Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, I have been thinking very carefully about this idea of the wording in the Bill. As the wording is in the Bill, someone who gets the petition has the choice either to sign it or not to take part in the petition process. In other words, it is a one-way process. There is no opportunity for someone who is against the recall of the MP to say, “No”. Why can we not have a straight yes/no question? That is what democracy is about.

The issues surrounding the recall of an MP will generate much excitement—if that is the right word to use—about the behaviour of the MP, sticking strictly to the three triggers, whichever one is to be used. There will be a tremendous bandwagon: there will be no possibility of the MP defending himself or herself. How is that feeling to be translated? The MP who is faced with this petition may well be extremely popular. There is no possibility of that popularity being translated in any shape or form in the petition—and, as we come to in a further amendment, with the proportion of the electorate that is to take part. But it is all one-sided. I cannot see how this can in all senses be fair or sensible. I hope that the Minister will accept the amendment so at least there will be further discussion about how the process might go.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)]

My Lords, I respectfully suggest to the House that the suggestion and proposal made by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, is an excellent one. I was thinking about the problem raised earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Martin, in that there were two principles that were diametrically opposed to each other. One was the principle of the innate secrecy of the ballot; the other was the principle of the innate public nature of the petition. The answer and the compromise may very well be in the sort of suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. What would be wrong in having two questions—yes or no? You would have a hybrid; it would be something of a ballot and something of a petition, but you would be free from many of the disadvantages that would attend a situation where the fact of having voted would mean that you had voted only one way.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

When the Minister replies, will he explain to the Committee why the Government have not, apparently, involved the Electoral Commission in this process? It is so obviously the organisation equipped and tasked to deal with matters of this sort and it is a mystery why it is not more fully involved here and in other aspects of the procedure. The commissioners are not normally shrinking violets. I even wonder whether the Electoral Commission, in taking the view that this is a thoroughly ill founded measure, has declined to play a part. I do not know, but in any event is it not really reckless to put the definitive wording of the petition in the Bill before it has ever been tried? If it turns out in practice to be inadequate, everybody will be in very great difficulty and primary legislation will be needed to change it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, I am sure that the Government do not wish to prolong this debate unduly, but that is a very important point. In our society a dumbing-down effect happens because of a lot of legal provisions. I am thinking of suffragettes, who were sent to prison, or people who protested against nuclear weapons in certain circumstances. Alternatively, it may be about ethical issues where we have changed the law, such as same-sex relationships. One can think of all sorts of situations in which a limited period of imprisonment might well have arisen. If an MP thought that if that happened there would be a petition process and you would need only 10%, I fear that it would result in a certain dumbing down. Some issues here need to be carefully teased out.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

With the greatest respect, both to the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes—and I have great admiration for both of them—is not the real problem that a person of unimpeachable character could be sentenced to 14 days’ imprisonment for a motoring offence with regard to a momentary lapse of concentration over a span of two or three seconds? That is the reality—it happens every day.

I do not believe that the danger of judges or magistrates acting in a cynically political way is at all a real one. If Mandy Rice-Davies were alive she might say, “He would say that, wouldn’t he?”. But be that as it may, that is the real point. One is assuming that even a short period of imprisonment is of necessity to be regarded as a serious matter even if it does not involve moral turpitude at all, given that it is a serious matter from the viewpoint of the law, perhaps because of serious injury done.