Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That is true; we are giving him an impossible task. I hope that the noble Lord is not blaming me for this. This is all part of the Bill. Even the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, will have some difficulty explaining this. I was going to say he is just the Bill’s representative on Earth, but he is just the representative in this place of the Bill’s real architect. We know who is to blame.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I hesitate again to interrupt the noble Lord in his wonderfully nostalgic speech ranging across the entire United Kingdom. I do not have a copy of the Labour Party’s manifesto for the last election with me but I think it committed the Labour Party to a recall Bill. I am sure that the noble Lord, as a good, strong, Labour loyalist, stands 100% behind that. Does he?

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[Lord Norton of Louth (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendment, which should be read in conjunction with Amendment 39 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. It strikes me that the problem is that there are too few signing places but they are open for too long a time. If the period is shortened, that would presumably free up resources that might help to cover the cost of having more places open within a short period. If the two were put together, it could be cost-neutral but very beneficial to all those who want to take part in the process.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, managed to entertain us for more than an hour during the first day in Committee. I fear that he may be hoping to do the same on the second.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That was not continuous.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Absolutely, it was absolutely not—it was repetitive. This Bill has been considered by a number of committees. The Government’s proposals for “a maximum of 4” took on board the proposals of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the other place. That is where this proposal comes from. I have listened with interest and I have been thinking about constituencies in which I have worked. Indeed, in the first by-election in which I worked, as a student, I recall that the constituency of Cambridgeshire had 103 villages and no towns. Without question, there was one very convenient place where everyone might gather to sign a petition, which was outside the constituency in the city of Cambridge. We recognise that that is part of the problem we have with constituencies and their boundaries.

When I was the candidate in Shipley, one of my duties was to hold a house meeting in a place where it was a considerable surprise to those who attended the meeting to discover that they were in the Shipley constituency. They thought that they lived in a different place. I am sure that there are also problems that others here have faced in their turn. Again, I stress that this issue has been considered at some length not only in the other place but by a number of committees. This has not been sprung on the House by a wicked Deputy Prime Minister, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, would like us all to believe. I am sure that he has looked at the committee report in some detail. It has been suggested that giving people an eight-week period will allow for a trade-off between those who wish to use postal votes and those who will take the opportunity to sign when they come into the centres in the constituency. That is the flexibility of the trade-off, and we will discuss further the question of whether the period should be of eight weeks or two.

I am conscious of the differences between constituencies in this country. We talked about what is called the Brecon and Radnor question in our earlier discussions, and I am certainly willing to look at whether there is an appetite for a degree more flexibility in all of this. As to the provision of premises, let me stress that traditionally the management of elections in this country is a local matter. It is in the hands of experienced members of local authorities, who look at the provision of appropriate premises. Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Snape, that I think licensed premises are extremely unlikely to be used. As I listened to him, I wondered whether we would allow premises that sell liqueur chocolates to be used, since those of us who are also involved in the Deregulation Bill have struggled with that deep and vital matter.

[Lord Snape]

Has the Minister come to any conclusion on that matter?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Let us discuss it off the Floor of the House rather than detain the Committee further.

Of course, we will be relying on the discretion of the petition officers, who will be the local election officers, on the use of public premises around each constituency. I note the strength of feeling that has been expressed about four centres not being enough in a number of constituencies, although I also note the section of the Electoral Commission’s report which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, did not quote, which states that, equally, four signing locations may be more than is required in some constituencies. There is, perhaps, a greater degree of flexibility and I am willing to take this away and discuss whether a degree more flexibility is desirable.

Let me touch on a number of other issues that have been raised. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, discussed the impact assessment. I can assure him that, under the Bill when passed, the costs of each recall process will be reimbursed to the local authority. The impact assessment covers the fact that the direct and indirect costs, including training, will be reimbursed.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Will the Minister write to us before Report with a detailed analysis of the costings that led the Government to come to the conclusion that they expressed in the impact assessment? It was:

“The cost attributed to one recall petition in the United Kingdom is estimated to be in the region of £55,000”.

It would be very helpful if he would explain how those costs are made up.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I will be happy to promise that we will reconsider that and I will write. Perhaps it is also worth talking at this point a little about regulations. A number of the amendments before us today consider how much should be in the Bill and how much should be in regulations. We have placed in the Library of the House a draft sketch of the regulations, but I should stress that it will not be possible to lay the regulations before either House between now and 7 May. The exact regulations will be the responsibility of the next Government and will come before the two Houses within the first year of the new Parliament.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am most grateful to my noble friend. If all this has been so carefully thought through, why are the Government not in a position to lay these regulations? I have listened carefully and I am grateful to him for saying that he will look at this again. However, while it is invidious to choose a particular constituency, if you take Argyll, which consists of a number of islands, the idea that this can be done for £55,000 is pie in the sky. Is the Minister basing the costing on discounting it over a long period? Where did the figure come from?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, since I have not looked in detail at the assessment, I cannot directly answer that. I assure him that I will go back and get that. I am quite familiar with parts of the Argyll constituency; I recall the Daily Mail writing a bitterly critical article on MPs’ expenses the year before last, in which it attacked the current MP for Argyll, who is a friend of mine, for claiming overnight hotel expenses within his own constituency—which merely demonstrated that the Daily Mail had not looked at the atlas.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

This is a very serious matter. The Minister said that none of the regulations will be ready before this Parliament finishes. That means that it will be up to the next Government to lay these regulations before Parliament. I am expecting that there will be a different Government. How is it that he, and this Government, can bind a successor Government and Parliament to put these regulations before Parliament?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I was not aware that I had said “none” of them. A sketch of the regulations—which I am sure that the noble Lord has looked at—has been placed in the Library of the House, but the final form of the regulations have not been entirely agreed. As the noble Lord well knows—although he is looking in puzzlement at me—things like this have to be agreed closely through consultation with the Association of Electoral Administrators, the Electoral Commission and others. These things need to be done well and they take time, after one has agreed the overall shape of the Bill. That is the process through which we are now going.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The Minister says that these things take time and have to be done carefully, but it is some four years since the Government produced their draft Bill. What have they been doing?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government have been fairly busy with a range of issues. We have perhaps taken longer on this than we should have done, and I note that the House is currently enjoying itself. The question of adequate training is, I suggest, a matter for regulations rather than for inclusion in Bill. I am happy to discuss that with the Opposition Front Bench between Committee and Report. Having said that we will discuss these issues further, I hope that the noble Baroness—

