Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

We now have fixed-term Parliaments. Like the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, I hope that that will not be the case for much longer. After a maximum of five years, if re-election is being sought, the Member of Parliament has to go back to the constituents and seek that re-election. It is for the constituents to come to a decision.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

Within my own party, the Member of Parliament would have to go through a process before he stood before the constituency: he would have to be reselected by his own party as the candidate.

[Lord Cormack]

Oh yes, I know all about that, because they tried to get rid of me on two or three occasions. I know all about reselection. But that, in a sense, is not the point. It is for the electors, at the end of the day, to make the decision, and they have to take into account the record, and the assiduity, of the Member of Parliament.

When I was canvassing I used to say, “No Member of Parliament is ever a mirror of all your beliefs and prejudices—and everybody has both. You have to decide which candidate is better able—or best able, if there are more than two candidates—to represent you. You have to decide which is the one with whom you can identify on more fronts than not”. Constituents will take into account not only the record of the Member, but his attendance record.

In one sense I sympathise with the motive behind the six-month provision. But if a Member has not attended for six months, why is that the case? Somebody has already cited the Sinn Fein Members of the other place. They have been legitimately elected, and they should not be illegitimately ejected because they have done neither more nor less than they promised to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, I am reluctant to speak in this debate. I did not take part in the Second Reading debate and I have not even read it, unlike the noble Lord.

I am not clear about this amendment. There are two types of misconduct in the House of Commons. There is a very small number MPs who, for whatever reason, fiddle their expenses and who quite rightly should be done for that. Equally, there are Members of Parliament who carry out acts of misconduct in the Chamber of the House of Commons itself, who for whatever reason refuse to obey the Speaker’s rulings, who refuse to sit down, and who will not give way. I have been in the Chamber when, in the end, the Speaker has sometimes been forced to call the Serjeant at Arms to remove the person. The person can then be given a suspension from the House of Commons which is longer than the 10 days. It would trigger these amendments and trigger this Bill, as far as I understand it.

I recall that my uncle, for instance, accused a junior Tory Health Minister at the time—the man was called Banbury—of being a murderer. He was asked by the Speaker to apologise and withdraw the remark, and he refused to do so. He believed that the matter was one of taking milk away from nursing mothers. His wife had just died, after childbirth, as a result of that. He believed that he was right, to the point that he was suspended from the House. It was almost a sine die suspension, in Glasgow football terms. The suspension was in effect until he came to the House and apologised.

I am not sure that these amendments would cover those sorts of offence. If they do, then it is totally wrong that they do. Such offences are a matter of misconduct within the House of Commons Chamber. They break the rules of the House of Commons. It is therefore for the Speaker and Members of the House of Commons to decide that, not for some outside organisation, such as a couple of judges sitting—who, as others have said, would not be prepared to undertake this task.

Lastly, that same uncle of mine did not object to the First World War. It so happens that he was not a Member of Parliament at the time. He went to prison, not because he was a conscientious objector; he went to prison because he committed an act of sedition under the law. He urged munitions workers in Glasgow to go on strike when the war was on. As a result he was sentenced to a year in prison. If he had been a Member of Parliament, would it have been right that he should therefore have been forced into a position in which he could not be one thereafter? Some people would say that it would have been. In my view, he should not have been forced into this position. He would not have been re-elected in 1918 if he had been a Member of Parliament, because Ramsay MacDonald, who was equally opposed to the war, was not re-elected.

[Lord Grocott]

He soon got back.

[Lord Maxton]

He soon got back: I accept that. My uncle would have been elected. It was he who coined the phrase: “Why should we bother counting my votes? Let’s just weigh them, because I know I am going to win”.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My noble friend has talked about an important case, arising from his family history and the history of this country. He has just exposed in the Bill that we are examining the inconsistency and confusion between the powers of the Speaker to suspend and the provisions for recall. Do not these demonstrate the regrettable failure of the House of Commons to examine and amend, thoroughly and satisfactorily, legislation of fundamental constitutional importance, and of fundamental importance to its functioning and future? Is that not a good reason why we in this House should feel entitled, with genuine respect, to offer our advice by way of amendments, so that the damage that the House of Commons is inflicting on itself through this measure may be lessened?

[Lord Maxton]

I shall finish by saying that I thoroughly agree with that.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to add my name to my noble friend Lord Tyler’s amendments. It is obvious to us all that he has devoted much hard work to them. As he explained, the amendments arise in part as a response to an important issue in the report on this Bill by the Constitution Committee, of which I have the honour to be a member. He quoted a passage from the report that I will repeat. It is immensely important:

“The constitutional purpose of recall is to increase MPs’ direct accountability to their electorates: it is questionable whether that purpose is achieved when the trigger is put in the hands of MPs rather than constituents”.

This is a Recall of MPs Bill. My noble friend’s proposals, embodied in his amendments, represent a first attempt in this House to see if it is possible to find a way of enabling the electorate to be more fully involved in the arrangements that can trigger recall without breaching the famous Burkean principles that safeguard MPs’ independence of judgment. The amendments further develop ideas put forward in another place. They are probing amendments, as my noble friend emphasised. Of course we understand and accept that more work on these amendments would be necessary before Report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Finkelstein]

I think that this is a misunderstanding. The leader of the party has to sign to allow them to use the party logo in an election, and they may not be permitted to stand for a political party, but that does not prevent them standing in a by-election. I suspect that if Jimmy Maxton had run in that election, he might well have received the signature of the leader of the Labour Party, but in other circumstances it might have been withheld. It does not prevent someone running again in the election; they are not denied this chance; and the electorate are not denied the opportunity to support them. It just means that they will not be allowed under their party act to run as a party candidate.

[Lord Maxton]

The fact is that Jimmy Maxton would not have required, and would not have got, Ramsay MacDonald’s signature on any candidature; he was selected by the ILP in Bridgeton to be the candidate.

[Lord Finkelstein]

And he could run as a candidate, if he wished, in an election, and could receive or not receive his party’s support; I am arguing just that the electorate should have the opportunity to decide, in circumstances in which someone has decided to defy the law, whether to continue to support them as a Member of Parliament. This power will not be imposed on Members of Parliament against the wishes of the electorate; it is a power granted to the electorate. What we have to decide as a House is whether it is reasonable that the electorate be given a limited power in certain circumstances that they can use to enforce standards. I believe that that power is reasonable and limited.