Recall of MPs Bill

Lady Hermon Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene. He will of course know that the Bill as drafted extends to Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but his amendment extends only to England and Wales.

[Mr Heath]

indicated dissent.

[Lady Hermon]

Oh, so it extends throughout the whole of the United Kingdom? It would be helpful if the hon. Gentleman could confirm that and give some examples.

[Mr Heath]

I will, but if I may, I will come back to that, because it is one of the major difficulties in the drafting.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lady Hermon]

In relation to the possibility of the Government looking at a third trigger relating to misconduct in public office and the question whether that applies equally to Northern Ireland and Scotland and to England and Wales, may I say ever so gently to the Minister that issues such as parading, stopping parading, flying flags and not flying flags can be criminal offences in Northern Ireland, and public representatives may become involved in them, so drafting this provision carefully in relation to Northern Ireland will take some time?

[Greg Clark]

We will attend to the points that the hon. Lady makes. They apply perhaps with even more force to the possibility of a recall in Northern Ireland being triggered initially by 5% of the electorate, for any reason. In relation to the arrangements in Northern Ireland, we have taken care not to cause repeated debate and contention when that would be against the interests of democracy in the Province. Nevertheless, I will reflect on her words.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geraint Davies]

Precisely. If one’s defence is, “I’m not a murderer,” all that people hear is the word “murderer”. Clearly, enough charges might be brought against a person who is targeted for whatever reason, perhaps by a political party or financial interest that knows someone else can be put in if they are got out of the way. The example has been given of the American gun lobby displacing someone who wanted to improve people’s protection against guns and replacing them with someone who was clearly in the gun lobby’s pocket. Once a few heads had rolled in various constituencies over time, other MPs would think, “I don’t want to end up like Harry or Harriet”, or whoever it happens to be, and we would get into all sorts of difficulties.

We should guard against the rush to populism in the amendments of the hon. Member for Richmond Park. We should uphold judgment and principle, rather than quick popularity. I find the amendments very worrying, which is why I wanted to speak on this issue.

[Lady Hermon]

The hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) is not present, but I am sure that she will not mind if I speak for her on this one occasion. She is a member of the Alliance party. She does not sit on Belfast city council, but her party colleagues on the council decided to fly the Union flag on the 17 flag-flying days, rather than 365 days a year. As a consequence, she received death threats. What concerns me about the proposal of the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) is how vulnerable the hon. Lady would become to those who want to make vexatious claims about something over which she had no control.

[Geraint Davies]

I am grateful for that example. It is difficult to imagine how much harassment there would be if the amendment was agreed to. Harassment can happen through a range of mechanisms and can be sophisticated. People would protest using electronic and social media, as well as conventional media, to threaten people with recall. Ultimately, we are all human and we have families. Members will say, “I haven’t done anything wrong, but this is affecting my children in school.”

We need the space to discuss things with clarity and, hopefully, rationality. Obviously we express differences, and we all understand that that can provoke passion. However, to have a mechanism by which we could all be targeted or intimidated, that could distort people’s judgments, and that could affect whether people were here or not would be fundamentally in conflict with the ideals to which we aspire in this House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lady Hermon]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me to intervene. May I draw her attention to a particular and important scenario in Northern Ireland? Although Northern Ireland was safe enough to host the G8 summit at Lough Erne and the World Police and Fire Games, it is not safe enough for us to know what amount is donated to political parties, and we still have anonymity of political donations to political parties. I would therefore have no idea who had sponsored a recall motion to get rid of me in North Down, and similarly, none of my colleagues from other parties in Northern Ireland would know that because of the anonymity. Big money can buy a recall in Northern Ireland. Will the hon. Lady address that issue?

[Anne Marie Morris]

Clearly, I have no knowledge of Northern Ireland and exactly how it operates, but the hon. Lady makes a fair point and there are issues about funding. However, that applies in every political situation, and I do not think that her points invalidate the suggestion in new clause 2.

It seems to me that along with my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park we have put forward a form of accountability, and with the provision of a reason we have provided some transparency. Under the Government’s arrangements there is no explanation or reason.