Recall of MPs Bill
James Paice Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Zac Goldsmith
Those fears, however sincere, are misguided, and I want to explain why before I take any further interventions.
First, on a technical level, the numbers make such a thing virtually impossible. To reiterate, under my proposals, no Member could be recalled unless 50% plus one of his or her constituents voted for that recall, so there would be no question of a minority hounding an MP out of office—unlike with the Government’s plans, under which, bizarrely, 10% of constituents could throw out their MP, even if the other 90% absolutely adored them—and no Member could even face a full recall vote unless 20% of electors, or roughly 14,000 people, made the effort to go in person to a town hall, within a limited time frame, to sign a petition asking for one. We heard last week from hon. Members who had received 500 e-mails about badger culls and 400 e-mails about equal marriage, but those figures of 400 and 500 would be nowhere near enough to topple an MP, to trigger a referendum, or even to get to the point of having a recall petition. Those numbers are pitifully small compared with those required to clear the hurdles even to instigate the process that I am describing. What is more, those letters that MPs receive are often online and in template form; they can be sent at the mere click of a mouse. We are talking about a completely different scenario.
It is no coincidence that many of the Members who have unfairly faced the greatest difficulty during this Parliament, the very people whom the critics of recall might imagine to be the most vulnerable to attack, have put their names to my amendments, and they were the first to do so—my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) and my right hon. Friends the Members for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and for Meriden (Mrs Spelman). They did so because they know that the existence of recall is the best possible way of challenging a noisy minority of critics either to put up or shut up. They know that when a recall petition fails to materialise, a Member will be able to turn to his or her tormentors and say, “The silent majority does not share your view.”
Sir James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I entirely share my hon. Friend’s view that many of the letters we receive are identical, having been prompted by one source, and that they represent a tiny minority. Could not that be said of the e-mails and letters we have received in support of his amendments?
Zac Goldsmith
Even if my right hon. Friend had received not a single letter in support of recall, that would not change my own commitment to trying to secure this very minor but nevertheless meaningful reform.
The key point that I plead with Members to consider is that people can be trusted. They are not a mob of fools who are easily driven to the polling booths by manipulative media barons; they are our friends, our neighbours and our family. They can tell the difference between the rare examples of misbehaviour or betrayal so egregious that justice demands recall and the much more frequent instances of legitimate disagreements on policy or of trivial, minor foolishness. Although he spoke against recall very well last week, I think that the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) made that point himself, albeit inadvertently, when he said that his predecessor could easily have been recalled because of her views on abortion—she represented a largely Catholic seat—but she won seven elections, and in each one her majority grew. Voters are like us: they can respect and support someone without having to agree on every single issue. Very few people in this world are motivated purely by one concern over one issue.
Thomas Docherty
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. The hon. Member for Richmond Park has been struggling for four years to come up with a workable definition. The reality is that a failure to do so does not give us a pass to proceed without a definition. We are deeply concerned that these provisions would be open to vexatious challenges.
Sir James Paice
I am following what the hon. Gentleman is saying very carefully. He is right that nobody has managed to define wrongdoing. Does he not accept, however, that the two different amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and I have in their own way sought not to define wrongdoing but to exclude certain issues relating to freedom of expression, which we will come on to later? Rather than defining wrongdoing, we could make exceptions to what is clearly not wrongdoing.
Thomas Docherty
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby will touch on that point and on points made by the right hon. Member for Somerton and Frome and others.
Sir Edward Leigh
The Minister dealt precisely with that point, and I am quite prepared to engage in discussions with the Government. I do not want to defend somebody who puts down questions for cash. That was not the purpose of my amendment. In fact, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome came up to me at one point and said, “If you inserted the word ‘properly’ in the middle of the amendment to make sure you were acting in a proper fashion, and you were just expressing a point of view that this procedure should not be started, we could resolve the issue.” So I am sure we can deal with this point.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice) has a very similar amendment that would kick in if that of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park is passed, so we are working in tandem on this. If the latter amendment is passed—I do not want to speak for my right hon. Friend, who can speak for himself—I urge Members on both sides of the House to think carefully about my right hon. Friend’s amendment. It would make it clear that, although we had accepted the point of view of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park that the process should be taken out of our hands entirely, this whole recall procedure could not be started just on the basis of how one speaks and votes. If, as I suspect from the speeches we have heard, we reject my hon. Friend’s amendment, I hope the Government will look kindly on my amendment so we can include it in the Bill and clearly preserve the freedom and liberties of this House, which we value so highly.
