Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Douglas Carswell and Nigel Evans

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Douglas Carswell]

I am a little surprised that my hon. Friend should recoil from the idea that voters might vote against Members on policy grounds. That is the whole point of us, is it not? Surely it is entirely legitimate for people to vote politicians out of office if they do not reflect their policy priorities. This idea that we can somehow separate the two—so that voters can pass judgment on us for our conduct but not our policy priorities—is absurd and ridiculous. Charles I would have agreed with my hon. Friend. I think it is a false distinction, which does not give the voters the respect they deserve.

Let us ponder for a second something that we are used to in this country—the idea of trial by jury. We trust 12 lay people to pass a judgment and to determine the guilt or otherwise of someone accused of wrongdoing. We trust those jurors to decide not whether they agree with the law that was allegedly broken, but whether the defendant has broken the law. We trust them to exercise good judgment. If we have a right of recall, I think we can trust that jury of 70,000 or 80,000 people to exercise good judgment, too.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

Speaking as someone who recently faced a jury, may I say how grateful I was for their independence of mind and the verdict they gave? Like the hon. Gentleman, I have no fear of the electorate. Although I will support the Bill, I want to see it go into Committee and to find ways to make it far more liberal so that the electors get the opportunity, if they so wish, to decide to remove a Member of Parliament at some time. The important point is to get this Bill through tonight, get it into Committee and see what improvements can be made. I understand that the Prime Minister says that he believes this legislation can be improved.

[Douglas Carswell]

I am grateful for that powerful point. If I thought that this measure would allow lynch mob justice, I would be against it, but I trust the judgment of the people in aggregate. Just as we can trust a jury to decide and sometimes exercise perhaps more common sense than public prosecutors, so we can trust the electorate in aggregate to make decisions about the conduct of Members. If we proceed with this, I think we will discover that the voters are a pretty liberal bunch and a pretty forgiving bunch. I generally think that if we trust remote, unaccountable officials and grandees in Westminster, we are likely to get worse decisions than if we trusted the voters in aggregate. If we can improve the proposals by widening the body of people who decide, so much the better.