Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
Main Page: Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park's debates with the Cabinet Office
Recall of MPs Bill
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts(10 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Stephen Twigg
The Minister is including Members who resigned from the House before the Standards Committee’s proposals were considered, but I acknowledge what he says. I still think that six is a very small number, considering the scale of the challenge that we face. With reference to the particular example that my hon. Friend cited of the “cash for questions” scandal in the 1990s, there is a concern that the length of period covered by the Bill would not have affected the MPs in that case.
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is providing a strong critique of the Government’s Bill and I agree with much of what he says. At the Committee stage there will be a wide range of views about what needs to be done to improve the Bill. The indication is that the Conservative party will be offering a free vote. Will we hear that from the Labour party as well?
Stephen Twigg
I thank the hon. Gentleman. I will refer shortly to some of the proposals that he has made. I am not in a position to make announcements about the Opposition’s whipping arrangements or the Government’s, but they will be made available in due course.
Stephen Twigg
Yes indeed. It is very important that this legislation applies to all elected Members of Parliament from the point at which they are elected. I thank the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to confirm that from the Dispatch Box.
It is important that the public are able to hold Members of Parliament to account for serious wrongdoing and misconduct—for example, taking financial reward for everyday parliamentary activity. Any system of recall needs to pass that rudimentary test. In Committee we will look at ways to strengthen that aspect of the Bill.
The length of suspension required to trigger a recall petition is currently too high, and it fails to catch some of the clear cases of misconduct that we have witnessed. There is also the question of how we can and should improve the process of suspension that would lead to recall. As the Minister confirmed, the Bill does not mention changes to that process, or, indeed, changes to the Standards and Privileges Committee. I hope that in Committee we will look at ways in which we can ensure that the process is not party-politicised and, as a number of Members have suggested in interventions, more independent. It is sensible to rebalance the Standards and Privileges Committee so that it does not reflect a Government majority, whoever is in power, and to increase the lay membership of the Committee, as the former Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley), said.
The second trigger in the Bill allows for a petition if an MP receives a custodial sentence. As the Minister said, some of the people who would have been caught by these proposals received a custodial sentence for political protest. One of my predecessors in Liverpool, Terry Fields, who was the MP for Liverpool Broadgreen, would have faced a recall petition when he was sent to prison for refusing to pay the poll tax. We need to bear these issues in mind when we are debating this aspect of the Bill. At the same time, I think it would be widely felt that if a Member of Parliament committed a crime and was sent to prison, it would be appropriate that, whatever their motive, the public in their constituency had the opportunity to sack them if they wished to do so rather than moving to a general election.
Zac Goldsmith
The hon. Gentleman’s point about Terry Fields proves exactly why it is so hard to define what is wrongdoing. In those circumstances, it would not just have been a matter of his constituents having the choice of recalling him—it would have required just 10% of them to throw him out of his job, even if he might then have clawed his way back through a by-election. That is one of many problems with the Bill.
Stephen Twigg
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point of substance that we need to consider as the Bill progresses. I imagine that Terry Fields would have been re-elected by a massive majority for the stand that he took against the poll tax.
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.
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.
Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making very powerful arguments that he has held dear for a long time. May I suggest that the overwhelming majority of people who stand for and get elected to this place do so for good and noble reasons and want to serve their constituency and their country? We should acknowledge that in this debate, and not always talk down the nobility of being in politics.
Zac Goldsmith
I could not agree more. That is precisely why I believe that we need a proper recall system—not some shenanigans conveying the impression that they give people recall powers without actually giving them any power at all—that would give Members, such as my hon. Friend and many others, a permanent implied mandate. In a few moments, I will explain why recall will help to give dignity and to restore nobility to this place, but if he thinks that I have not addressed his concerns properly, I invite him to intervene again.
Recall would allow people in extreme circumstances—where a clear majority of them have lost confidence in their MP—to remove their MP between elections. It would give people a sense of ownership over their democracy, which would help in and of itself.
Recall is not a new or radical idea. It exists in various forms in about 30 countries on five continents, including Poland, Canada, Germany, Japan, India, South Korea, Costa Rica, Taiwan, Mexico, Argentina, Peru and Ecuador. It has existed in the US for more than 100 years, and in Switzerland for even longer. It is a good idea—it works—and it is great that the mainstream parties have finally accepted it.
Mr Kevan Jones
I am very interested in what the hon. Gentleman says about recall empowering voters. In practice, would it not do what it does in the United States, which is to empower wealthy individuals who are not happy with what their representative is doing to mobilise against them? It would empower wealthy individuals, such as the hon. Gentleman, to influence events in a way that my ordinary constituents and I cannot?
Zac Goldsmith
I will explain why such concerns are groundless during my speech, but I will make one point, partly in response to the Opposition spokesman. Concerns about expenditure during the recall process are a matter for regulations; the amendments that my colleagues and I seek to introduce would not tamper with the Government’s proposed regulations on expenses. That separate technical issue can be very easily addressed.
Zac Goldsmith
The hon. Gentleman takes a very dim view of his electorate if he thinks that that is so easy. Irrespective of that, the two-month petition stage before a referendum will be regulated, so his cost arguments simply do not apply.
Mr Jones
What happens in practice in the United States is that individuals who take against a policy or a state or national representative can use their tremendous wealth to use a campaign in the lead-up to the recall election to undermine such a representative. The idea that that is somehow empowering the voters is not the case. Recall empowers very wealthy individuals who could then—
Zac Goldsmith
To my knowledge, in the United States there are no limits on expenditure and on broadcasters; in this country, we have limits on both. Even during the 100 years of recall in that wild west environment of the United States, there have been only 20 successes out of 40 attempts. The hon. Gentleman’s arguments simply do not match the experience of recall anywhere in the world. They are complete nonsense.
Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend not agree that recall is not about licensing vexatious attempts to unseat MPs? Frankly, the public would see through that, particularly if it was frequent and clearly about political and personal grudges. There would be checks and balances in the process, and we can trust the public to see through such attempts. Surely recall is about empowering our constituents to ensure that they do not feel let down and failed by their local Member of Parliament.
Zac Goldsmith
My hon. Friend is exactly right—I hope in due course to make such points as well as she has—including about the fact that the protection lies in the threshold, and I will come on to that in a second.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
When I sat on the Standards and Privileges Committee, it was interesting to see the sort of complaints that we received. Regularly, there were 28 complaints a month of which only one was relevant to what the Committee could look at, and it quite often ended up as a case of “No harm, no foul”. My difficulty with my hon. Friend’s amendments is that the work load created would sometimes be absolutely phenomenal. I want a very high threshold to avoid the problem of vexatious complaints.
Zac Goldsmith
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I will address her points properly, but if she feels that I have not done so, I invite her to feel free to intervene at any point.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I think that my hon. Friend’s proposals include not having a recall opportunity within six months of a general election, for the obvious reason that there would soon be an opportunity to get rid of the MP if he or she were that unpopular. If we repeal or move on from the law on five-year Parliaments and go back to a system in which the Prime Minister has discretion on when to call a general election, how would that work?
Zac Goldsmith
That would open up a whole new debate, but that is for another time. In the Bill put together by the committee, the six-month limit relates to the start of an election, not the end, so it is possible to have a recall process after an election, but not within six months of an election being called. The reason is that someone may be elected on a spurious basis; for example, on the basis of a whole tangle of lies that are then exposed.
Zac Goldsmith
I will make some progress and then take as many interventions as there is an appetite for.
It is good that our three mainstream parties and all the smaller parties have understood that recall is necessary. That is a sign of real progress. However, what is not great is the Bill that we are debating today. The Deputy Prime Minister has said that it represents a small step in the right direction. If only it did. I believe that the Bill in its current form will set democracy back, and I want to try to explain why.
For one thing, the criteria in the Bill are so narrow, as we have heard from many Members today, that the process will be virtually pointless. It will still be possible for an MP to switch parties, refuse to attend Parliament, disappear on holiday or break every promise that they made before the election without qualifying for recall. The public will discover, with the very first scandal, that they have been misled. The Bill will inflame the very resentment and anger that gave rise to it. Extraordinarily, the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday called it “the people’s recall”. I call it madness.
Another reason is that, instead of giving voters powers to hold this institution to account, the proposal is that the institution will, effectively, hold itself to account. Except for when an MP is jailed, voters will need our permission to initiate the recall process. Panicking because of the backlash that he has received, the Deputy Prime Minister said yesterday that he would create a panel of ordinary independent people to adjudicate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Douglas Carswell) has pointed out, we already have that panel—it is called the constituency. The proposal before us will appal voters and has been rejected, without exception, by every single democracy pressure group from 38 Degrees on the left, all the way over to the TaxPayers Alliance, and everything in between.
The Bill could also destroy good MPs. Under the plans, just 10% of people can throw an MP out of office, although that MP could claw their way back into office if they got lucky in a by-election. Yes, the MP would have had to initiate the trigger, but history is full of hon. Members who have been suspended from this House or even jailed for noble protest. The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) is no longer in his place, but I believe that he has been suspended from the House 10 times. I apologise if I have got that wrong. Is it correct?
Zac Goldsmith
It is correct, so hopefully the hon. Member for Bolsover will not be appalled that I have used that figure. Is he an hon. Member who merits recall? No, he is not. Would he have qualified for recall under these plans? Probably, yes.
Mr Charles Walker
My hon. Friend mentioned pressure groups from the left and the right of politics. I have not had a single e-mail from a constituent on this issue that has not been initiated by a pressure group template, so he should not overestimate the public’s interest in the Bill.
Zac Goldsmith
That is interesting. I have been bombarded. I even received a letter this morning that said, “Dear Zac Goldsmith, we very much hope that you will support Zac Goldsmith’s amendments.” I take my hon. Friend’s point, but as is shown by all the surveys on this issue, of which there have been a great many over the past few months, if this proposal is put to members of the public, it is something that they support.
The amendments that my colleagues and I will table in due course are based on a Bill that was put together by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), which was crowdsourced. Some 40,000 people, many of whom were members of 38 Degrees and other organisations, went through it line by line and fed in their comments. It has engaged a large number of people. I cannot think of another Bill that has been subjected to that level of crowdsourcing.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman made me think of some of the lines in the Bill when he mentioned the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner). It states that
“the period specified is a period of at least 21 sitting days”.
It does not state that they must be 21 consecutive sitting days. It might help the Government if they go back and look at that.
Zac Goldsmith
That is a good point that I had not picked up on. The hon. Gentleman made the valid and reasonable point in an earlier intervention that there would be enormous pressure from the media, social media and members of the public for 21 days to become the norm, regardless of the offence.
This shabby pretence of a reform needs to be profoundly amended. With the help of a considerable number of colleagues, I hope to do so in Committee. The goal will be to put voters in charge, but with enough checks and balances to prevent any possibility of abuse. We will attempt to remove the Government’s trigger and replace it with a system that allows voters to initiate the process. In response to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), the protection will be in the threshold. It must be low enough to make recall possible, but high enough to ensure that it happens only when it absolutely should.
Under our proposals, there would be three simple stages. If 5% of the local electorate signed a notice of intent to recall during a one-month period, the returning officer would announce a formal recall petition. The purpose of the 5% provision is simply to show the returning officer that there is an appetite for the formal petition process. It is the least formal part of the process and is designed to prevent the initiation of recall by a few angry cranks in the constituency, which every constituency has.