[Lord Snape]

With respect to the Minister, I am afraid that we are discussing the Bill because of discussions between the two Front Benches. They are the cause of the trouble in the first place. Therefore, I do not think the House will be too mollified by the thought of more such discussions taking place. Surely, if the Minister is going to reply properly to Amendment 66 in particular, he ought to be able to tell us how many staff he envisages at these particular places and what training—if any—they are going to get. What guarantees can he and the Government give about security, as far as people wishing to sign a petition are concerned, and what assurances will he be able to give the rest of us that people are signing only once? He has answered none of the questions relevant to Amendment 66. Whether or not the Government have had the regulations drafted after four years is their problem: the House is entitled to a slightly more comprehensive answer from the Minister than it has had so far.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have stressed several things. The details of premises used, and other arrangements, are matters for local election administrators. I have spent some time over the past three years talking to local election officers, and I have the highest respect for those whom I met, both in Yorkshire and in London. That is the way we manage elections; those people understand the local area, including its geography and the sort of premises that are the most valuable. Moreover, facilities for training are a matter for discussion between the Association of Electoral Administrators, the Electoral Commission and the Government. Those discussions have already begun and are well under way, but the final details await the completion of the Bill.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Would it not have been sensible to have had the discussions with the local authorities about how this proposal could work in advance of drafting the primary legislation and in advance of this very late stage, when the Bill has been through the House of Commons and is in Committee in the House of Lords, and we are at the fag end of a Parliament? Surely, this is putting the cart before the horse, which is why the Minister—and I sympathise with him—is in the very embarrassing position of not being able to explain how, practically, this legislation can be made to work.

He is simply saying, “We are going to pass it on to other people and we will make regulations when we have had discussions with them”. But what happens if the other people who have experience in this area come to the same conclusion as every speaker in this debate who has represented a parliamentary constituency: namely, that this is not practical and doable? By that time, this will be an Act of Parliament. Surely it is our duty not to put rubbish on the statute book.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord is being a little mischievous. There have of course been extensive discussions with the Association of Electoral Administrators and others throughout on these matters. They have not come to a conclusion because the details will need to be worked out as we move forward. For example, this detailed amendment concerns the question of how many places one will have open for signing over an eight-week period. I have just offered to take that back and consider whether we could be a little more flexible. I have also explained that our proposals came as a response to a report from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, to which evidence was given by a number of these people—so we are not simply starting from the beginning. There has been quite extensive consultation, with which I am sure the noble Lord is familiar, and on that basis—

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Does the Minister recollect that the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee advised the Government to drop the Bill?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I do not recollect that. I recognise that all those in this House who have been MPs are deeply unhappy about the Bill. I also recognise that outside the Palace of Westminster there are many who would like the Bill to be a lot rougher and tougher than it is.

[Lord Snape]

The Minister will have to do a bit better than that. Outside the Houses of Parliament there are those who will not be satisfied until Members of Parliament live in a tent on the Thames and pay to come to work. He will have to find a slightly better argument than that to convince the House.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, as I walked down the main street in Saltaire on Saturday, I saw on the noticeboard outside the hairdresser a scribbled note that said, “Kill politicians, not trees”—we are currently culling some of the trees in Saltaire. I went in and had a minor altercation with the hairdresser about whether or not he would have been equally open to putting “policemen” or “Muslims” on his “Kill politicians” thing. It was a long altercation, and my wife did her best to calm me down. Let us recognise that we are in a situation in which politicians are not among the most popular or respected people in Britain, and the Bill is in part a response to that—and I stress that it was in the manifestos of the three political parties last time. Noble Lords do not like that response, but that is the situation which we are in.

[Lord Snape]

Having had the courage to say that to the hairdresser, did the Minister have the courage to stay for a haircut?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Not there.

[Lord Finkelstein (Con)]

I have heard all these suggestions from various noble Lords that this is completely impossible and impractical. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister might reflect on the United States of America and whether in all the places that are very large—larger even than my noble friend’s former constituency—which have had these petitions, they have all collapsed due to it being completely impractical to organise them, or has it proven in fact that many recall petitions have taken place perfectly simply and not at great expense?

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the recall process takes place in a number of other democratic countries. It is an established part of democratic institutions in a number of other established democracies.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, asked whether we were putting the cart before the horse. At least now I understand the Bill that we gave a First Reading to earlier, which was about the control of horses, which I had failed to understand thus far.

It is interesting that everyone who has spoken in this very interesting and geographically spread debate has supported the amendment tabled by me and my noble friend Lord Kennedy. We now hope that we will enjoy the same degree of support for our other amendments and will look forward to it as we proceed.

My noble friend Lord Howarth pointed out, as I was about to do, that if the best evidence that the Minister could have was from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee report in the other House, it was on the basis that this measure should not proceed at all, so the case for four days really has to be better than that. However, I shall not labour that point because the Minister has agreed to take it away and look at whether the provision should state “minimum” or whether we simply leave it to the petition officer, as the Electoral Commission says. We would be content with either as long as there was that increased flexibility.

I am not a former Member of the other place, so I do not come with any of that, but it seems to me that the provisions relating to how you develop the petition, how you set up signing places and the training of the staff will be crucial. As someone who has been a teller at polling stations, I will want to know whether I will be allowed in, how many feet away I will be able to be from someone going to the polling station and whether I will be able to ask where they live—which effectively gives me knowledge of who they are and therefore who they are voting for. These are big issues, and we will need the staff at the signing places to have absolute clarity on that when they are challenged about how close I might be able to go wearing my rosette or my “Vote No to Wallace” badge. Would we be treated as we are at general elections? I can find none of that, even in the draft regulations. Therefore, the training, its length and the type of staff are absolutely key, which is why we wanted it spelt out more.