Sir James Paice
When my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said that I can speak for myself, I was beginning to doubt whether I was going to get the opportunity, particularly as it is probably a couple of hours since the Minister replied to the speech that I had not then given.
I should start by pointing out that I am speaking with complete independence, because whatever happens to the Bill, it will not apply to me as I am not seeking re-election. I am therefore looking at it, I hope, as objectively as possible. As my hon. Friend has just said, my amendment (a) is to new clause 2, so if new clauses 1 and 2 fail, my amendment obviously falls. I have some sympathy with those amendments, although nothing like enough to make me support them as they stand.
My hon. Friend—he is a friend—the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) deserves credit for trying to find a way forward beyond the way the Bill goes, but nothing like as far as my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) has gone. I am slightly in conflict with my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) because, despite his brilliant historical exposition of the freedoms we have in this House, I think the time has come when we have to recognise that the public do not trust us to manage our own affairs. We have accepted that in respect of allowances, although I will not go down that road. We are not all particularly thrilled with what we have, but never mind: we have accepted it. I think we probably have to accept it in this context, as well, but in nothing like as wide open a way as the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park and others suggest. As I say, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome, and I was really pleased that the Government intimated that they will look at his proposals.
I want briefly to explain why I wanted to table this amendment. If the Committee is minded to support my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park, it is crucial that we narrow down the field to which recall could be applied. I know that he and others take a different view—that the field should be wide open and we should entirely trust our constituents in that regard—but as many Members have said this evening, I seriously wonder whether we are creating a problem unnecessarily, and an opportunity for large pressure groups, probably backed with big money, to make a big impression on this House and to counter and influence the way in which Members vote.
The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), who is no longer in the Chamber, cited his experiences, and the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) referred to when he was a Croydon Member—there seems to be a history of Labour Members representing Croydon marginals for short periods—with a majority of 81. Fortunately, I have not been in that position, but I fully understand why people with such a majority may feel pressurised about how they vote. This is not a party issue, and I am delighted that Conservative Members have a free vote, as is only right and proper.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
My right hon. Friend talks about Members who, like me, represent marginal seats. We must be careful that we do not give the public the completely wrong impression that we are not going for this idea because we are running scared of being destabilised in such seats.
Sir James Paice
I note what my hon. Friend says, but I would not be prepared to say that, if I had a majority in the order of 100, I would not be very concerned about what people thought about me. I am concerned anyway, but at least, for the reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough set out, I am able to stand here and say whatever I like in the knowledge that I am protected by privilege. I would not wish to abuse that privilege—I do not think that I have ever sought to do so—but if what a Member said could be held against them, as might be the case if the amendments are agreed to, we could jeopardise their opportunity to speak with the freedoms that we rightly pride in this place.
Like other Members, I have looked up a couple of statistics. Only 207 hon. Members—less than a third—received over 50% of the vote. Indeed, 100 Members received the votes of less than 25% of their electorate, which demonstrates just how tight things really are. We can imagine the opportunity for well organised and probably well funded pressure groups to exert influence on Members with a small proportion of the vote—just enough to have scraped home—through the threat of recall. It is easy for Members to say, as some have, “I am far too strong-minded and I will not be bought,” but I challenge that. It would be a brave individual who faced such pressure yet did not feel that they might have to bend to it.
I will not add to what we have heard about vexatious cases, but those of us who have been here for a number of years know that all Governments, of all complexions, become very unpopular at sometime during their mid-term—some are unpopular for the whole term—yet despite that, they quite often get re-elected. However, during that mid-term period of unpopularity, it would be possible to have a series of recalls in tight marginal seats simply to change incumbency, and that could end up changing the Government. I do not have a problem with a change of Government between general elections—that is democracy—but it would be wrong if that were to arise because of a concerted effort targeted at specific MPs on the basis of things that they had said or votes they had cast. That was why I tabled amendment (a) to new clause 2, which would protect Members by not allowing reasons relating to their freedom of expression from being cited in a statement of reason.
In response to the speech I had not then given, the Minister said that my suggestion would work only to a certain extent, because it would not stop such issues being raised as part of a general campaign. However, if those issues could not be cited as reasons for seeking a recall petition, that might be enough to stop a campaign from starting, as other reasons would need to be cited in the statement. It is perfectly true that there could be other mechanisms for publishing the real reason, which is how the Member had spoken or voted, but I think that preventing that being promulgated as the official reason that goes out with the petition would offer considerable protection.
If there is a better way of doing that, obviously I, like other Members who have proposed amendments, would be happy to listen to it. However, if the Committee is minded to support new clause 2—as I have said, I could not possibly support it unless my amendment (a) is accepted by its proposers—I would have to oppose the whole raft of amendments standing in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park and other hon. Members.