Richard Drax
At the point when the 5% figure was reached, the MP’s reputation would be damaged because the local newspaper would splash with, “MP to be recalled”, telephone calls would come in and the whole thing would spiral out of control, even though it could potentially be a vexatious thing. I wait to hear what my hon. Friend has to say, but I am not convinced about how he will sieve out non-vexatious calls from the 5% figure, which could ruin a Member’s reputation. That is such a small figure, particularly with modern media.
Zac Goldsmith
The purpose of the 5% figure is to take the temperature and to demonstrate to the returning officer that a sufficient number of people would like to have a recall petition. On average, it would be about 3,500 people. That is the least formal part of the process. According to our amendments, it would require a 200-word explanation of why the petition was being initiated. Of course, there will be times when people unfairly and unreasonably initiate the 5% process. However, if they get to 3,500 people, they will have demonstrated that there is enough of an appetite for a proper recall process.
In answer to my hon. Friend’s point about sullying the reputation of the individual, recall is not part of the way in which we do politics in this country, but it is part of the way in which many other democracies work. If it became part of our culture, it would become a normal part of the argy-bargy of politics in this country and would be no source of shame. I suspect that every politician, at one point or another, would find themselves the subject of the 5% recall petition stage. The question is whether it would reach the 20% stage.
If 20% of constituents signed a petition in a two-month period, not online, but in person in a verified, formal context, we would know that there was a problem. It would mean that 14,000 people had left their home and gone to the town hall or another specified venue to sign their name. What is the biggest petition that anyone in the Chamber has faced since they became an MP? Was it anywhere near 14,000? I doubt it. If it was anywhere near 14,000, had it been verified? I doubt it. Was it online? Could anyone have signed it? Was it timeless? Very likely. Was it geographically specific? I very much doubt it. To get to 14,000 people is a massive result. This would not be an online gimmick, but would require people to go to the town hall and vote in person.
The most feedback that I have ever had as an MP—admittedly, I have only been an MP for four years—related to our NHS reforms. Nearly 1,000 people wrote to me. Many of them were template letters, but not all of them. Nearly 1,000 people wrote to me to express their disgust at the policies that I was supporting, but not one of them came to see me. Had they had the opportunity to vote for my recall online, I suspect that many of them would have done so, but how many of them would have left their home to go to the town hall and sign a petition? If 14,000 people had done so in a two-month period, I would have found it hard to put it down to the vexatious activities of the Liberal Democrats, the Labour party, the unions or anyone else.
Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
Is the last paragraph of the hon. Gentleman’s speech in favour of recall or against it?
Frank Dobson
The hon. Gentleman appears to be saying that even if we accepted his extreme version of recall, it would not work because not enough people would take part.
Zac Goldsmith
That is not at all what I am saying. I do not want to trivialise the concern of Members across the House that this tool might be abused. The threshold is therefore sufficiently high—it is possible to argue, perhaps rightly, that the threshold is too high—to make it impossible for the right to be abused by vexatious campaigns by minority groups, pressure groups and so on. It is simply inconceivable that that could happen.
Mr Charles Walker
My hon. Friend and I have had many civilised conversations about this matter over recent weeks. My concern centres on the 5% trigger. He knows full well that he and I could visit his local Sainsbury’s or Tesco on any matter and secure 3,750 signatures. My concern is over that initial threshold. Perhaps a better threshold would be 10% of those who voted at the previous election. For example, if 50,000 votes had been cast, the figure would be 5,000.
Zac Goldsmith
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I think that 5% is about the right level, and that was the consensus of the committee of Back Benchers, which represented seven different parties—5% was the figure that people centred on. I think that 3,500 signatures is a high threshold in one month, but I accept that it is a lot easier than 20% of signatures in person in the town hall. However, I am open to attempts on Report to amend the amendments that I and colleagues will be tabling. A consensus that 5% is too low and that 10% will meet the approval of the House is for me an issue not of principle but of detail. If that is what it takes for the House to be comfortable with the proposals, I will politely go with the flow on that. The principle is what matters.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
I have great sympathy with many of my hon. Friend’s arguments about recall, but were his plans to be accepted and a recall initiated, would the names and addresses of constituents who signed the petition be public knowledge, or would that be confidential? That will obviously be of great interest to many political figures.
Zac Goldsmith
The regulations we are using for those who sign the recall petition are exactly the same as those proposed by the Government. I do not want to mislead the House, but my belief is that names and addresses would not be published, and that this would be an anonymous process. The recall would need to be verified by the returning officer, but names would not be publicly available. The name of the person who initiates the 5% stage and the notice of intent to recall would be made public, however, as would the description. I think that is right for a number of reasons, including that there would be a person to whom the authorities could go if the 5% stage was fraudulent—if there were duplicate signatures or if children or people from other constituencies were asked to sign. It is much easier to attach legal responsibility to a named individual, as opposed to something entirely anonymous.
In responding to interventions I think I have described the process—I hope so; I am slightly lost—and I was beginning to describe what genuine recall would look like: the 5% of constituents; then the 20% at the business end, the 14,000 people going to the town hall and signing. If that 20% is met, the bell would be rung and a recall referendum would be announced. That would be a simple yes or no, where a majority—not a vexatious minority—of an MP’s constituents would be required to boot them out in order to trigger the next stage, which is a by-election.
Mr Lansley
As I understand it, my hon. Friend’s alternative approach would enable a recall petition to be triggered for any reason. Will he explain at what point somebody who might be the subject not of a political complaint, but of allegations relating to their personal affairs, their conduct in this House, or conduct that might be the subject of a criminal investigation, would be subject to a petition? How would he prevent a petition from being triggered in circumstances where no allegation had been proven against that person?
