Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
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Recall of MPs Bill
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, the amendment is grouped with Amendments 7, 8, 12 and 36. The amendment deletes the whole of subsection (4) because I wanted to delete the second recall condition. I drafted the amendment when I was feeling thoroughly scunnered—if noble Lords will excuse a Scots word—with the whole concept of the Bill, and thought that one of the ways to have a discussion about it was by proposing to remove one of the offending provisions, for reasons that were made clear during our discussions on Amendments 7 and 8. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours dealt with this issue so eloquently at Second Reading, in cols. 184 to 186 of the Hansard report. I want just to say how sorry I am that he is not able to be with us today; he has had a very serious operation and I am sure that the whole House will wish him a speedy and full recovery, and to be back with us.
I detected earlier that in spite of my delectable and mellifluous Scots tones, noble Lords might have heard quite enough of them, and that it might be more appropriate for me to conclude my speech now. The points that I might otherwise have raised could well be taken up by one of the other signatories to the amendments in this group—in other words, my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton. I beg to move.
The Deputy Speaker (Viscount Ullswater) (Con)
My Lords, I must advise your Lordships that if the amendment is agreed, I will not be able to call Amendment 6 because of pre-emption.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I have been sitting quietly—unusually for me—listening carefully to what has been a fascinating debate and waiting patiently for the Minister to explain why he is not able to accept the amendment spoken to by my noble friend Lady Taylor, which was the line the Government took in the House of Commons. I can understand that my noble friend on the Opposition Front Bench is constrained, and I respect his position, but I do not understand the position of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. I would have thought he would have accepted it with open arms. It is a Labour amendment putting forward what the Conservatives did in the House of Commons. He has not explained. As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and my noble friend Lady Taylor pointed out, not one word addressed the issue of why it should be 10 or 20 days. He can interrupt me if he wants to try to explain that.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
The number of days is always in some ways an arbitrary decision. In our amendments, which are consequential on the Commons’s decision, we have clarified the relationship between calendar days and working days, and we have accepted the decision of the Commons. If the Commons wants to change it, I have not heard from the noble Lord very powerful reasons why it should be 20, or perhaps 25 or 30 days.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My favoured amendment is Amendment 5, which would delete this whole provision, because the Member being dealt with is going to be punished twice. To be suspended for 10 days, you lose 10 days’ salary and have the ignominy of being suspended from the House—creating quite a lot of publicity in the national and local press—and then on top of that you have to go through this new recall procedure.
We are supposed to be concerned about the constituents. Can you imagine the constituents in this constituency where this Member has been subject to recall? He is going to be fighting to try and stave off the recall—for eight weeks, is it not? There is the preparation for it and then the eight weeks—the whole period. What is going to happen to the disabled lady who has lost her benefit? What is going to happen over issues such as when Her Majesty’s Government plan to put HS2 through his constituency and he is fighting it? All these issues, all the individual problems, are not going to be dealt with. Constituents are not going to be dealt with because of this recall petition.
I thought that one of the most effective points was made by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, over the interpretation and delivery of these things. Look at this Bill, look at the schedules—six in total, with all the details. Work through them, read them page by page and imagine what would be involved in administering this recall, for example counting the expenses of all the people involved. No doubt we will come to that later on. It is a huge thing that we are undertaking.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
The noble Lord is again making a Second Reading speech—but that is in a sense appropriate, since Amendment 5 is clearly a wrecking amendment that would destroy the Bill. But now may not be the time, possibly, to make another Second Reading speech.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
If the Minister and the Government accepted what I have raised on about 59 other occasions—that we give the Speaker or the Chairman some power to tell us when we are out of order—I might not have been going on for so long. With respect, it is not the job of the Minister to tell me. This is a self-governing House and I can go on as long as I like and say as much as I like within reason, as long as I do not get shouted down by the collective will of the House.
My noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan raised this question. Tam Dalyell—a very good example—has been mentioned on a number of occasions. He had a four-week suspension and would have had to go back to West Lothian to go through this procedure and would not have been able to raise these things. No doubt he would have been put under pressure in relation to things that he wanted to raise on behalf of his constituents.
I would have liked Amendment 5 to be accepted—for striking this out to be considered—but, failing that, I just do not understand why the Government have not accepted the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Taylor. I find it strange when the previous Minister was so sympathetic.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I am most grateful to the noble Lord. Is not the answer to his question obvious? We have had it from the Minister’s mouth. As far as he is concerned, the fact that the Commons has passed this is the end of the matter and it is none of our business—so why are we all sitting here debating this Bill?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Why do we come at all? Why are we going to come tomorrow to discuss the business for tomorrow, or next week or next month? Why are we going to come back after the election to discuss anything? Why are we here at all? The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, attacked me, saying that we do not come up with suggestions for reforming the House of Lords. The irony is that the most radical suggestions to have been put forward recently were by a committee chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, of which I was a member. The Government are ignoring them. They have paid them no attention whatever and have given them no consideration, yet they would produce radical reform of this House. I have been arguing for some time about setting up a constitutional convention to look at ways in which we can improve it.
I am very disappointed, because I was in the middle of saying that the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, listened very carefully to reasoned arguments and responded in a reasonable way. He has spoken to me informally subsequently about following it up and I am really grateful to him. I am very disappointed, particularly since it is a Liberal Democrat Minister—it says something these days—who has responded so negatively, particularly to the amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, spoke to. Nevertheless, I am afraid that there is nothing left for me to do but to withdraw Amendment 5.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I did not know that noble Lords wanted to hear me again this evening, but there we are. This is an interesting amendment. Its impact is that once one of the recall conditions has been met, the Speaker has to give the relevant petition officer notice, whereby a petition can be opened,
“as soon as reasonably practicable”.
