Recall of MPs Bill

Jim Hood Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jim Dowd]

I am not entirely unsympathetic to the thrust of the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), but for one reason above all others—I think this is the Government’s reason—I am not yet convinced that I will vote for them. We must understand what the threshold is for the process. The Government’s position, even though I do not support it in total, is that a single set of circumstances can deal with this issue. New clause 2 has no threshold, so therefore if one process was concluded unsuccessfully, it would not stop somebody from starting the whole process again. Can the hon. Lady give me any guarantee that that would not happen, once people had been subjected to this measure, and given the damage that even the question of facing recall could do to an individual—

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Jim Hood)]

Order. Interventions must be a lot shorter than that, and not replaced by speeches.

[Anne Marie Morris]

Gosh, that was quite a long intervention and I am not sure I remember it exactly. May I indulge the hon. Gentleman, Mr Hood? Could he remind me in one sentence of what he actually said because the intervention was so long?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

Stand as an independent then.

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Jim Hood)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has had a lot to say tonight in interventions, and he should stay in order when the hon. Lady is on her feet.

[Nadine Dorries]

My constituents know exactly what type of MP I am. There has been an elephant sat inside—not outside—the Chamber tonight, and it is the reason why the Government have introduced the Bill. They have not introduced it because the public have infinite trust in us, or because they think MPs are wonderful people that work hard for their constituents. The Bill has been introduced because the people do not trust politicians any more. They have no faith in us. They need to know that they can have more democratic control over what we do here because they do not like a lot of what they see going on.

I know that most MPs come here to work hard and look after their constituents, but the Whips Office holds the keys to power and ministerial ambition so there is a difference between the consideration that some MPs give to their constituents and what they give to their own political ambition and their climb up the greasy pole. The difference is as vast as that between sound and silence. Many MPs are one person in their constituencies and a different person entirely at Westminster. People are sick of the Whip system, the parliamentary system and the party-political system. They do not want to see that any more because they want people to represent them. They want their opinions represented here. They do not want grimy deals done such as, “Don’t defect to UKIP and I’ll make you a Minister” or “Don’t vote for this Bill because the Liberal Democrats don’t want you to.” They know about those deals and they are disgusted. That is why we have the Bill.

The amendments could have been a little grittier, but it is vital that we vote for them. It has been argued tonight that Members could be removed for their position on a particular policy, but if they are good MPs that is nonsense. It has been argued that an MP could be removed because of a political row, but I am sure that all the 766 people who signed that petition were supporters of the Opposition. During the 2009 expenses crisis, one thing we knew was that everybody nationally hated MPs, but on a constituency basis many people said, “No, we don’t like MPs, but our MP is okay.” That is because they know what we do for them and the type of person we are. When MPs do fall down, it is because they ignore their constituents, do the grubby deals and put their own personal ambition above the interests of their constituency. A former Minister complained about the Bill today. I asked whether he would vote for it if he was still a Minister, and he said, “Of course I would.” That is the root of the problem—collective responsibility and putting party first.

We need this Bill. I do not believe that we will have the benefit of the British public’s trust unless the Bill goes further and we vote through the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park. Any MP arguing that thousands of people, just because they are political opponents, would walk down to the town hall and put their names on a register to get them out because the local newspaper has a campaign against them, is talking absolute nonsense. Nobody has anything to fear. If you are a good MP, if you put your constituency first, if you are part of the people in your constituency, and if you take no notice of your Whips Office but do what you should do in principle and do what is right for the people who elected you, then you have nothing to fear from either the amendments or the Bill.