Zac Goldsmith
One supporter of the amendments that will be tabled is my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans), whose circumstances match closely those just described. I hope that he speaks at some point in the debate—I do not see him here. He chose to support the amendments because he was reassured by provisions in them that once the judicial process begins, the recall process would be suspended. It would not be possible to seek to recall a Member once such a process had begun, until it had concluded. I think that is right, and there was an overwhelming consensus that that is right among the 40,000 people or so who responded to the survey. The measure would provide the protection that is required.
To reach its logical conclusion, before getting to the by-election the process would require an absolute minimum of five and a half months. This process would not happen over a weekend, and five and a half months would also allow Members to make the case to their constituents in a way that they could not in a short period of time. That is another reason why my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) —he has had similar experiences that I do not need to rehearse because everybody knows about them—is very much a supporter of the Bill. He feels that the five-month process was far longer than he would have required to engage with his constituents and make the case. The same is true of two other Members of the House who have had difficulties in their lives and who began the debate very much in opposition to recall. They now both support the amendments because they feel that they will get a fairer trial from their constituents than they ever would from social media, the mainstream media, or from a standard committee of parliamentarians, susceptible and fragile as we all are to tremendous pressures from newspapers and social media. The thresholds and protections are there.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
In support of what my right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley) said, I am worried about fairness. People sign underneath a petition of 200 words, but is it not fair for the MP to have a say at that point? How do we cover the fact that the MP is accused and does not have the right of response to those 5% of people?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Mr Goldsmith, you have been speaking for 27 minutes and have been very generous with interventions. A lot of other Members are waiting to contribute, and they will not all be able to speak for nearly half an hour, as you have. Could you perhaps resist taking any more interventions, make the points you wish to make and conclude your speech?
Zac Goldsmith
Thank you for that helpful reminder, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will wrap up my speech quickly, but I want to address briefly some of the concerns raised. I do not seek to demean or trivialise those concerns, and I recognise that there are genuine, heartfelt and principled concerns about recall, as it represents a big step. The Deputy Prime Minister has referred often in the House to kangaroo courts, but I emphasise that no Member could ever be recalled unless a majority of constituents choose for him or her to be recalled. That is the whole point of a recall referendum.
We must keep a perspective. I am repeating myself, but to reach a point of recall, 20% of constituents—some 14,000 people—would have to make the journey in person to a town hall or another dedicated place within an eight-week period, and there would have to be a very good reason for that recall. Any hon. Member who disputes that should try to think back to the biggest petition they have faced, and to the issue that triggered the biggest e-mail flurry they have received. It will not have been anywhere close to 14,000 signatures—not of constituents, at least.
Zac Goldsmith
In one moment, if my hon. Friend does not mind.
In dozens of democracies around the world that use recall, it is hardly ever used. In the US, where recall has existed for 100 years—I have already made this point—it has been used only 40 times, and only 20 times successfully. California is the most active recall state in the United States. Only one governor in 100 years has ever been recalled, and there is not a single example of a successful vexatious recall campaign.
I know that other hon. Members worry that recall might somehow turn us into delegates and no longer representatives—a point made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg)—but that is not realistic. Voters care about a wide range of issues, and it is rare for recall to be motivated only by one issue. People might disapprove of a Member’s position on one issue, but support them on a range of other issues. It is rare for one issue to be a deal breaker, and the history of recalls shows that that is very rare—I cannot think of an example of one policy issue being the cause and effect of a successful recall.
Zac Goldsmith
There are no examples of that. There are examples of attempted recall on the back of gun control, but not a successful one. It is probably true, however, that where recall is possible MPs will think twice about making undeliverable pledges, which is not a bad thing. It is also likely that where pledges have to be broken, MPs would feel obliged to engage extensively with constituents to explain why that was necessary, and that is also a good thing.
Hundreds of thousands of constituents around the country have been sent the same template letter from Liberal Democrat Members, and been told that this measure will cost too much. I saw one of those letters a couple of days ago. Constituents have been told:
“Just one real Recall petition per constituency per Parliament could cost the taxpayer £100 million.”
That figure is completely bonkers. It inflates the Government’s own impact assessment by 300%, and assumes that each Member of this place will face the full recall—not just the 5%—at least once in every Parliament. If 650 Members of this place face recall in one Parliament, the cost is the very least of our problems.
Of course there are arguments against recall, but at their core those are arguments against democracy itself and against all elections. If those arguments prevail, I believe that we will have lost a golden opportunity, not just for voters but for us as Members of this great place. Recall would empower people to hold their MPs to account, and that ubiquitous moan that we have all heard—“You’re all the same; there’s no point voting and nothing will ever change”—would no longer make any sense. The mere existence of recall would give each of us an added, implied continuous mandate, and embolden us as a Parliament. I do not say that it would fix our democracy, but it would be a very big start.
Douglas Carswell
I absolutely agree. There are many good and decent Members who would never be given as fair a hearing by a Committee of grandees—people who spend their careers chasing the Whips’ baubles—as they would if they trusted the views of the voters. After all, it is the voters who know us best. If the majority of our constituents decide in a vote that, frankly, they want us recalled, there is no shame in that. We are clearly in the wrong job; we should go and do something else. The voters would be better off if we did; we would be better off and so would democracy.
Zac Goldsmith
It is worth pointing out the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee has already said on the record that he does not want this extra duty of this extra ballot. He recognises, as does everyone else, that if we want to exert pressure and to influence an outcome, it is much easier to do so with a fallible group of 10 people than it is with 70,000 constituents.
