by any wrongdoing, I hasten to say, but because he was making a point—and he won the support of his constituents for his action, so his experience might provide some reassurance.

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[Stephen Twigg]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman and will return to that point in a moment.

The constant pressure of notices of intent, even if they are supported by only a very small minority in a constituency—a notice of intent could be triggered by just 5% of the electorate—could prove destabilising to the ability of the Member of Parliament to fulfil his or her duties, both in this place and, frankly, in their constituency. Politicians often have to make decisions that are unpopular in their constituency, but they may be decisions that are ultimately right for the country as a whole. In our system, a Secretary of State is accountable to this House, but if they are a Member of this House they also have a constituency. Does it make sense for a Secretary of State to face recall for making a decision that may be unpopular in their own constituency but may make sense for the country as a whole?

[Mr David Davis]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for referring to our committee, but I think he underestimates the wisdom of the public. When I had my by-election, the policy I was campaigning against had the support of 72% of the public, and yet I was returned by 75%. In the proposal authored by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), the thresholds are sizeable: there would need to be, in effect, 15,000 votes in a normal constituency and then 50% of the constituency would have to agree before a recall could be triggered. That is a much higher threshold than this rather ill-thought-through Government proposal.

[Stephen Twigg]

The right hon. Gentleman has anticipated the next and, Members will be relieved to hear, final part of my speech. I accept that his committee produced rather high thresholds for the later stages of its proposal, but the 5% threshold for a notice of intent is low. There are sensible ways in which some of these concerns could be countered. Is there a way in which we could ensure that MPs could be recalled only for their misconduct?

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[Chris Bryant]

I am very fond of the hon. Lady, but I think she has deliberately misunderstood what I was saying. Judges regularly say in their summing up that they are taking into consideration the fact that because the person is a Member of Parliament they would lose their job as well if they were to be given a custodial sentence of more than a year. It is a matter of fact that these matters are taken into consideration.

There is another problem with the Bill. Having set a very high threshold—that the courts or MPs get to decide whether somebody is subject to the recall process—it then sets the very low threshold of 10% for throwing someone out. As I said, no Member has achieved election to this House by 50% of the total electorate, so the idea that it would be difficult to find 10% to force them out of their seat, notwithstanding the remarks of the hon. Gentleman, is to live in cloud cuckoo land.

If those two thresholds are wrong, what is the right one? Should we just leave it to the public, which in essence is what we heard from the hon. Member for Richmond Park? As many Members have said, there is a danger that the extremely wealthy could pervert the process; they could spend lots of money in individual constituencies—or perhaps 10, 20 or 30 at a time—and subvert the proper democratic process. Arguably, big money is already doing that in the British system. We need to look again at how people spend money and at the rules governing not just general elections, but by-elections, because the last thing I want is an American-style democracy where only the rich can ever get elected.

Of course there is a danger of timid MPs, but there is that danger today, and the honest truth is: I would trust the public. I say this for a simple reason. In 2003, I got into a bit of trouble with the electorate, The Mail on Sunday and a whole load of journalists after the paper revealed that I had been using a gay dating website called Gaydar, and there were pictures and so on. The story was not quite as it was presented in some of the newspapers, but be that as it may—

[Mr David Davis]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will once I have finished my point.

One Mail journalist told me they were taking bets in the office on when I would commit suicide. The campaign was malevolent, but it still would have been perfectly legitimate for some of my constituents to say, “Let’s start recall.” People could legitimately have asked about my conduct. However, I also have absolute confidence in the electorate and the people of the Rhondda, and in the people of this country for that matter. They might have got 500, 1,000 or 1,500 to sign the recall, but The Mail on Sunday did its own opinion poll and found that the vast majority of the people in this country did not think I had done anything wrong or that I should resign. Having gone through that hell in November 2003, I say that it is perfectly legitimate, and the wise thing for us to do, to leave it to the public, as long as we make sure that the threshold is decent enough that it is not just about people being vexatious and as long as big money cannot determine the outcome. In the end—

[Chris Bryant]

This is my last sentence, and I am sure that people have heard quite enough from me—

[Mr David Davis]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I am sorry, I did promise to give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Davis]

At the risk of repeating the hon. Gentleman’s point, I remember that we discussed that issue at the time. Surely the outcome of his whole argument is that the public are wiser than we give them credit for. They were wiser about his private life, they are wiser about the influence of big money and they are wiser about our politics. There are many Labour members in my constituency who vote against me religiously but would never vote for a recall, because they think that I am doing my job. Is that not what we end up depending on?

[Chris Bryant]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The proof of that is that after those events, in the 2005 election, I increased my majority. I can only assume that that proves that it pays to advertise.

My argument is simple, really. Yes, let us have recall; it is an important next stage in the democratic process. We have to open up that little sliver of democracy in the political process, because the leviathan is groaning. We need to change, but we need to ensure that we sort out the financial thing, that this cannot be done vexatiously and that we have a high enough threshold.

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[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I think that 10 years ago I would have opposed the Bill, because I would have taken the conventional view that has been expressed by one or two Government Members today. The last decade, however, has led me to believe that the chasm that has grown between the political classes and the ordinary voters—the population of the country—has become too wide. Some of that has, of course, been due to the expenses crisis, but it is by no means either the only or the first reason. As my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) pointed out, the current trend has been ongoing for a long time, but I believe that it is now approaching a crisis point.

