Recall of MPs Bill

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[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.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Surely the evidence my right hon. Friend is looking for is in the bit of the Bill that is covered by the amendments. I have not been e-mailed by a single member of the public who is not also a member of 38 Degrees.

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend will recall that I am not enamoured of 38 Degrees, but it is interesting to make that distinction.

My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park and his colleagues have constructed the proposition that one must physically go to one of four places in a constituency in order to disempower 38 Degrees and those who would try to create petitions on an online basis. If we start down this path, that is where the pressure will come. People will say, “In this modern age we should not be dependent on physically having to go somewhere”, in the same way that they blithely talk about electronic voting and so on. It will rapidly get to the point where it is not about visiting particular physical locations but about generating large numbers of electronic signatures on online petitions. Then we will see a substantial change in the relationship between Members of this House and their constituents.

I have no problem with the idea that I should engage fully with my constituents and listen to them. In practice, we have moved subtly in that direction. Anybody who cares to remember, as I can, the debate in 2003 before the invasion of Iraq and the debate that took place last year on the intervention in Syria will recognise that last year more Members were responding in short order to substantial online representations, in larger numbers, from their constituents. In 2003, I got a very large number of letters, but they were actual letters, and overwhelmingly individual, not template, letters. A lot of Members felt burdened by the weight of opinion that was coming to them on the Syria vote.