Douglas Carswell
Absolutely. I would ask people again to apply the Ian Gibson test. If the Standards and Privileges Committee had been left to make the key decision in those heated and fevered moments during the MPs’ expenses scandal, would it not have been under intense media pressure to make the wrong choice by that good and decent Member of Parliament? I think it would have been. It is wrong for the Standards and Privileges Committee to have this role. It is right, if we want more lay members to be involved, for us not to seek to increase the number of lay members on the Standards and Privileges Committee, but to trust the voters. It puzzles me that people still struggle with the idea that the voters should decide whether or not to trigger the process, for they are the ultimate jury.
I shall support the Bill this evening. I shall do so because I am confident that it can be amended and made meaningful, and confident that many of the amendments that will be tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park will be successful. Unless that happens, this recall measure will remain a sham, a fix, a pretence of change so that Westminster can stay the same. Proper recall will end safe seat syndrome, which is what has really hamstrung our democracy. In four of the past five elections, fewer than one in 10 seats have changed hands. Even at the time of the 1997 great Labour landslide, only three in 10 changed hands. In other words, seven out of 10 seats are safe seats. There is almost a zero chance of those Members losing their seats unless they fall foul of the Whips. They are fiefdoms. That means that MPs answer to other MPs. The great destructive mechanism in our democracy, the Whips Office, is all-powerful.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman might be correct in some of that, but we do live in an imperfect world. All I would say to him is that this removes many of the imperfections and is an improvement on the current situation.
Zac Goldsmith
The hon. Gentleman is making a brilliant speech, and I agree with I think everything he has just said.
The points about moneyed interests are arguments against all elections, not just recalls. It would be possible for the Koch brothers to influence any election, not just recalls. That is another problem we need to address: there are arguments to be had about regulating the process so that that cannot happen. These arguments are not about recall; they are about democracy.
Mr MacNeil
I think there is a debate going on around me here about the influence of money in politics, and hopefully we are not quite in the same scenario as the United States of America in that respect, although it would be wrong to say that the influence of money is negligible in politics at whatever level, including general elections, by-elections or, perhaps, recall elections.
Some Members have argued that a general election is a form of recall, but I dispute that. Should a Member face recall, they will be facing recall on one point, with the eyes of the country, and particularly of their constituency, on the cause of the recall. In a general election Members come face to face with other candidates, as they would in a recall election, but the issues of the day can sweep a candidate into winning a seat. We have often seen over the last number of elections that some candidates have won to their own surprise; it is clearly not the candidate who has been elected personally, but instead it is support for their party or the issue of the day that has taken them to victory. Therefore a by-election or general election is not a recall election.
One of the most concerning aspects of the recall measures before us is the Government’s wording of clause 1(3), which mentions an MP who
“has, after becoming an MP, been convicted in the United Kingdom of an offence and sentenced or ordered to be imprisoned or detained”.
The word “detained” leaves us with quite a difficult situation. According to House of Commons notes, during this Parliament at least four sitting MPs have been detained by the police but not prosecuted. I will not name them because they do not deserve that. The detaining and imprisoning of people could, under the Government’s mechanisms, enable 10% to push for a by-election, and that would be wrong.
We must, I think, conduct a thorough experiment. Not many of us would like to imagine that we live in a country in which we have politically motivated arrests and people being detained because of mistaken identity—the measure does not even allow for the possibility of mistaken identity. Let us imagine that the detention was heavy-handed and wrong. Imagine too that the system was taken as a gold standard and used in other places. We could have a situation in which different standards in a different time and place would allow somebody to be detained, which could lead to a 10% trigger to an election, and that could be taken as a benchmark across the world. It is difficult to see how people could withstand the pressure of that.
Frank Dobson
It is no good people who do not agree with me shaking their heads, because I am sure that is the truth.
Zac Goldsmith
The example that the hon. Gentleman gives is an argument for recall. The Member of Parliament he describes, whose views were apparently at odds with those in her constituency, was nevertheless elected seven times in seven general elections despite holding those views. You can trust your constituents, and that is a case in point.
Frank Dobson
Yes, but she would have been put to all the bother and expense of fighting for her seat in the middle of a parliamentary—
Frank Dobson
I know that is the idea, and that is what is wrong with it. That is why it is a stupid idea.
This is intended to punish certain individuals, but it would have the effect of persuading a lot of other people who were feeling a bit edgy about things not to go ahead and stick to their principles because they might be set upon. That would not necessarily be done by an innocent group of individual electors—it could be the product of a very lengthy campaign by nasty people in the news media or, these days, some squalid, awful campaign in the social media, which built up over a long period of time and was almost impossible for an individual Member of Parliament to resist. We need to be very careful about that.
A lot of the things we enjoy today were advocated and supported by Lena Jeger and people like her, in the face of many objections. They include a lot of stuff to do with women’s rights, equal pay, family planning, outlawing racial discrimination, being in favour of abolishing capital punishment, being in favour of gay rights, and being in favour of in vitro fertilisation. More recently, people might have been subject to recall, depending on their constituency, for voting for or against the hunting ban—or, even more recently, voting for or against same-sex marriage. I can see some advantages in the idea of recall for such reasons. No doubt the Liberal Democrats would not have been very keen on innumerable recalls being launched when they went back on their promise not to increase student fees, and nearly every Tory and Lib Dem MP probably would not have fancied a recall over the NHS reforms. Even with those two attractive features, however, I do not support the proposition of recall.
When I make my position clear to my constituents, as I always try to do, they say, “How would you deal with the expenses fiddlers?” All I say is, “All the spectacular ones disappeared at the general election, so the system got ’em in the end.” As we know from the saying usually ascribed to Talleyrand, revenge is a dish best enjoyed cold. Even in an era of instant gratification, waiting for a general election should prove okay.