I have therefore concluded that a recall Bill is necessary, and, like the hon. Member for Clacton (Douglas Carswell), I shall vote for this Bill, although I must add that I do not view it as a recall Bill. If anything, it is a parliamentary expulsion Bill, because it makes it easy for the establishment of the House to expel someone from the House. Let us imagine the circumstances. A Member is found wanting by his peers in the Standards and Privileges Committee—no doubt amid a vast hue and cry from a number of tabloid and red-top newspapers—and his constituents are then told “If 10% of you vote in the referendum, this man will go.” No matter that 90% of them might want him to stay; in those torrid circumstances, only 10% need to vote, and he will be expelled. I do not think that anyone who was criticised and set up in that way would survive the process, or would be reselected by his party thereafter. He might stand on his own account like Dick Taverne, like the hon. Member for Clacton, or indeed like me, but he would not survive the normal political process. This is, as I have said, a mechanism for political expulsion.

I might find that tolerable if our mechanisms in the House met any sort of judicial test, but, having been here for some 25 years, I suggest Members conduct an experiment. I say this with no ill reflection on the people who serve on and chair the Standards and Privileges Committee. I suggest that Members make a list of the names of all who have been ruled against by the Committee, separate them into two columns consisting of Front Benchers and Back Benchers—I do not suggest that the two columns should consist of those who are within the gilded circle and those who are the mavericks—and compare the treatments of people who have committed the same crime. They will then find two classes of justice. We do not deliver justice in this House; we deliver an opinion of the establishment of the House, and that is why the public are not wrong to view our systems as intolerable.

Let me give one example. I shall not give the examples of those who have been let off, because that might be mean in the circumstances, but I will give an example of someone who, in my view, was very badly treated. It was someone who was no friend of mine and, indeed, no friend of almost anyone in the House: Ken Livingstone. About a decade ago, he received income from a series of speaking engagements. He went to the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests and asked how he should declare that income, and he then declared it in the way the Registrar recommended. Later, someone found out how much money he had made. I think that it was more than £100,000, but in any case it was a lot of money. He was then suddenly hauled before the Standards and Privileges Committee, and forced to make an apology here in the Chamber. Why? He was an outsider. He was a maverick. He had no friends in the House, or at least no friends in the parties in the House. His was not the only case of that kind—I could have picked a number of others—but that was not justice, it was not democracy, and it would not improve this House to formalise such a process by means of the mechanism with which the Minister has presented us today.

Such a system could be made to work only if we replaced the standards and privileges process with a judicial process. I do not think that the House really wants to introduce the law into its mechanisms, but if it wants to adopt a test it will have to be a judicial test. I suspect that, if I were ever in front of the Standards and Privileges Committee, I would be looking for a judicial remedy immediately. So this is not a recall Bill as it stands; it is a parliamentary expulsion Bill, and we should understand that.

I support the proposals made by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), who has been a principled campaigner for these reforms for some time. I shall not take up much more of the House’s time, but I want to remind hon. Members of the differences involved. The Government’s proposal would take either a criminal mechanism or the House’s judgment and turn it into a one-off, 10% referendum. Then it would be over. My hon. Friend’s proposal would have a 5% first threshold to start the process. That would trigger the timetable, and a 20% threshold would follow. In my constituency, that would equate to just short of 15,000 voters. I have never seen a campaign in my constituency get 15,000 voters to go out voluntarily and put their name on a petition.

[Richard Drax]

I am listening carefully to my right hon. Friend. If, as a result of such a referendum, a political scalp were gained and a seat lost, does my right hon. Friend agree that supporters of an opposing party would get out and vote, as they would at a general election? I accept that the numbers would be down, but there could still be significant numbers voting. The numbers that he is talking about would certainly be possible if a seat could be gained in that way.

[Mr Davis]

This point has been made a number of times, particularly by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)but also by others. My hon. Friend is presuming that his constituents would vote on the basis of a simple political judgment, according to whether they wanted a Labour Government, a Tory Government, a Liberal Government or even a UKIP Government, but I do not believe that our constituents behave like that. I believe that they behave in a moral way and make judgments about us. I have discussed this matter with my constituents. Many of those who have never voted for me in my 20-odd years in the constituency would not vote to remove me on that basis. They would not make such a judgment on a political basis. They would recognise that this was a quasi-judicial judgment. That is why we are better off trusting the public than trusting the hierarchy in this House.

[Mike Thornton]

Much of what the right hon. Gentleman says about our constituents is true. However, he is perhaps slightly out of date in regard to the collecting of signatures. We have seen 38 Degrees inundating us with e-mails, and with modern technology it would not be as difficult as it used to be to get a great number of signatures.

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Gentleman misses the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park made. This would involve not an electronic collection but a physical collection of votes. People would have to get out and go down to their town hall or their polling station. I think we have nominated four locations for any given constituency. We thought about this very point; indeed, it is one of the things we crowd-tested with 40,000 people. They recognised, as did members of 38 Degrees, that an electronic vote would be the wrong way to carry out this process. It has to be a process in which people exercise a moral judgment and overcome a physical hurdle by going down to one of those locations and doing something about it. Again, this shows that we are better off trusting our own constituents.

There was much argument in Committee about the figure of 20%. Some people talked about 25%; others talked about less. The simple truth is that 20% is pretty much the norm internationally. Most, if not all, other countries exercising this mechanism do not experience many vexatious actions. The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones)made legitimate points about the role of big money in this exercise, but only a Californian governor has been replaced throughout the century in which this mechanism has been in place in America, despite the fact that many people would have been vehemently opposed by big corporate interests. In any event, we can deal with that through the regulations and laws that will surround this Bill when we make it an Act of Parliament.

This is an incredibly important Bill, but the Government have got it quite materially wrong. This is one of those rare occasions on which it is for the House of Commons to make a judgment that will decide our own future.