If we stopped people on the street and asked them about recall, most would say—if it registered at all—that it relates to misconduct and bad behaviour. Very few would relate it to votes, speeches or views. Nevertheless, I think that there is that risk, and I want to protect hon. Members from it. My amendment would prevent anybody giving as a reason for recall anything that fell under freedom of expression. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough has tabled a similar amendment, but I will not repeat what he has said.
Having been a Member for more years than I care to remember, I fear that the idealistic way in which the amendments have been cast means that they are just too broad. As I said at the outset of my comments, I fully accept the need to go further than the Government are going, and I think that there is a need for popular involvement, but it has to concentrate on the real issues that cause the public concern: unacceptable behaviour by their Member of Parliament that devalues their role. We all agree that that is necessary. The issue is whether we extend that to matters relating to freedom of speech, which I think would be a step too far.
Crispin Blunt
I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak at the end of the debate, presumably before my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) responds. It has been a really excellent debate. However, we need to remember where the Bill, and the amendments that have been tabled, come from. They arrived in all the parties’ manifestos in 2010 as a response to the expenses disaster. All of us who lived through that know how debilitating it was and understand the enormous damage it did to the reputation of this place.
We have here a collapse of institutional self-confidence. With regard to how we can regulate ourselves and prostrate ourselves in front of our electorate, almost nothing is good enough in addressing that lack of confidence and trying to regain some of our reputation with the electorate. I suggest that the proposition coming from the Government, in the form of the Bill, and the amendments proposed to it are a continuation of that. As an institution, we are like a whipped dog that is simply cowering ever lower.
Counter-intuitively, I think that it is about time we started making the case for this institution and for how it works, as political parties that are here to support an Administration that is able to put through a credible programme of government for four or five years—now five years, by statute—and to govern effectively in the interests of the country.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) put the populist case absolutely wonderfully in her brilliant polemic, but I am afraid that a rather difficult practical case must be put in opposition to it. If we all took her principled view about our duties in this place, we would not have an Administration for four or five years who were capable of putting together a coherent programme of government and addressing the issues of the country over the lifetime of a Parliament. I know that she does not like the Whips Office—I served in the Opposition Whips Office for about five years, so in that sense I am guilty as charged—but, as Enoch Powell said, Whips are the sewers of the system; they are absolutely essential to the general health of the entire system. She criticises her colleagues for doing “grubby deals” on this and that, but that is what we have to do in order to build a coalition either within a political party or between political parties to deliver coherent government.
Iraq: Coalition Against ISIL
James Paice Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Sir James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
We have heard some erudite and persuasive speeches from Members who have far more knowledge of the region than I do. There seems to be little doubt that the House will support the motion; I strongly welcome that, and I shall do the same. I do not intend to try to persuade the House of the evils of ISIL or of the need to bomb or to do anything, but I want to flag up three aspects that I hope the Government will bear in mind. I particularly welcomed the speeches made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke)—who, as one would have expected, covered the issues extremely well—and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), and it is in the same vein that I shall speak briefly about the fact that we may need to do more.
First, although I am sure that we all strongly welcome the tremendous coalition involving so many other Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister, when he winds up the debate, will be able to address some of the stories that are going round. It is being suggested that the support from some of those countries is pretty lukewarm, and that their participation in the air strikes has been pretty small. Indeed, some have accused them of doing little more than flying around. It would be useful to know precisely their role. I also hope that the Deputy Prime Minister will address the financial issue. It is all very well to say “They should stop buying the oil” when financial institutions and mechanisms are turning that oil into the flow of cash that is buying the weapons, and so forth, for ISIL. I hope that pressure can be brought to bear so that the situation can be dealt with through those financial institutions.
My second point relates to the Prime Minister’s wholly understandable commitment that we should not put British troops on the ground. I firmly believe that we should always retain some element of surprise, and that—here I use a phrase that has already been used—if we will the end, we need to will the means. I do not want to see British troops on the ground. I entirely agree that it is up to the Iraqi army and the peshmerga to be the troops on the ground, and to take back the ground that, hopefully, air strikes will liberate. Nevertheless, I am not sure that it is wise to rule out the issue of troops on the ground for ever and a day, which I think is what we are doing.
My final point concerns Syria. I am sure that the Prime Minister will come back to the House to deal with the subject—as, indeed, I believe that he should—but I think that, before doing so, he needs to address the fundamental question of how we can attack ISIL in Syria without being seen as in some way supporting the Assad regime, when we are supporting the Free Syrian Army at the same time. I am afraid that there is still a small lacuna in policy, as I understand it, on that issue.