I thank all those who have given their support to the amendment. I hope that we can look forward to the Government tabling their own amendment on Report. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I move this amendment with some concern and some disappointment, having heard the Minister’s response to the previous amendment. I would have thought that, if we were dealing with any of these amendments properly, the Minister might say in response to at least some of them, “The Opposition or the mover of the amendment from the Back Bench has made a good point. I’ll have a look at it. I’ll take it away. I’ll discuss it with colleagues and I’ll come back”.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord was listening to the response that I gave to the previous amendment, where I said precisely that.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That was not what I took from it, but I am glad that he has confirmed that that is the case. I hope that we will hear the same kind of response to other amendments and that, when he comes back, we will see some changes, otherwise this would be a completely cosmetic exercise.

As I said earlier, the whole Bill seems to me to be a panic exercise. The Minister gave this away when he was talking about walking down the street in Saltaire and being incensed by the note that he saw in the barber’s window. The Bill seems to be a panic response to some of the comments made by people who write in the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and even the Times from time to time. I am reminded of someone once asking, “Why are all the people best able to run the country either cutting hair or driving taxis?”, which seemed to me to be a very good question, but I added to that, “Why are all the people best able to run the country cutting hair, driving taxis or writing columns in newspapers?”. If these people know better than us how to run the country, if they can draft better legislation, if they can come with better ideas, why on earth do they not stand for Parliament?

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[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

There are two different issues here: making up your mind on the matter and the procedures involved. The questions I am asking the Minister are: why did the Government decide on this measure, and what is the appropriate period? Two weeks seems too short to get the whole thing set up and the registers ready. Indeed, we are talking about 12 weeks with a couple in between, given the eight weeks that have been mentioned, added on to a possible by-election lasting another four weeks.

I think that the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, now appreciates what my noble friend Lord Grocott said. The best thing would be to resign straightaway and call the by-election yourself, as the MP concerned, and go straight into a by-election, saying, “Yes, it is true that I have been kept out of the House of Commons for 10 days”—or whatever it is—“but that was because I felt very strongly about a matter; there was a Bill going through that I did not like”, or whatever the issue was. In that case, you are on the front foot. That is the point that my noble friend Lord Grocott was making. That would be a much more attractive proposition and might be the right way to tackle the matter—that is, by putting the MP in the control seat. Sadly, we have not discussed these issues fully and I do not think that the Government thought about adding the time for a by-election when they chose the eight-week period. They have some explaining to do about the choice of this period, particularly with regard to the discussions they have had with the electoral officers and the Electoral Commission on the eight-week period. We look forward to clarification on that.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

This debate has ranged a great deal wider than the two amendments before us. I again remind the Committee that a commitment to bring forward a recall Bill was in the manifestos of all three parties in 2010. The draft Bill was published for pre-legislative scrutiny in 2011. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee considered the proposed architecture and did not recommend changes, and it has also been approved by the other place.

I hear noble Lords around the Committee saying, “This is appalling. We have not thought of this before. This must be a last-minute proposal. Why has it not been thought through?”. This is not the case. We have consulted throughout, not with the Local Government Association, but with the society of chief executive officers and the Association of Electoral Administrators, the representative bodies for returning officers. They have not raised particularly difficult issues on this. I stress that the rationale for this measure was that the petition period would be parallel to, and part of, the process of discussion.

[Lord Grocott]

As the Minister is praying in aid the committee that gave the Bill pre-legislative scrutiny, he needs to put it on record that it recommended that the Bill should be dropped—I cannot remember another example of this happening—and that the Government should find alternative, sensible ways of using valuable parliamentary time. Can we have it on the record that that was the professional view of the specialist committee which looked at the Bill in its pre-legislative form? I cannot think of any other example of a Select Committee making a judgment of that sort.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am fully prepared to accept that, but I also note that this Bill passed through the other place in spite of that recommendation. We need to at least start from that assumption when looking at the Bill rather than suggest that it has not been properly considered and ought to be entirely rejected, which I think is the undertone of a number of the contributions being made to this Committee stage debate.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Does the Minister accept that we on the Front Bench have endorsed the Bill and are trying to make it work?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I entirely accept that the Front-Benchers are committed to that and I wish that noble Lords elsewhere were. We have already, in effect, extended the process of elections. The fact that postal voting starts at a much earlier stage is a problem that we now all face in elections. Indeed, we have extended the period, in regulations that I have taken through the House over the past two years, rightly, between sending out postal votes and the election, in order to provide more time for people overseas, people who are going abroad on holiday, or whatever. So the process of elections has now been extended and we have the severe problem, as I felt working at the last election, that by the last week of the election a substantial number of the electorate have already voted. The conversation takes place early. The intention stated in putting the Bill forward for pre-legislative scrutiny was that the dialogue would take place as the petition was opened.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

I ask the Minister, since I am no longer involved in the question of postal voting, what is now the time between polling day and the granting of postal votes?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Since I have taken the regulations through I should know the answer to that, but I do not now recall it; I merely recall that we have extended the period.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

I am sorry, but the Minister just told us how he brought all this legislation through the House and now he cannot even remember what it was about.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I certainly remember what it is about. I do not remember the exact period. I think we have extended it from three weeks to four and a half or five, but I will write to the noble Lord about that.

