Recall of MPs Bill

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

Clearly, we will have amendments to that effect before the House meets next Monday, and it is right that we consider them in detail in Committee. The danger with that very pure approach is that we could cross the line between misconduct and how we vote as Members of Parliament. That is problematic, for reasons that I will set out later.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend think that there is any room in this Bill to deal with the situation where Members of Parliament are elected and then do not take their seats, but continue to get substantial amounts of money? Surely that is, in some way, bringing this House into disrepute.

[Stephen Twigg]

My hon. Friend is tempting me into an area that I do not think I will be tempted into. I am sure she will have opportunities to raise those issues in the House at later stages.

--- Later in debate ---

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Of all the promises made in the heat of the expenses scandal, recall was the only one that resonated properly with voters. It was a promise that they could hold their MPs to account at all times, with a mechanism for removing an MP who had lost the confidence of a majority of their constituents. I know that some colleagues thought it was a foolish promise for the party leaders to make and that anger levels would eventually die down and people would eventually re-engage with the political process, but that misses the point. Voter turnout has been decreasing for years and years, and party membership has been plummeting to miserable levels over a very long period. Five years on from that scandal, the general confidence levels in MPs are at an all-time low—26% according to a recent survey. The expenses scandal did not start that trend; it cemented it and confirmed a prejudice that people, rightly or wrongly, already had.

I think that most hon. Members recognise that change is not just necessary but inevitable, just as it was at other times in our history when events required politics to adapt and move on. When the industrial revolution changed society beyond all recognition, the first Reform Act became inevitable. It was inevitable that women would eventually be given the right to vote, despite the resistance to it. Well, the world has changed again.

When the last big step was taken in 1969—the voting age was lowered to 18 for all men and women—the only information that people had about their MP, other than the odd scandal in the newspapers, was via very selectively crafted newsletters. Today, people will know how their Members have spoken in this debate and how they have voted at the end of it within seconds of their doing so. With 24-hour news, the internet and social media, we are in a world that is completely different, and that has happened very quickly. People have simply never had more or better information, but politics has not even begun to adjust.

People know so much more about what we are up to in this place, but that has merely compounded the sense that once they have voted there is nothing they can do to hold their MP to account. We have a system in which once an MP is selected they are inviolable until the next election. An MP could switch parties, refuse to attend Parliament at all, refuse to meet constituents in any context, systematically break each and every promise they had ever made to get voted in or even disappear off on holiday for five years, and their constituents could do absolutely nothing about it. Such a formula is no longer sustainable.

[Kate Hoey]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I support his amendments. He mentions hon. Members not attending Parliament. Does he include the Sinn Fein Members who do not take their seats and never come into the Chamber?

[Zac Goldsmith]

The very basis of the version of recall that I and, I am pleased to say, a great many colleagues will seek to bring forward next week—I will explain it in a few moments—is that it is down to the voters. If the conduct of Sinn Fein representatives is below what people expect, for that reason or perhaps others people should have the power to make such a decision for themselves; they should not require the permission of the House. I do not pretend that recall is the answer to the problems that I have identified, but it is an answer.