Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Bishop of Chester Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 2 and 3, which have been spoken to by the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Norton, have the combined effect of making the provisions of the Bill even more severe than they now are and of weakening the capacity of the House of Commons to discipline its Members itself. That seems to me to be an unhappy combination.

The noble Lords believe that a Member of Parliament found guilty by a court of any offence—not necessarily an imprisonable offence, but any offence—ought to become subject to the recall petition process. As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, suggested, a minor motoring offence could expose the Member of Parliament to that process. He was optimistic that constituents would have the moderation and kindliness not to take advantage of that, but it does seem to me that a lot of politics could quickly come into this and that an opportunity might well be seized by those who wanted to see a Member of Parliament of a certain party displaced. Perhaps more seriously, a Member of Parliament who was found guilty in a court of some offence of obstruction during the course of protesting against proposals for fracking or wind turbines—or perhaps the tripling of tuition fees—would, again, be subject to the recall process.

This means that the Member of Parliament, instead of being subject to the rounded judgment of all his constituents in due course at the general election, becomes immediately subject to the wrath of all the Mrs Grundys in his constituency and of the censorious minority—only a small minority, 10% of registered electors, need to sign the petition to trigger the process. Members of Parliament will have to be paragons of virtue and constantly on their best behaviour. Those of us who know the character of the House of Commons well may think that pressures in that direction are not likely to be very positively productive.

The amendments would mean that suspension by the Standards Committee was irrelevant—that would be struck out as a trigger. Even if the amendment would not mark the formal abandonment of attempts by the House of Commons to regulate itself—I acknowledge that the rather substantial volume that the Committee on Standards has released today indicates that it has not given up on that process—it would certainly seriously undermine the capacity of the House of Commons to police itself.

The noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Lexden, made much in Committee of paragraph 13 of the report of the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House. However, that report does not recommend removing the jurisdiction of the Standards Committee. What it does is to point to an inconsistency in the Bill, between its desire to increase the direct accountability of Members of Parliament to electors and its desire to retain a significant role for the Committee on Standards. There is a tension and a contradiction there, but for those of us who believe that it is grievously misguided to introduce this recall procedure, that tension or contradiction is something of a mitigating factor. I certainly do not think that the noble Lords can pray in aid the Constitution Committee as endorsing what they are seeking to do. They have decided that it stated a very important problem and that it is a problem that they want to solve.

Amendment 6, in the name of my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, takes us, as he has explained, only a small part of the distance that he wishes to travel. While I deeply respect his knowledge of the ways of the Standards Committee, on which he served for many years, I profoundly disagree with him. The noble Lord, Lord Norton, has reminded us that the stated purpose of the legislation is to restore the reputation of MPs and Parliament. The way for Parliament to restore its reputation is to demonstrate to the public that it has found better ways to handle, discipline and organise itself.

I am against what has already begun to happen. I am against the introduction of lay members. There is everything to be said for the availability of high-quality advice. I am much in favour of the role of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards but, as a famous parliamentarian once said, expertise should be on tap, not on top. It is for the House of Commons itself to find more convincing ways to regulate itself and demonstrate to the public that it is doing so.

Some people may ask what all this has to do with us in the House of Lords. I simply reply that we are a House of Parliament. We have a particularly close interest in the good functioning of Parliament, as do all the people of this country. I think that it is legitimate for us to offer advice. I agree that the House of Commons will surely wish to consider this important report from the Committee on Standards. That may mean some delay before we reach Third Reading, if matters are to be properly and decently conducted. There is no doubt that we are entitled to take a view on these matters. However, I disagree with noble Lords who have proposed these various amendments.

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on this. I think that it is a mistake to play off these conditions against each other, as if you were to ditch one and get a quid pro quo strength in another. In principle, one should take and look at each condition on its own merit and principle. I do not want to refer to the second condition, as I do not quite understand the dynamics of what happens in the other place; other Members will understand.

The first recall condition needs to have about it a certain level of trigger. Simply to be convicted of any offence and then potentially to find this juggernaut or sledgehammer process kicking in seems wrong. As we all know, when these processes begin, the issues to which they are supposed to refer are not those on which they are fought. At the moment in our political system you need to get only 10% of the electors to agree to recall the MP and have a by-election. It would be easy for people to use a minor indiscretion that leads to a criminal conviction to generate this rather costly and unfortunate process. I believe in the Bill in principle, but there should be a healthy trigger. As set out, the trigger requiring that a conviction leads to a sentence of imprisonment, which I assume also includes a suspended sentence, seems about right.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

I will briefly comment on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Norton. I may be mistaken but he seemed to be painting an idyllic picture of what life is in the real world outside, in which the decision taken to discipline the Member of Parliament for whatever reason will be looked at with great objectivity by those reading the newspapers, listening to the radio and watching the television—you can imagine someone saying over their breakfast cereal, “I wonder what this is all about. What should we do? What considerations should we take into account?”. It does not work like that.

My noble friend mentioned the “f” word. We are not supposed to use the “f” word in your Lordships’ House. He mentioned fracking. The other “f” word I would like to use is fluoride. As the House will know, fluoride is a chemical which, put in the water supply, can bring immense dental benefits. For those who support it, it is a wonderful thing. For those who oppose it, it is responsible for every ill known to mankind and beyond. I know from personal experience how once the issue of fluoride comes up, all sorts of judgments come into play. The resources that people put into this are enormous. We know the facts of the modern world—Twitter and Facebook and all that sort of thing—of which, I regret to say, I know little indeed, except that I occasionally get them and delete them straightaway.