On the question of the preparatory period, I note that these two issues are, of course, linked and that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is proposing that there should be a longer time for preparation and a shorter time for signing the petition. I assume that he regards these as intrinsically linked to the provision of a larger number of places at which to sign, so that, in a sense, it all goes together as a package. The proposal which the Government have put forward in the Bill is that, since the electoral officers have not asked for a longer preparatory period than that suggested in the draft Bill and which is therefore provided for here, we therefore open the petition-signing process after 10 days. That gives a considerable period during which people who are on holiday can return, et cetera, in order to provide the maximum amount of time for a campaign which goes in parallel with the petition-signing process and gives the maximum amount of time for those who wish to sign the petition.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I find it difficult to understand what the Minister is saying sometimes. Is he going to accept, if not my proposition, the proposition of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, that eight weeks to two weeks is linked to the number of polling places? Since he has taken away the number of polling places and will come back, is he also agreeing to take away the question of the eight-week period being reduced and look at that as well? I do not know whether he said that.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I did not say that. The other place has passed this legislation and I am not yet persuaded. The eight-week period ensures that there is enough time for electors to sign in a manner that is convenient for them. I am certainly prepared to raise the questions of how far we wish to go and the cost involved, but I doubt whether I can give the noble Lord the open suggestion at this late stage, four years after the draft Bill was published, that we will look again at something which has actually had very considerable consultation since it was proposed and has not received a negative comment from most of those who were consulted. On that basis, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I wish the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, were here because I can understand what he is saying. I find it very difficult to understand what the Minister has just said. If I cannot make a case, the noble Lord, Lord Norton—Professor of Government at Hull University—made a perfect case. If the Minister is taking away the issue to look at the number of polling places, it surely goes without saying that the question of the time for which those places are open is linked to it, in terms of not just cost but the availability for people to sign. I am quite astonished that he is unable to consider this matter. To be honest, it shows that Ministers in the House of Lords need to be exceptional and say—like the noble Lord, Lord Newby, sometimes does—“I’ll have another look at that and will go back and argue with the Ministers in the House of Commons because a good argument has been made. Perhaps I can convince those Ministers that it should be taken account of”.

The Minister said, in a sort of gratuitous compliment to my noble friend on the Front Bench, that of course the Government think that the Opposition Front Bench is trying to improve the Bill. The implication is that none of us on the Back Benches is trying to improve the Bill, but this is genuinely an attempt to do so. The compadre of the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein—the Sancho Panza to Don Quixote over there—was shaking his head. If Sancho Panza reads the Second Reading debate, he will find again and again that Back-Bench Members on this side of the House said, “We agree with the principle of recall but do not agree with a number of the provisions of the Bill”. We are trying what one might call a twin-track approach. We are saying, “We don’t like this Bill at all; it is badly drafted and thought out. But it is there and we will do our best to try to improve it”. That is what we have been genuinely trying to do with these amendments—on the Back Benches as well as on the Front Benches.

I have been listening carefully to the Minister’s reply for a reason why the period should be eight weeks. Why not seven, six, 10 or 12 weeks? There was no explanation whatever as to why eight weeks has been arrived at. If the amendment is tabled again on Report, I would be minded to test the opinion of the House.

I am really disappointed in the response from the Front Bench. In future, perhaps on my next amendment, I shall encourage someone else to move it to see whether they have any greater ability to convince the Minister of the argument. I feel totally inadequate in my ability to argue a case.

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[Lord Soley (Lab)]

My Lords, I share the concerns expressed. The Government need to think long and hard about the privacy issue. If this Bill had been put before the House in the 1970s or 1980s, there would have had to be a clause making it clear that it did not apply to Northern Ireland. Fortunately, I think we are over the worst of that but, as the Minister knows, it is still a sensitive area and I am not sure whether this will apply to Northern Ireland. I must admit that I meant to check that point but I did not. I also think that there could be real problems as regards the privacy issue in areas where there are ethnic or religious tensions. I am not sure what thinking the Government have had about that.

In view of all the battles, literally, over the centuries to get the secret vote, you can see why people might be worried about signing a petition in public or, worse still, signing without realising that it would be made public after the event. At that stage, people may want to take their name off the petition, to change their mind or whatever. I do not have any confident feeling that the Government have thought this part through. I look forward to the Minister explaining how he will deal with this, particularly in those areas where there are tensions and as regards expecting people to sign a petition but not to change their mind later and desperately try to get their name off.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I recognise that this is a very important point. The Government take on board that they have not entirely spelled out the degree of secrecy and publicity that comes with this. Unavoidably, signing a petition is, to some extent, a public act. We all know that someone going into a polling station often can be observed and checked, although those who make postal votes preserve a great deal more anonymity. The mere fact of going to the signing place to sign the petition clearly indicates in which direction you are moving, which makes this unavoidably a less secret activity than the secret ballot.

We recognise that the balance between the public nature of signing a petition and the need to preserve a degree of privacy for those who wish to sign it is one on which we have to give particular care and attention to strike the right balance. On attending the signing place, the elector will have their entry checked on the electoral register to check that they are eligible to sign the petition. They can then be handed a signing sheet and will be able to read the information et cetera. In Northern Ireland, electors will have to produce ID according to the existing arrangements for elections in that country, as the noble Lord, Lord Soley, will recall.

Postal signing raises questions about access to the marked register, which will tell you who has and who has not signed the petition. The Government are considering what limitations there should be on access to the marked register. While some of this will have to be left to regulations, I will do my best to come back on Report with a clearer statement on the marked register issue in particular.

We are all of course concerned about intimidation. As the noble Lord, Lord Soley, remarked, it is not purely limited to Northern Ireland. We are all aware of some other areas in the United Kingdom where that has happened or might easily happen. Therefore, when there is only one way in which you are likely to express your opinion in signing a petition, the question of intimidation, as well as privacy, should be fully addressed. Some of that will have to be left to the details of the regulations but I will do my utmost to come back on Report stage with as clear a statement as possible of the Government’s view, taken in consultation with the appropriate authorities.

[Lord Soley]

Will the Minister also tell us whether he has taken or will take advice from the law officers? What would the situation be if someone who suffered harassment or worse as a result of their name being made public when they did not expect it to be took a legal action, whether in the UK or in the European court, under their right to privacy?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I will certainly take action on that. The question of how far the right to privacy extends in this thing is something on which I am not myself an expert. However, I will take advice.

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[Lord Soley]

Perhaps I may draw attention to the fact that Clause 23 does actually extend to Northern Ireland. I ask the noble Lord to check that the Northern Ireland Secretary of State is aware of this, and whether she has any views on it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I understand that this is a serious matter which we need to get right. On that basis, I hope that the noble Baroness will be able to withdraw her opposition to the question that the clause stand part.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I am still not very clear about how the petition will be signed or how a voter can indicate their support for it. What, for example, would be sent to me as a postal voter? I think that pairs are being excluded, so what would be sent?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My understanding is that the postal voter will be sent a form with the words as stated on the face of the Bill and will be invited to sign it or not to sign it. That would then go in and be submitted.

