Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Graham Stuart and Lord Lansley

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this interesting debate, and I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). In a sense, he and others who support the alternative approach, as set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), are looking for a Bill that would achieve a substantially different end from that of the Government’s Bill. I was surprised, however, that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park appear to argue that we should adopt that alternative approach precisely because they have constructed it in such a manner that it would be unlikely to have any effect. I know that accusations have been made, perhaps with some justification, that the Government’s Bill would result in relatively few instances in which a recall would be triggered, because Members would very likely resign instead, as other Members have in the recent past. However, I do not think we should be looking for a system that is so difficult to manipulate and in which recalls are so unlikely to happen that Members would, in practice, be proof against it.

My starting point is that Members would have little to fear from being the subject of a referendum vote of the kind postulated in the Recall of Elected Representatives Bill, as opposed to the Bill we are considering today. I believe in the genius of the masses. The experience of my 17-plus years representing South Cambridgeshire has taught me that, although I might on many occasions have done something that a minority of my constituents disagreed with, I doubt that they would ever have actually turned me out between elections on those grounds. My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) made a similar point.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

My right hon. Friend makes the point that those in favour of these amendments believe, as I think we all do across this argument, that most Members of this House behave honourably and that there will be very few instances in which the public, when they reflect seriously on the issues, seek to throw us out, but that is not a reason for not putting in place a recall—put that power with people and put trust in people to exercise it properly. The fact that it will be rarely used does not mean it is not important.

[Mr Lansley]

I agree. I have been listening carefully to the debate, and it is interesting to consider under what circumstances the kind of mechanism—the kind of trigger for recall—that is not in the current recall Bill but that is proposed to be put into it in its place would impact on Members. I do not think it would be the prospect that they would be the subject of a referendum vote with 50% voting to have a by-election and the seat vacated. I think that is extremely unlikely. Much more likely, and in my view much more pernicious, is the possibility of large numbers of Members, over the course of a Parliament, being subject to a notice of intent to recall—with all the attendant impact that can have on an MP, not least when deployed by, and in the hands of, the media—for taking steps that may be in line with their manifesto and with the policy of their party or for taking an independent and potentially unpopular line, which, frankly, is even more laudable.

If the hon. Member for Clacton (Douglas Carswell) and some others were here, they would say, “That’s simply putting yourself in a position where you have to listen to your constituents and respond to them.” That is fair enough. We could accept that if this was done simply on that basis, but I think it would be more dangerous if it was deployed in other circumstances.

I made a point to my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park about a Member who had not been the subject of due process. Under his Bill, somebody being charged with an indictable offence would stay the process, but we know perfectly well that substantial periods can pass during which people are the subject of very damaging allegations but are not charged with an offence.

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[Mr Graham Stuart]

rose—

[Mr Lansley]

I will give way first to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), who is being very persistent, as ever, and then to my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart).

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting question, and not a hypothetical one—let us face it: he is referring to a decision of the kind taken in 2003. We have asked today how many people would sign petitions, write to their Member of Parliament or go to one of four designated places in a constituency in order to do something. Well, in my recollection, 2003 was the point when it was most likely that large numbers of the public would have taken some specific action in relation to a Government policy that they had not sanctioned, that certainly was not part of any previous manifesto promise and that they felt was wrong. That raises the following question: what would have happened in 2003 had recall been available?

I say this in a disinterested way, because I did not vote for the invasion of Iraq and so this would not have affected me, but I think there are those who would argue that that is what it is all about—that in those circumstances members of the public would have had an opportunity to say, “Not in our name” by setting up petitions and giving notice of the intention to recall. Throughout the period of the conflict in Iraq there would have been a rebellion among the electorate.

Is that right or wrong? I happen to think that necessarily it is wrong. To return to the constitutional point, we are a representative democracy in which we owe our constituents our collective judgment. We come here not as an independent legislature separate from the decisions of the Government, but to form a Government and sustain them through the legislature. That Government have to make decisions and secure the majority of this House, and we have to stick by that. This proposal would have completely undermined that.

If we are looking for a way to undermine the proposal, let us imagine that it had been possible for the organisers of protests in 2003 to focus on the Prime Minister’s constituency and get 20% of the voters there to sign a petition. They would have done so, even though they recognised that there was no way they could get 50% on the subsequent vote, but it would have had such a destabilising impact on the Prime Minister of the day, in circumstances in which he was doing something that was deeply unpopular but that he felt was right—whether or not he was right is not the matter. I cannot see how a responsible Parliament in a representative democracy could go down that path.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for honouring his pledge to give way to me. I think that he has now come to the heart of the matter, certainly as far as the amendments from our hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) are concerned: whether the electorate would seek to use the power of recall to challenge Members on matters of conscience, on how they vote and, fundamentally, on how they do their job in this place. Hon. Friends who represent university towns might have found themselves subject to such proposals when it came to voting on tuition fees. On balance, I do not believe that the electorate would abuse that power, but I recognise that there is a risk. Does my right hon. Friend have any evidence that it would be misused, as we would see it, in that way?