In an earlier debate, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said that we often passed legislation without consideration for the people who had to interpret and deliver its results. This is one of the situations in which we are not taking account of it. There would clearly have to be some time for the Speaker to get all the information together, contact the petition officer—the local returning officer—and get the information to them in order that a petition could be opened as soon as “reasonably practicable”.
We shall come later to amendments on how many polling stations there should be, and how long they should be open for. At the moment the proposal is for there to be four polling stations. In my old constituency, as I shall say in more detail in a later debate, four polling stations would have been entirely inadequate. I used to hold surgeries in 25 different villages in Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley because the constituency covered 800 square miles. To expect people to come from Cumnock and go down to Girvan, or to go from Girvan to Dalmellington to sign the petition is entirely unreasonable. There are no buses between some of the towns in my old constituency. Deciding where the four polling stations should be set up would be difficult, as would be the case in keeping those polling stations open for eight weeks and providing personnel to look after them. At one time it was suggested that they would be open from 7 am to 10 pm; that would be terrible. Now they are talking about 9 am until 5 pm. That again would be very difficult, not to say expensive—another matter we will discuss later.
Again, if the excellent amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, is discussed and accepted later, we would have not just the petitions but the counter-petitions to deal with. I do not know whether his amendment had been thought of previously but it has certainly been well devised by him. I would certainly support it.
The whole process would be quite a job. My suggestion in the amendment is that the timing of when this ought to take place should be changed. I am afraid that in drafting this amendment I have not been as acute and sensible as I should have been. I was trying to get over the fact that it will take a long time and that it is a long process, and that there should be more time rather than less to deal with it.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I think that I understood that the noble Lord was moving Amendment 35, which is about the reduction in the length of time for an election. I understand him to be talking about a different amendment, which is about the number of polling stations. Are we at cross-purposes?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I was leading up to that. I want the time to be discussed. My amendment changes the time to “3 months”. In fact, “3 months” is not what I had intended. I should have said “13 months”. That was a drafting error when I put the amendment in. I want more time between. It will take much longer because it is such a complicated procedure. If six months only are available it will be difficult to carry out all the procedures and provide the arrangements in time for it to be sensible to carry out this procedure before a general election comes upon us and overtakes the process.
I must apologise to the Committee for the mistake in doing that, but the question about the length of time still stands. Six months is completely inadequate for dealing with the procedure. The general election will overtake it for the reasons about the complicated nature of setting up the polling stations and the other technical arrangements that have to be made, which I was outlining. I hope that the Government will look again at the period of six months and not reduce it to three months but extend it.
I have also suggested in Amendments 54 and 59, which are linked to this, that as well as the Speaker laying the notice of the recall petition process before the House of Commons, the Lord Speaker should lay it before the House of Lords. I realise that it is a matter principally for the House of Commons, but things undertaken relating to Parliament often have a wider importance than just for the House of Commons. In relation to them this House often gets forgotten. On every occasion when it seems to me to be appropriate, the Lord Speaker should look after the interests of the House of Lords and the House of Lords should be equally informed, at the same time as the House of Commons. That is why Amendments 54 and 59 have been tabled.
As I said, I was not immediately ready to move this amendment so late in the evening, so I must apologise to the House, and also for the error in the amendment as drafted. I want to extend the period rather than to reduce it. I beg to move.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I do not think that my noble friend Lord Foulkes should apologise at all. I congratulate him on the way in which he has threaded his way through these thickets.
There is a common theme in this group of amendments. The proposal is that legislation should lay duties on the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord Speaker. I would be grateful if the Minister, when he comes to reply in a few moments, would share with the House his understanding of the constitutional rights and wrongs of legislation that lays duties on the Speaker. Are we risking breach of privilege? I refer here to the independence of the Speaker of the House of Commons. Are we once again risking the possibility of running up against the ancient tradition embodied in the Bill of Rights, or not? There may be many precedents in legislation that lay specific duties on the Speaker, but my impression has been that the Speaker should be unconstrained by legislation and that the Standing Orders of the House of Commons may lay duties upon the Speaker. So I question the appropriateness of the measures not only in the Government’s Bill as we have it, but also in my noble friend’s amendments, which refer to the role and functions of the Speaker of the House of Commons.
The position of the Lord Speaker is of course entirely different and is not analogous to that of the Speaker of the House of Commons, but none the less there may already be a body of practice and precedent that establishes certain customs, conventions and proprieties in relation to any attempt to legislate on the role of the Lord Speaker. It would be helpful if the Minister would guide us on these points.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
The noble Lord is, as always, wonderfully optimistic. The interesting question of how many parties will lose the next election is one which we can return to at a later point.
Government Amendments 68, 69 and 70 deal with the role of the Speaker. The purpose here is to emphasise that we are talking about the Speaker as an institution rather than as a person. The Government were responding to an amendment tabled by the MP for Cambridge, Julian Huppert, and proposed that this would be properly looked at in the Lords. In the absence of the Speaker, one of the Deputy Speakers—for example, the Chairman of Ways and Means—will deal with those functions that are appropriately held. I end by assuring the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, that I look at the appropriateness of those functions and at the precedents that we always have to look back to. On this basis, I hope that the noble Lord can withdraw his amendment. I look forward to some interesting conversations in the corridors.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am sure that we will hear more about fixed-term Parliaments and their problems during this year, but in the light of the very helpful reply by the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.