[Lord Martin of Springburn (CB)]

In all my experience of petitions, they are public documents. The other place is famous for petitions being laid before Parliament. This is a public record, but now we are discussing the introduction of an element of secrecy about it. The recall of a Member of Parliament is a very serious matter. We are working through a process to remove a democratically elected Member of Parliament and we are considering that some of the petitioners shall be secret. There is an old saying in the trade union movement: you should put your courage where your mouth is. Well, you should put your courage and signature in the one place as well. We are overturning a petition, a procedure which was in place before people had the vote—before we had suffrage. That is a very serious matter.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I recognise that, but on the other hand the secrecy of the ballot is also a very serious matter. As I said earlier, it is a question of striking the right balance between the unavoidably public nature of a petition and the principle of the secrecy of the ballot. It is a matter that we will consider further and come back on.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

If there is a petition with only one question on it and you sign the petition, everyone must know how you have voted. The idea of secrecy is nonsense. If people sign the petition, it must be known that they have done so, and then we know how they will vote. Again, the idea of secrecy is a lot of nonsense and I have no idea what the Minister is talking about.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the question of intimidation has been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Soley, and others, and that is a matter which we also have to take seriously. We will consider the issues. That is why balance comes into the question. The noble Lord, Lord Soley, and others have some sad experience of the problems of intimidation in issues like this. I have promised to take this back and I will do my utmost to return with a clearer statement of the Government’s view of how we can strike what is an extremely difficult balance, as the noble Lord, Lord Martin, and others have observed. On that basis, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her opposition at this stage.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

The Minister has said that he is going to come back: will he tell us when he is going to come back and explain this to us?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I suspect that the noble Lord may be surprised if I am not here at Report: that was what I was referring to. I said, “Report stage”.

Clause 8 agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I hesitate to suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, has come to the debate a little less well prepared than he sometimes is. I have here the Electoral Commission’s briefing of 13 January for Committee, which does indeed remark on the consultations that it has had with the Government on the Bill. It says:

“Whilst the Commission has given informal advice on the current wording of the petition card and signing sheet based on our experience of testing referendum questions, we have not undertaken any user-testing of the wording. We understand that the Government plans”—

as has already been said—

“to user-test both the petition card and signing sheet with members of the public”.

It goes on to say:

“We are not persuaded that this amendment is necessary, given that the wording of the petition signing sheet can already be amended by regulations”.

The Electoral Commission has not been left out of the process, as one would naturally expect.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

That is just what I said. It has been only informally consulted. I do not understand why it has not been given a formal role in this process.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Electoral Commission unavoidably has a formal role throughout this process and has been consulted throughout. Informal consultations are part of the formal process. We need not batter about words too much. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes of Woodside, that an election or a petition process that generates such excitement would be a joy to many of us. Part of the pleasure, in a sense, of the Scottish referendum was that it did indeed generate a great deal of excitement.

It is the nature of a petition that a petition is one-sided. The noble Lord, Lord Martin, remarked that petitions are petitions—they are not elections. I hesitate to suggest that some wish to turn the recall petition process itself into the by-election that may or may not follow.

I will speak first to government Amendment 43, which would make a small change to the final sentence of the wording to appear on the petition signing sheet that is set out in Clause 9(4). The signing sheet must include this specified wording, as it explains to the eligible constituent that they are signing the petition for their MP to lose their seat and for a by-election to be held.

During debates in the other place, it was suggested that the wording could be improved in relation to explaining when a by-election would not take place. The Government agree and therefore this amendment responds to the debate in the other place by making it easier for the elector to understand that the MP will not lose his or her seat and a by-election will not be held if less than 10% of the registered electors in the constituency sign the petition.

The wording of the petition signing sheet was developed with input from the Electoral Commission before the Bill was introduced, but we have a power to amend the formulation in regulations if that proves necessary after undertaking user testing of the signing sheet and notice of petition with members of the public. In doing this, it will be possible to confirm whether the formulation that we have best serves constituents’ understanding. I repeat that the Electoral Commission was happy with the proposals as set out in the Bill.

Amendments 40 and 44 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, would remove the specified wording of the signing sheet from Clause 9 and replace the power to amend that wording through regulations with a power to set the wording in regulations following further consultation with the Electoral Commission and the Welsh Language Commissioner. The signing sheet must include wording specified in Clause 9, which explains to the eligible constituent that they are signing the petition for their MP to lose their seat and for a by-election thereafter to be held.

There is value in the appearance of the wording in the Bill, as it has allowed MPs to express their views on it. This mirrors the position for UK parliamentary elections, where the form of the ballot paper appears in primary legislation, the Representation of the People Act 1983, but may be amended through regulations that must be approved by a resolution of both Houses. No amendments were tabled in the other place to remove the wording outright, but an amendment was tabled to improve it, so I think we should be mindful of that when considering this issue.

A further modest but worthwhile advantage of the appearance of the signing sheet’s wording in the Bill is that future changes made to it would then be reflected in the text of the parent Act, which helps to make the law as clear as possible for petition administrators, parties and campaigners.

On consultation with the Welsh Language Commissioner, I can assure the Committee that the Government will prepare a Welsh translation of the wording in secondary legislation, as is the practice at other statutory polls, using a power and following a principle established in the Welsh Language Act 1993. This translation will be subject to user testing in the same way as the English version. I hope noble Lords are aware that, throughout this Bill, we are following as closely as possible comparable regulations and comparable legislation in other Acts concerned with our democratic process.

As is usual practice, we will consult the Electoral Commission’s Welsh language experts to ensure that the translation is accurate and will accommodate any changes identified through user testing. One of the amendments suggests that, in addition to consulting the Electoral Commission, the Minister should consult the Welsh Language Commissioner. The Welsh Language Commissioner has an important role in promoting and facilitating the use of the Welsh language, but it has not been standard practice at elections to consult the commissioner directly on Welsh translations of voter-facing forms and notices.