[Mr Lansley]

This is very difficult, because we are necessarily debating what the circumstances would be, but I have been struck by speeches arguing for amending the Bill on the basis that it will all be all right on the night. Well, legislation is not like that. Legislation is like writing a contract; if we write a contract with somebody—in this case with the electorate—we have to know how it will be used and what will happen when it starts to go wrong. It seems to me that at the moment the defences against those potential problems are not there in the alternative Bill proposed.

Paid Directorships and Consultancies (MPs)

Debate between Graham Stuart and Lord Lansley

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

On behalf of the Government, I ask the House to reject the motion.

I am interested in the contrast, which could not be more obvious, between this Opposition debate and the Bill we have just published. On the one hand, the Bill, the aim of which is to tackle a real issue, focuses on a specific potential problem concerning the transparency of third-party lobbying and third-party influences on the political system. By contrast, the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) has presented a flawed motion to which the House should object regardless of whether Members agree with the principle he has tried to enunciate. It also turns out, however, to be nothing other than an effort to fling mud. He says he is not trying to impugn anybody’s motives, that nobody has done anything wrong, that everything is absolutely fine and that the House has behaved wonderfully, but then he says that the House should be constrained. It makes no sense.

It was interesting that the hon. Gentleman did not tell the House the reason for the motion. It is chaff. As the Leader of the Opposition knows, what matters is the perception that the Labour party is in the pay of the trade unions, which control its policies, candidacies and leadership, which it bought; so to divert attention from that, which goes to the heart of this issue, the Labour party throws up this chaff.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Where they are aware of it, my constituents are concerned not about the perception, but about the reality: that the current Leader of the Opposition was not put there by a one man, one vote process and that Labour MPs were outvoted by the trade unions.

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is right. Not only Labour MPs, but the Labour party membership, were outvoted by the trade unions, and nothing that the Leader of the Opposition is saying will change that. As far as I am aware, one third of the electoral college for the leadership of the Labour party will continue to be trade-union controlled, so if they can get a sufficiently large majority, they can control the leadership of the Labour party.

The speech of the hon. Member for Hemsworth made no sense. I tried to listen to it and hear the argument, but if he wants to intervene and explain, even at this stage, I would be glad of that.

The motion is about regulating the ways that Members of the House work. As Leader of the House—that is one reason why I am responding to this debate—it is my view that proposals adopted by the House to regulate how Members behave should be the product of consultation across the House, and considered on the basis of proper scrutiny by relevant bodies, either in the House or externally. In this case, the Labour party has put forward a proposal without any such basis or advice to the House; procedurally it has gone about it the wrong way.

What is the real objective behind the motion? We should proceed in this House on the basis of trying to solve real problems. If the hon. Gentleman wants simply to talk about the issue, and the Labour party wants to get rid of the perception that those who are paid in this House are controlled by their paymasters, I have a simple proposition for the hon. Gentleman, which involves not taking money from the trade unions. That is not just a perception; the reality is that Labour’s interests are controlled by the trade unions. What is the hon. Gentleman trying to solve?

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[Mr Graham Stuart]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Leader of the Opposition shows through today’s motion that he does not really understand how business works? He said a year or two ago, if I remember correctly, that he would like more entrepreneurs on the Labour Benches. When we look across the House, we have to ask how many people on those Benches started a business and got it going. There is a small number, but not many. It is quite clear from the motion that they do not understand. I have been a publisher since the age of 25 and I am a director of the company I set up then; I do not think that that harms my ability to represent my constituents in this House.

[Mr Lansley]

I am sure that my hon. Friend is right. I was rather disappointed because the implication of the motion seems to be that if someone is in business, they ought specifically to be excluded from being able to pursue those interests in this House. The hon. Member for Hemsworth was perfectly happy for people in all sorts of profession to continue—doctors, farmers, lawyers and, presumably, architects. There are all sorts of partnerships and a sole trader or partner would be able to continue to work in their interests, but a director of a company would apparently not be able to do so. I presume that he would exclude paid directors of companies that are limited by guarantee, which are often not-for-profit organisations. I fail to see why so many such organisations, which do good work, should be precluded from having any Member of Parliament participating in them.

The motion refers to the

“wider regulatory framework for second jobs”.

I failed to hear in the hon. Gentleman’s opening speech what he meant by that, so perhaps we will hear some more about it from the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dugher) when he concludes the debate.