I absolutely accept that the Government Bill is a very shabby coalition compromise. There have been many objections to the triggers relating to a Member being jailed. Another trigger is misconduct that results in a Member being suspended for 21 days or more. Let us get this clear: this proposal is not about a Member being suspended for 21 days or more; it is about either being suspended for a short period or being sentenced to recall. It is not about the amount of time for which a Member might reasonably be suspended. I think that that could result in a lot of scandal—real or invented—being stirred up by the news media or social media. We all have to agree that there would be nothing objective or quasi-judicial about that process. It might be reasonably like going before the Standards Committee, but the decision would be taken on the Floor of the House.
“Objective” and “quasi-judicial” are not terms I would usually apply to a debate on that sort of thing. People might say that I am saying that the process would be a kangaroo court, but that is an insult to kangaroos. The decision would, generally speaking, be party politically motivated. As the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) has said, it is fairly clear that, even without the threat of recall, this place has treated some Members very differently from others even when they were guilty—if that is the right word—of the same wrongdoings.
I am aware that Edmund Burke lost the general election in Bristol after saying that he would betray the electors rather than serve them if he sacrificed his judgment to their opinions. That is fine, because that is what we are talking about: the judgment made at the general election. I find it rather odd that, even though he is usually portrayed as the philosophical father of conservatism, so many Conservative Members do not seem to agree with him.
The proposed process is not democratic in any way. Under the Government’s proposal, which is worse than that of recall enthusiasts, just 10% of the electorate would need to sign a petition. There would not be any provision for the other 90% to say, “We don’t think there should be a recall.” It would, therefore, be possible for 10% to sign up and get a recall under way, even if the vast majority of people living in a particular area were opposed to it.
The threat to the MP is not just that they might lose their job, but that they would have to go through a horrible process, which would be expensive, in both a personal and a party political sense, even if they survived the recall. That is something we ought to try to avoid.
Another problem is that the proposal would deter Members from sticking to the views they deeply hold. If they saw another Member suffer for sticking by their principles, a lot of them would start wondering whether it was still a good idea to do so themselves. Anything that discourages Members from sticking to their principles is bad. My electors have elected me eight times with varying majorities and I have always tried to tell the truth, because I am fairly secure in the feeling that, at a general election, what I have done will be looked at in the round by my electorate. However, a recall system would not look at things in the round, but at a specific and particular issue.
I have mentioned my distinguished predecessor, Lena Jeger. In 1974, I canvassed on her behalf. I called on a family I had got rehoused into a really rather nice flat, and the mother came to the door. They were definitely a Roman Catholic family. All the five daughters had the vote, as did the dad, so with the mum that made seven votes. People were not very sure about the likely outcome of the general election—I cannot remember which it was of the two general elections in 1974—and the mother said, “We want Mrs Jeger to support tightening up the abortion law.” I thought for a minute about whether to say, “Oh, she’ll do it.” Then I thought, “No. If she was here, she would tell the truth.” I therefore said, “No, I don’t think she will. She was one of the sponsors of what is now the law.” The mum said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think we’ll be able to vote for her.” On election day, I happened to pass their polling station when all seven of them came out, and called, “Frank, Frank”. I went across the road, and they said, “It’s all right. We’ve voted for Mrs Jeger because you told us the truth.” Telling the truth, and being judged at general elections in the round for what we do, is what should continue.
I believe that the proposals will massively strengthen the hands of rich individuals and pressure groups, as well as vindictive media campaigns and unprincipled and manipulative social media targeting, and that they will ultimately be reactionary. People have benefited from changes pushed for by individual MPs who made themselves unpopular at the time they did so, and they will realise that we need to encourage such MPs, not do them down.
Mr Lansley
It is not that Members have something to fear from participation in our democracy—far from it. I believe completely in the wisdom of the masses, but we have to recognise when and how that is properly to be tested in the formal sense. We are a representative democracy, and we increasingly change the character of our democracy anyway. The referendum is a participatory democratic vehicle. We have used it more, and it is likely to be with us for the future, but only in specific circumstances. That illustrates the nature of the constitutional question at the heart of the potential amendment to the Bill.
Shifting to a recall process is not about addressing the individual behaviour of Members—it is much more likely to be used to try to influence the policies of political parties, of Members of Parliament, or of the Government. It would relate to particular individual issues, unlike a general election. As other hon. Members have said very forcefully, a general election is a vital moment in a representative democracy, because people take the whole presentation of party and candidate and consider it in the round. The recall mechanism is designed to enable the public to intervene in and, notwithstanding what the decision in a general election might have been, to impact directly on an individual decision on an individual policy issue.
Zac Goldsmith
My right hon. Friend is describing Parliament as if it were made up of hundreds of free spirits whose decisions might be corrupted by the pressure brought about by recall, but surely he realises—in fact, I know that he knows this—that the pressure applied by party hierarchies through the Whips is on a dramatically different scale from the tiny pressure that might be felt as a consequence of this remote and unlikely threat of a three-line whip that constituents might find themselves holding from time to time. There is no comparison—surely my right hon. Friend understands that. Most Members do exactly what they are told by the Whips for 99.9%—sometimes 100%—of the time.
Mr Lansley
I am quite old fashioned: Members would have to look quite far back to find a point at which I did not vote in accordance with the Whip. I think that the last time I defied the Whip was on the question of same-sex adoption rules.
I see part of my role as having been elected as a Conservative. A number of Members have said, perfectly reasonably, that we are primarily and overwhelmingly elected—the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) has accepted this—on a party rather than an individual basis. I do not see that as meaning that individual Members of Parliament should not have a conscience or be able to exercise their judgment, because they owe that to their constituents. They will have to come to a judgment on great matters of conscience that are relevant to their constituency. That was true on Iraq: I did not vote for the invasion, even though it was my party’s policy to do so. To suggest, however, that we should behave as individuals outside party discipline is nonsense, because the whole system will begin to break down if we go in that direction.