In summary, I believe that it is important that the wording of the petition appears on the Bill but that it is user tested and commented on to ensure that any improvements that are identified can be made. For these reasons, I hope that I have persuaded the noble Baroness not to press her amendments.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I asked the Minister who would do the testing if was not to be the commission. He has not answered that point.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I apologise. I do not have that detailed information at my fingertips, but I will write to the noble Lord as soon as I can.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Will the Minister make something clear? If it is in the Bill and the Bill is enacted, it is too late for the Electoral Commission to use a test and find out that it is not a good question, is it not?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord was listening carefully. I apologise if I did not speak clearly enough for him to follow my argument. The process for the ballot form—and now for the petition form—is that it appears in the Bill so that MPs can reflect on it, but that it is open to amendment by regulation. In the Bill, we are following what already exists in the Representation of the People Act.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I thank the noble Lord for his response. I look forward to receiving his letter on the matter that I raised. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

43: Clause 9, page 7, leave out line 5 and insert “as a result of the petition and therefore no by-election will be held.””

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the Government obviously do not want any change to the Bill at all, if they can achieve that, other than the amendments that the Minister himself has put down. However, I urge them to look at Amendment 56, if no other. We cannot simply treat this in isolation from all the other normal electoral practices of our democracy.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have said, I think three times now, that the Bill follows existing electoral law and regulation as closely as possible. We have not started off on something entirely new.

[Lord Grocott]

Can the Minister point to me anywhere in existing electoral law where, during a general election, for example, there is a running release of the state of the voting—after the postal vote had taken place, for example—and that is made known? Unless Amendment 56 is passed, that will be the likely situation in respect of these petitions. If the Minister disagrees, please intervene and tell me. I will stop speaking.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

I should make it clear that my amendment does not say that the names should be published but simply that the numbers should be published. The two issues are not therefore connected.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I was sorry to hear my noble friend Lord Tyler talk about a holistic approach. I criticised the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, the other week for using what I regard as a managerial phrase that was inappropriate for someone of his background.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I have never used it since.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord has not yet used it since. I stress again that we are following the existing law and regulations as closely as we can, and not attempting to take through major electoral changes. The first two amendments in the group are, after all, an attempt to take through a major change, whereby 16 year-olds would be able to vote for a recall, even though they would not yet vote in the subsequent by-election. There are differing opinions among the three parties; indeed, there are differing opinions within the current coalition Government on this issue. This is not the place to address it. It is an issue on which we need to build consensus. I am personally in favour but as a government Minister I am not prepared to accept that we move towards it. We need to discuss the whole question of the franchise at some point in the not-too-distant future.

The amendment to allow a signatory to withdraw their signature also would introduce a major innovation. There is no precedent for returning officers withdrawing ballot papers on the request of electors who change their minds prior to the beginning of the counting of votes.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The noble Lord is talking about two entirely different situations. If one is voting in a conventional election, one is doing so at a single opportunity on one day, and of course one cannot scratch that vote once one has cast it. It is entirely different when there is an eight-week rolling period, during which campaigning is taking place. What argument does he have as to why people should not be allowed to be influenced by these campaigns?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have already said that we have now extended the period for postal voting. Indeed, postal votes may be delivered nearly three weeks before the election. If the principle in the amendment were to be accepted, the question would come up as to whether postal voters might be allowed to change their minds in the light of events they learnt about in the final two weeks of the campaign. That would be a major innovation also. With postal votes, we have slipped from a vote on one day to a vote that takes place over a period. Perhaps the noble Lord has not yet recognised that, but that is the position we are in and the current law is that when one votes one does not have a chance to change one’s mind.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

The Minister has already said he will look at the issue of whether the names will be public or secret. There is clearly not a parallel with an election, otherwise the names would all be secret. A petition is different from an election. He has to accept that. He accepts it in terms of public versus private; he ought to accept it in terms of whether the signature can be withdrawn.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not persuaded by that. There are questions of intimidation regarding giving the name of someone who has already voted to the MP so that the MP can write and tell them not to. I can recall fighting a heavily Labour seat in the middle of Manchester in the 1970s, when Labour councillors were going round to voters saying, “I see you have a Liberal poster up. We have just checked the housing transfer list and you are on it. Are you sure that you want to keep it up?”. There are difficult questions here. I see no reason to change existing electoral regulations in this area.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

The Minister keeps saying that he is following general practice as far as possible. This is an entirely new practice. Will he please tell me where, either in my amendment or at any place in the Bill, it is stated that during the eight weeks when people vote the petition officer will make known the names of those people who have voted?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I will come to the noble Lord’s other amendment. I was talking about the amendment on the right to change one’s vote or attitude to the petition after one had voted. I will come to his amendment on disclosure of the number of signatories. The Bill—rightly, as he noted—does not specify whether a running total of the number of signatories should be published. That we intend to be a matter for the conduct regulations. As is the case at elections, petition officers and their staff will be bound by their official duty, and penalties will apply if information is released without proper authority. Again, I stand on regular practice. It is not allowed for those concerned with the conduct of elections—and, by extension, petitions—to release information of that sort. There will be many occasions on election day when releasing figures at one o’clock on how many people had voted would be helpful. That is not the case, and it is similarly not the case here.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Is the Minister then saying, if we are following existing practice, that that would mean it is a secret ballot and nothing is disclosed, and that after the event a marked register may be available to show who has voted? That is the existing practice that applies to normal, conventional general elections. Will that be the position in this respect? It is no good saying that this is a matter for regulations; it is a very important point in terms of the operation of the Bill.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord, sadly, was absent at his committee when we were discussing the question of secrecy. I am sure that he will enjoy reading the Hansard of the debate. We will come back to the issue on Report. We have been around the question of the problem of secrecy and I am not going to repeat our position for those who, unfortunately, were away.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am not asking my noble friend to repeat an earlier debate. What I am asking is very simple: when he says that it is the same procedure, does that mean that it is a secret ballot and that the names will not be made available to people? Yes or no?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we spent some considerable time on this issue. When you sign a petition you do so with a clear aim. It is a complicated issue and I am happy to discuss it with the noble Lord off the Floor, but I do not wish to repeat all the arguments that we made at an earlier stage in a fairly extensive discussion.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, raised the offence of double signing. Clause 12 mirrors the offence of double voting in electoral law regarding the maximum penalties that apply on conviction: a person guilty of the offence is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, and so on. Again, we see no reason to change existing law and regulation for the petition, given that existing regulation is clear and is regularly applied. The Government are clear that convictions for electoral offences must result in the appropriate punishment to act as a deterrent for electoral fraud. We have seen courts deal robustly with proven, albeit isolated, instances of electoral fraud in recent years and the current offences framework has enabled significant penalties to be imposed where appropriate. That seems to us to be the basis on which the Bill should extend to the current petition process.