There are practical issues that mean that the proposal is flawed. It refers to a director but not to an employee of a company, and it does not refer to partners—trustees have been mentioned. A range of circumstances have been ignored and left out, and the effort is to preclude directorships specifically. It refers to “consultancies”, although that is undefined, and apparently being an adviser would be okay. Or would every adviser be treated as a consultant? If we put the word “adviser” into the motion, instead of referring to consultants, it would no doubt extend widely among those on the Labour Benches, but apparently that is okay—[Interruption.] I will not go through every entry in the register, as I have already done that, but there are many circumstances in which Members are advisers to organisations. Apparently, I do not understand whether they are consultants or not.

As I have said, many professions, including many that are very time consuming—there are Members in the Chamber who consume quite a bit of time in writing books and articles and taking part in broadcast activities, but that seems to be perfectly okay—are ignored.

I cannot see from the motion who would police the new rules. Who would define who was a director for this purpose? Who would undertake the difficult task of deciding what was a consultancy? I cannot imagine the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards would welcome the task of monitoring the provisions—we might hear whether she would. Do we need a new quango? Would Members rather the function be given to IPSA—[Interruption.] I think that was an ironic cheer from Opposition Members. IPSA considered the matter in its latest report and stated, perhaps with a moment’s regret, that it was not within its remit. It then made an ex cathedra statement about it anyway—

Business of the House

Debate between Graham Stuart and Lord Lansley

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

We will of course consider that. I had a conversation with my right hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell) and he was clear in encouraging us to consider having a debate on the middle east. I have not been able to find time now, but it is open to hon. Members to seek such a debate using the time available to the Backbench Business Committee. Likewise, it is open to the Opposition, which has time for a debate next week should they wish to use it for that purpose. I think what I said was simply a reflection of what has been said many times by the Government and was repeated by the Foreign Secretary on Tuesday: what we want to do is secure the best possible progress in negotiations and use the ceasefire to make progress quickly. His response illustrated that urgency and the Government’s view that precipitating a vote at the United Nations was not necessarily the best way of making progress.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

May we have a debate in Government time on community first responders, in particular on maintaining and improving training capacity? They do such a lot to ensure that people in rural areas are looked after when ambulance response times are often so slow.

[Mr Lansley]

I share completely my hon. Friend’s support for and appreciation of community first responders. Ambulance service trusts across the country have achieved the most consistent performance to date in responding to category A calls. However, while they meet the overall targets well, we know that response time is variable and particularly difficult in rural areas. Those of us who represent more rural areas appreciate how community first responders can make an important, additional contribution.

Business of the House

Debate between Graham Stuart and Lord Lansley

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady will have an opportunity to raise that issue during questions to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions next Monday.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

I, too, welcome the new Leader of the House, who I am sure will do an excellent job. May I take him back to his old brief for a moment, and ask for a debate about the gross distortions in health care funding that we inherited from the last Government? For instance, in Dorset, which I believe has the largest elderly population in the country, £4,000 is being spent on each cancer patient, while in Tower Hamlets, which contains very few elderly people, the figure is £13,000. We have a grossly distorted inheritance from Labour. In the name of deprivation, Labour distorted health funding and cheated people of the health care that they deserve.

[Mr Lansley]

A consultation is taking place on the mandate of the NHS Commissioning Board. It will deal with, among other topics, the board’s responsibility to allocate NHS resources on the basis of equal access for equal need. If my hon. Friend wishes to make his points again, the board will be able to take them into account when it receives recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation.

Future of the NHS

Debate between Graham Stuart and Lord Lansley

Monday 9th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

No, not at all, and I do not believe that Monitor believes that either. The hon. Lady can see that the proposal in the Bill is clear. It was the Labour Government who established Monitor as a regulator and who introduced competition into the NHS. The Labour Government did all those things, but Monitor’s job is not to impose competition rules but to deliver what is in the best interest of patients.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The shadow Secretary of State is a decent man and an experienced Minister. The reason his speech was so weak is that he had no conviction because he has been forced by the union paymasters of the Labour party and of the shadow Leader of the Opposition to deliver the sort of speech previously given by the far left who inhabit the Benches way over there. My right hon. Friend should not listen to those voices; he should press ahead and make a difference for patients, not politicians.

[Mr Lansley]

I agree with my hon. Friend that the shadow Health Secretary is a decent man, and at the turn of the year he quite decently expressed his support for the Bill’s principles and his understanding that it was consistent, coherent and comprehensive. It makes one wonder what happened to him in the interim. Did the trade unions—the paymasters of the Labour party—get to him and tell him that they did not like the idea that patients should be able to get the care they need or the idea that we should get resources into the front line rather than into the vested interests of the NHS?

What we are going to do is put patient care at the heart of our reforms. We are not going to let hospital productivity continue to decline as it did over the last decade. Under Labour, we saw a 15% decline in productivity, yet we heard nothing from the shadow Health Secretary about that. It is this Government who are taking action to improve hospital performance by changing the way hospitals are paid to reward excellence—for example, by not paying for unnecessary readmissions of patients who are discharged too soon.