EU Council, Security and Middle East
James Paice Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
May I first say how delighted I am that the NATO conference is coming to Newport? I know that the hon. Gentleman and others in Newport will give the many different delegations and world leaders a warm welcome. One of the most important things at the NATO conference will be to send a clear signal that we take our article V obligations very seriously; all NATO members should be aware of that. As I said in answer to earlier questions, we should see more troops from the different nations in the countries of NATO to demonstrate that.
Sir James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I strongly welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to article V, but I am unclear as to whether he feels that that extends to the situation in Ukraine. I hear what he says about sanctions, but he will understand that many people question their value. Is it not therefore essential that NATO should make it absolutely clear to President Putin this weekend that Ukraine must not fall under his dominion, that this is down to the Ukrainian people and that NATO is prepared to ensure that this is the case?
The Prime Minister
I agree with my right hon. Friend that we should make it absolutely clear that it is unacceptable for Russia to behave in this way, but we should also be clear about how we are going to respond. I do not believe that we are contemplating—or would contemplate —a military response to the situation in Ukraine, so it would be wrong to threaten that. Instead, we should be threatening something that we can and, in my view, will do, which is to impose a permanent sanctions regime that gets tighter all the time if Russia continues down this path. That would totally reset the relationship that Russia has with the rest of the world.
Oral Answers to Questions
James Paice Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I will be visiting his constituency in the next 16 months. I absolutely agree with him that it is unacceptable when people pay below the minimum wage. We want to see more enforcement and action to make sure that that does not happen. It is not acceptable, we have a minimum wage for a good reason and I want to see it properly enforced.
Sir James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Is it not the case that we have learned over successive years during the past two or three decades that a responsible economic policy to maximise tax yields is one that sets the tax rates at the rates that will yield the most? Tax rates set too high are the politics of envy and actually raise less in taxes.
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend makes a sensible point. The point of setting tax rates is to raise revenue, not to make a political point. What the Opposition want to do is make a political point because they believe in the politics of envy, not in raising money for public services. In the end the truth is this: the top 1% of taxpayers in our country are now paying 30% of the total income tax take. As I said, the richest taxpayers are actually going to be paying more in every year of this Government than when those two on the Opposition Front Bench sat in the Treasury and made such a mess of our economy.
G20
James Paice Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The figures the right hon. Gentleman gives are interesting. The point I would make is that I put into the Government motion the fact that we should listen to the weapons inspectors, have a process at the United Nations and have a second vote before action. I included everything that his Front Benchers wanted—every single thing—so the fact that they did not vote for it shows me that they are not serious about the issue; they are serious about political positioning. As Prime Minister, it is very difficult to deal with that. That is why I believe the House spoke quite clearly.
Sir James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
In the discussions, did the Prime Minister get the impression that President Putin was speaking as a mouthpiece and defender of the Assad regime, or that he was prepared to use Russia’s immense power and influence over Assad to persuade him to come to the table and enter into serious negotiations for transition?
The Prime Minister
From all my discussions with President Putin—not just at St Petersburg, but at Sochi, No. 10 Downing street and the G8 summit at Lough Erne —I believe that he wants to see a stable Syria and a stable middle east. He is very concerned about instability and terrorism. We have a profound disagreement about the role the opposition could play and, obviously, about what happened with the chemical weapons, but there is some long-term commonality of purpose: wanting a peaceful and stable Syria for the future. That is what we have to work with.
Oral Answers to Questions
James Paice Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I say to the hon. Gentleman—this is an important point—that we have introduced the bank levy. We think that that is a better answer than a one-off bonus tax. The bank levy will, of course, be paid every year, so it will raise considerably more than a one-off bonus tax. What my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has done when the bank levy has not come up to the figures that we require is increase the bank levy to make sure that they do.
Sir James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I remind the House of my declared interests.
Tomorrow the Prime Minister will go to Brussels to argue, rightly, for a substantial reduction in common agricultural policy funding. Will he ensure that any reduction applies to farmers right across Europe, not just those in the UK? Will he also make sure that he does not fall into the same trap as his predecessor did last time around in 2005? When pressing for cuts, his predecessor ended up with a cut to the one part of the CAP that everyone thinks is worth while—the rural development programme and the environment.
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend speaks very knowledgeably about this matter. These will be extremely difficult negotiations. Obviously, our aim is the significant cut that I have spoken about. The point that he makes about agriculture is important, particularly in respect of the flexibility that we require to ensure that things such as the rural development programme continue to succeed.