I hope that that provides constructive answers to those with amendments in this group. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord is able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, this has become a farce. Where it suits the Government’s aims they stick to electoral law; where it does not suit their purposes they go on to something completely new. We are wasting our time, the Government are wasting their time, it is making a farce of the whole debate and it is making the House of Lords look ridiculous. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, will at some point recognise his part in that. I withdraw my amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, Clause 10 provides for regulations to specify the detail of how constituents may sign by post or proxy. The detail about how postal and proxy signing will operate will be dealt with in regulations made under Clause 18. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, laughs. He accused me of not taking seriously his attempt to drive a change in the voting age into the Bill on the grounds that it made it a farce. I suggest—with the greatest respect, as he might say—that that was going considerably over the top.

The approach to regulations on postal voting mirrors that of UK parliamentary elections, where the rules for absent voting appear in secondary legislation. At an election, this is usually the 11th working day before the poll, which allows applications received in the days just before and up to the deadline to be processed and postal ballot packs issued to electors for them to complete and return in time for the close of the poll.

For a petition, it is possible to set a deadline during the petition-signing period itself. The last day of the period is, in effect, analogous to polling day at an election, so there needs to be a cut-off point. As noted in the memorandum prepared by the Cabinet Office and placed in the House Libraries before this debate, the Government accept that deadlines will need to be set within the eight-week period for absent vote applications to be made. In doing so, we recognise the additional need to check that the petition has not already been signed in person at the signing place, and to ensure that registers are properly updated to show that an absent vote application has been approved, thus guarding against the risk of double signing.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Will the principle that my noble friend has enunciated—that we will follow the normal conventions on electoral law—be applied in this case? Therefore, as with postal votes, will the number of people who have voted by post be made public?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I need to confirm that, but I have no reason to assume that we will not follow normal and regular procedures, and that numbers—but, of course, not names—would be made public. At which point they would be made public is a question that I will also refer back to. I see the noble Lord’s mischievous argument, but I will make sure that we answer it.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I must say to my noble friend that it is not mischievous. We are not being mischievous; we are trying to find out how this will work in practice and what the consequences are. If there is a large number of postal votes, that has implications, as the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, said. If it is to be made public, when in the campaign it is made public will have consequences for the Member concerned.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

On the question of the deadline for the applications for postal votes, it is normal in an election for the numbers of postal votes cast to be announced after polls have closed.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

In my contribution I talked about the code of conduct regarding postal voting that the Electoral Commission brokered to all the political parties. Of course, when it is a petition it is not postal voting; other campaigners can be involved. What does the Minister envision for a code of conduct for the campaigners?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is a very good and detailed question on which I need to take some advice. I will ensure that I do so and I will write to the noble Lord. On that basis, I hope that he is able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I thank the noble Lord and at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

52: Clause 13, page 9, line 17, at end insert—
“( ) The fourth condition is that, in a case in which the third recall condition was met in relation to the MP, the conviction in question is overturned on appeal.”

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

Given that adding names to the register could also affect the 10% figure, we would like to know from the Minister whether it does or whether the number will be frozen at the beginning, regardless of any that are added quite legitimately. Obviously, if it increases the 10% figure, it will be important to keep an eye on that. Will the Minister elaborate on what form the mechanism will take and how it will work in practice? I beg to move.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her amendment. She is rightly teasing at various issues that are significant. I am aware that we need to make sure that we get the Bill and the regulations correct.

As I understand it, the last day on which an eligible elector can make an application to register to vote in order to be able to participate in a recall petition is on or before the day of the Speaker’s notice. This enables the petition officer to produce, in advance of the petition opening, a register of electors who are entitled to sign the petition. That register will include existing electors and eligible electors who applied to register on or before the day of the Speaker’s notice. It will also be used to ensure that only those entitled to sign the petition do so. It is not irrelevant that we have now introduced online registration so the reference here to,

“on the day of the Speaker’s notification”,

is a live and important one because it would be possible for a number of people to register on that day. As the noble Baroness knows, the take-up of online registration has been particularly high among younger voters.

Applications to be added to the register will not be processed immediately. The last date on which a person may be added to, or removed from, the register is three working days before the petition opens, except as a result of a court order or the correction of a clerical error. I stress that court orders and clerical errors represent extremely small numbers of cases. Until that date, the publication of the number registered would not give an accurate indication of the number of signatures that would be needed for a recall petition to be successful.

In some cases, it is possible that there will be a small change in the number of electors who are eligible to sign the petition because, for example, of the correction of clerical errors, which may result in the addition or removal of a small number of names, as sometimes happens ahead of elections. At the end of the signing period, these changes will be included in the total number of electors who have been eligible to sign the petition, and this figure will be used to calculate whether the 10% threshold for the removal of the MP has been met.

I see some merit in the noble Baroness’s proposal. It would give constituents and campaigners an indication of the number of electors who would need to sign the petition in order for the 10% threshold to be reached. However, a more appropriate date on which to refer to the register is the “cut-off day”, which is three working days before the petition opens. Even then, this figure would not reflect any additions to, or removals from, the register before the end of the petition signing period, although I acknowledge that it is unlikely the figure will change significantly.

Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that regulations to be made under Clause 18 will set out further provision about the conduct of a recall petition, including the use of the electoral register and how the public will be informed about the result of the petition. Along with arrangements for elections, we envisage that the formal declaration of the result would include details of the number of electors who successfully signed the petition, the number of spoilt signing sheets and, in answer to the point made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, details of the number who signed by post.