The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park was slightly the other way around. He said that we all behave in the way the Whips tell us, but this has been a more rebellious Parliament—for good or ill—than ever before. I am not sure whether that is a good basis for the argument in favour of recall, because Members clearly feel that they can respond to their conscience and their constituents without the need for a recall mechanism.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) has suggested that if we took the Whips out of the process of deciding whether a Member should be suspended from this House—actually, I do not think that the Whips are part of that process— that would somehow relieve us of the impact of the Whips controlling our behaviour. The recall mechanism proposed as an alternative to this Bill, however, is a greater risk to Members. If a Member were subject to an allegation—a serious allegation, but not a criminal one—that threatened their reputation and position in the constituency, it is clear that they would then be subject to a notice of intent and at risk of a recall petition. The situation would develop rapidly and the question for their party would then be whether it supported them or not.
The hon. Member for Clacton (Douglas Carswell) mentioned Ian Gibson, who accused his party of abandoning him. The most dangerous thing for a Member is to be abandoned when they are at risk of having to stand in a by-election in their constituency. If the party takes the Whip away from a Member, they would, in effect, have no chance in a by-election—unless they were in a very strong position—and they would be undermined. The power of the Whips as to whether a Member has the Whip—and, therefore, their power over that Member’s position in an election—would be unchanged by this or any other recall Bill. The power of the Whips is often exaggerated, but in so far as it exists, it would be unchanged by the recall mechanisms, whatever they might be.
Mr Jackson
Again, I have enormous respect for my hon. Friend, but my big concern about the amendments is mission creep. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley) made the point that it seems peculiar to establish in legislation, by the incorporation of those amendments, a system that we expressly do not want to be enacted. It is like saying, “We are just putting it in place just in case circumstances arise where we have to use”—
Zac Goldsmith
I think that everyone here who believes in the recall of MPs would like to see a system that is not used a great deal. None of us wants to see MPs slung out of this place on a daily basis. The idea is that the threshold is low enough that it is possible to achieve in extreme circumstances but high enough that it cannot be abused in the way that many Members in this House fear it might be.
Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to be participating in the latter stages of this important debate and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson). We are distinguished members of a small group of resigned Parliamentary Private Secretaries to the former Northern Ireland Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson). My hon. Friend might find that some of his views are echoed in my speech.
It was a pleasure to listen to the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), the former Chief Whip and Patronage Secretary. His knowledgeable contribution showed how much he will be missed from the House after the general election.
Today is Parliament talking about Parliament. As I look up towards those who look down on us—literally and metaphorically—I am conscious that I do not see many of them. My hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), who has just left the Chamber, referred to our being in a goldfish bowl, but not many people are looking into this particular goldfish bowl. When we vote on bombing Syria or gassing badgers, this place is surrounded by members of the public wishing to tell us their views. We find that our inboxes are full of e-mails and our correspondence rates go up, but that has not happened in the build-up to today’s debate.
I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Douglas Carswell) back in his place below the Gangway on the Opposition Benches. He reminded us of the case of Winchester in 1997, which is probably one of the only times we have seen what a recall looks like. I declare an interest in that case—you may well remember it, Mr Speaker—because the Conservative candidate in that Winchester by-election, who had been the Member for Winchester until the 1997 general election, was one Gerry Malone, who once held the very high office of deputy chairman of the Conservative party responsible for youth. It was Mr Malone who showed his commitment to democracy by overturning the results of the Conservative student elections in which I was elected as national chairman and by appointing my successor. It was ironic that he called that a consultation exercise, as he went on to find out what being on the wrong end of a consultation exercise felt like some years later in Winchester.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is not in the Chamber. He made an eloquent but characteristically depressing speech. A young man from the sixth form of my old school, St Columba’s in St Albans, is doing some work experience in my office this week. He told me with great pride that he had spotted an error in the hon. Gentleman’s speech, because there had been a reference to the Great Reform Act of 1830, when it was, of course, of 1832. I am pleased that the standards of my old history teacher, Mr Byrne, are alive and well in St Columba’s today.
Several hon. Members have talked about trust, which goes to the heart of this matter, and the expenses scandal. I viewed that scandal as a member of the public. Like many Members who were first elected at the 2010 general election, I looked on in despair at what happened during the expenses scandal. I understand that many in the House who lived through that experience are so scarred by it that they do not feel able to stand up and say that it was a small minority of people who did wrong and that those people were rightly punished. When a new regime is in place, it is wrong that this House continues to sit back and take the flak for something from the past. Members on both sides of the House who were first elected in 2010 believe that we have a mandate to restore the bond of trust between this place and the electorate, and we have tried to achieve that through everything that we have done and said in our constituencies.
We hear that we are all the same and that the political class is useless, but all hon. Members must be visited in their surgeries almost every week by people in abject despair, and because of the two letters after our names, we are able to escalate their problems into the hands of people who can sort them out. If we lose faith in this place, we will deserve to fall into public contempt. I assert that it is time for this Chamber to stand up again and bravely say to the British people, “This is the cockpit of parliamentary democracy in Britain. This is where we resolve issues by debate and argument. This is a place that is populated by people who are motivated by generous, good and decent instincts to do their best for their country and their constituency.”
However, I assert that one of the reasons people have disengaged from politics is that, as the late Tony Benn once said, this place has swapped power for status. Members of Parliament are asked to go on television, but they are afraid to exercise the powers vested in them by their constituents in the Lobby and to stand up powerfully to the Executive. We have shuffled power off to the European Union and to unelected quangos, to people we do not elect and cannot remove. It is vital that in the years ahead this House confidently starts to bring some of those powers back to this place and to exercise them in the name of our constituents who sent us here.
I thought that the comment that the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) made about Enoch Powell having a good majority in his South Down seat because he tipped his hat to the local electorate was a novel one. I am not sure that rushing out, buying trilbies and tipping them to our local electorates is the full solution to the problem we find ourselves in. The hon. Gentleman also referred to Edmund Burke, and I am delighted that the statue of that great conservative philosopher has now been liberated from behind the bookshop in St Stephen’s Hall, so that it can be seen as an inspiration to us all. It was Burke who said, in his famous speech to his electors in Bristol, that we as Members of Parliament owe our constituents our judgment above all else, and that we betray them and do not serve them if we sacrifice our judgment to their opinion. It is absolutely right that during the course of a Parliament we in this place will vote for unpopular measures. I remember a few years ago—I have told this story before—telling Lady Thatcher that the Conservative party was 9% behind in the polls. She asked when the next election was, and I said that it was three and a half years away. She said, “That’s not far enough behind at this stage.”
It is up to us as politicians to take decisions, confident in our judgments and confident that over time they will be shown to be right. I will use the recent example of same-sex marriage. I agonised over how to vote on that, as a practising Catholic and as an openly gay man. If I had listened to those in my constituency whose voice was loudest, whose e-mail send button was pushed the most often, I would have gone into the Lobby to vote against that legislation, but I decided that I owed them my judgment. Although I might not have earned their support on that, I am certain from their reaction afterwards and from the line I took with them that I have earned their respect. That, to me, is a much more important aspiration than to be liked.
Zac Goldsmith
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; he is making a powerful speech. On his point about gay marriage, would he have made a different decision, or felt obliged to vote differently, had there been in place a recall regime of the sort that I and colleagues are proposing?
Conor Burns
That is a very good question. Some hon. Ladies and Gentlemen in this Chamber have known me for more than 20 years, yourself included, Mr Speaker, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton, and they know that I have consistently put my principles ahead of promotion. I would not have sacrificed the national chairmanship of the Conservative students to oppose Maastricht in 1993, and I certainly would not go through the Lobby in this place for something I fundamentally did not believe in—it is a liberating experience when one decides that.
Zac Goldsmith
I would be interested to know why my hon. Friend thinks that others might do that as a consequence of recall. What is it about this House that makes him feel that the existence of recall would enfeeble Parliament, as opposed to strengthening it in the way he has just demonstrated?
Conor Burns
My hon. Friend has given me an excellent introduction to how I want to end my speech. I will support the Government’s Bill, which was ably introduced today by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark)—not Angry of Tunbridge Wells, but moderate and very sensible of Tunbridge Wells. I look forward to the amendments from my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) in Committee, because I think that they need to be probed.
When I resigned from my role as PPS in order to vote against a Bill which I fundamentally opposed and believed would damage Parliament, I did so in the knowledge that that would lead to a sacrifice. As a friend of mine said at the time, “You’re a genius: you’ve established yourself as a person of principle over an issue that nobody really cares about.” I suppose that there was an element of truth in that. What I want to know—my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire made this point absolutely brilliantly—is how the amendments proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park would enable the separation of sanction on personal probity issues from people taking policy positions. In this House a Member must be able to take a policy decision, a difference of philosophical understanding on an issue, and be confident that they will be judged on that over time at the next general election. Issues of personal conduct are completely separate. If my hon. Friend can convince me and others that we can separate policy and probity, we will be open-minded in how we vote.
Mr Stuart
My hon. Friend made a powerful speech. At the heart of the issue is whether the public, with no prior wrongdoing having been proved, can be trusted to use this power without it being abused in order to challenge Members on matters of conscience. I do not often speak up for the Liberal Democrats, but in this Parliament our coalition partners took an unpopular decision on tuition fees as part of a coalition agreement that they thought was in the national interest. Members representing university towns may have taken that decision even though they stood on that manifesto pledge. Following this debate, I am going to have to wrestle with the idea of whether I am confident that the proposed process would not have been used to turf out those MPs for doing what they thought was right. It would be terrible if the fear of recall were to influence not how Members treat their constituents or work on their behalf, but how they vote. That goes to the heart of the debate.
Zac Goldsmith
None of the Lib Dem Members with whom I have spoken believe they would have been recalled on the back of the tuition fee debacle. If recall had been possible, it is more likely that they would have thought twice about pledging such unrealistic and undeliverable things before an election. Under such a regime, Members would have to think much more carefully about the promises they make.
Mr Stuart
My hon. Friend, as ever, makes a subtle and important point, which takes me back to the observation of my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) about US Congressmen always looking over their shoulders because they are elected to serve only two-year terms. It is not entirely a bad thing, however, that MPs are always looking over our shoulders to ensure that we communicate to our constituents why we are doing what we are doing and why we have made certain promises and voted in certain ways.
I do not know whether this has already been mentioned, but I accept that we are taking a risk. If we give the public the right of recall without any prior wrongdoing having been proved, we do not know how it will be used or what the pressures—political or otherwise—that may occur in coming years will do. I suggest, therefore, that this process is a perfect candidate for a sunset clause, whereby it would be trialled for a five-year Parliament. It might be said that after giving the public the right of recall, there is no way this House would ever have the courage to take it back from them. I suggest, however, that if that right ends up being used not for wrongdoing, but to challenge Members on how they vote, this House should then have the courage to do something about it.
It is not just proven wrongdoing that is of a criminal character or that is so severe that a Member is suspended for 21 days that upsets the public. If Members look at the data that WriteToThem, which is part of the TheyWorkForYou stable of internet tools, used to produce its league table, they will see that an awful lot of colleagues from all parties appeared not to respond to constituents: they did not write back to or take care of them. It is up to the electorate to decide whether they are being properly served by a Member of Parliament. That is at the heart of the issue for those of us who wish to give the public that right, and we hope, albeit in the spirit of optimism, that it will be used in the right way.