In designing the regulations, we will need to give consideration as to whether it would be helpful to make it a requirement for the petition officer to make public the number of electors registered in the constituency at the beginning of the signing period and eligible to sign the petition, although, as I have said, I see merit in the arguments advanced. However, I do not believe that there is a special case to include this level of detail in the Bill. Therefore, while recognising that this is a significant matter to be included within the regulations, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw this amendment.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside (Lab)]

I agree wholly with the Minister that those who wish to promote a recall should know at the start of the signing period what the total number is so that they can calculate how many people they have to get to sign. However, will he give an undertaking that there will be no announcing on a daily basis the number of people who have voted?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

It is my understanding that that is the case, but I will make sure that I can confirm by Report exactly what the position is intended to be.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I thank the Minister. I accept that three working days before the petition opens would be a better date for the number to be published. However, I am slightly uneasy that he is going to leave it to regulations which will not appear before the next Parliament to make it clear that the number should be published well before the count takes place. There is a real concern that, if the result is very close, we should not have a debate about what the correct number is at that point, given that there are bound to be difficulties about the signatures. For example, some people will have signed in the wrong place and there will be difficulties around verification. We have all been there. That is not the right time to argue also about whether the relevant figure is 7,300 or 7,400.

In a moment I shall ask leave to withdraw the amendment, but I ask the Minister to think about whether, at Report, the Government will either suggest making it clearer that it would be published, say, within three working days, or at least writing it into the record that the Government’s intention is that the regulations are likely to specify that the number could be given well in advance. I shall leave that thought with the Minister. I think that he concurs. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Amendment 61 stands in the names of my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark and myself. We tabled it partly because of the matters covered in the discussion that we have just been having: its intent is to limit the number of accredited campaigners to two. We believe that that would bring greater fairness to the recall petition. I shall also speak to Amendment 65.

As I said on Second Reading, and have just said again, the problem is that the Bill contains no restrictions on the number of pro-recall accredited campaign groups, all of which can spend up to £10,000. The groups could therefore include the three political parties that were defeated at the last election, and each of those could spend £10,000. So the other political parties could spend £30,000, whereas the MP or their party—if they were still supported by their party—would be capped at £10,000.

The Electoral Commission, in its response on this, said that it did not think it should be given responsibility for what was essentially going to be a local matter. As I said on the previous amendment, a recall will not be a local matter: Michael Crick will be there; it will be on prime-time television; there will be a lot of publicity; there will probably be a few stunts, and campaigners will certainly be bussed in from other constituencies, particularly if the Government have a slender majority or the seat is very marginal.

The Committee will know that we support a recall petition where an MP has been involved in serious wrongdoing, as has been agreed in the other place. Once this provision starts, however, it will not be about behaviour. Our worry, as my noble friends said earlier, is that it will turn into a debate over the MP’s voting record or beliefs. The current expenditure guidelines do not appear to recognise that logic. They are not sufficiently clear to ensure that the debate is not on those issues. If there was something going on in the big political world at the same time, the ballot could almost become a vote of confidence in the Government on that issue. Well funded vested interests could—they should not, but they will—play a part in the recall ballot. We therefore need rules governing the financing of the recall campaign to ensure that it is not hijacked by politically motivated groups out to deselect sitting MPs for something that is unrelated to their behaviour. In fact, it could be motivated simply by the desire to get a by-election, which might suit UKIP, for example, at the time. Will the Minister—who I think shares some of these objectives—outline the safeguards to prevent that?

Amendment 61 would prevent multiple organisations from campaigning on the same side, whether that is the “for” side or the “against” side. It would therefore limit the number of accredited campaigners to two: they would be either the MP or the anti-recall campaign and one organisation or group seeking to deselect the MP—the pro-recall campaign. In so doing, it would ensure an equality of arms between the two sides. There will be those who believe that, whatever wrongdoing the MP has been found guilty of, he or she should nevertheless stay and represent the constituency. There will be many cases where the constituents would want that to happen. There will also be those who feel that the MP has simply lost the confidence of the constituency and a by-election should be held. It seems to me that there are two options and that there should be two campaigns.

Amendment 65 would ensure that the campaign literature of all those involved is subject to scrutiny in order to deter campaigners from focusing on issues that are unrelated to the misdemeanour or criminal activity proven against the MP. This would not be a complete ban, as was mentioned earlier, but it at least ought to be sent in to the petition officer to be checked.

We want the recall debate to focus on the conduct of the MP and their consequent ability to represent the constituency, rather than the causes that he or she supports or their voting record on contentious issues. While we welcome the commitment by the Government in their memorandum on the draft regulation that it will be a requirement for campaign material published by both accredited and non-accredited campaigners to contain the name and address of the printer and promoter, we think there needs to be rather more guidance on this, particularly pertaining to the content of the material. I beg to move.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for the very useful and constructive way in which she has presented these amendments.

Amendment 61 draws inspiration from the approach taken to national referendums, where the Electoral Commission designates a lead campaigner. Each designated organisation then receives a grant from the Electoral Commission of up to £600,000 to spend on referendum expenses across the UK. The amendment is not supported by any further amendments to provide grants to the lead campaigners in the event of a recall petition. We are, of course, concerned about the impact of big money and outside money on recall events.

I repeat: a recall petition will not be launched until one of the triggers has been pulled. That provides the defence against the idea that recall can be bought by wealthy campaigners, as it was argued would have been the case under the proposals tabled in the other place by the Member for Richmond Park, which are no longer in the Bill. Under the Government’s proposals, the only person responsible for a recall petition being triggered is an MP himself or herself for committing a defined offence. Wealthy campaigners cannot cause a recall petition to be initiated—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Did the Minister not hear earlier when the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, made it absolutely clear from his judicial experience that an MP could appear before a court and the options would be to send him to prison for 14 days or to fine him a few hundred pounds? If he was fined a few hundred pounds for the offence, this would not be triggered; if he was sent to prison, it would be. That is entirely outwith his control. It is within the control of the magistrate or the judge making that decision.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am talking at the moment about the power of wealth intervening. I am not sure whether the noble Lord is trying to suggest that wealth would come into the question of affecting the judgment made by the magistrate or judge.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

With respect, the Minister said he had gone off wealth; he had gone back on to his familiar track of saying that the only person responsible for pulling the trigger is the MP himself. I am contesting that and I have given him an example, which the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, gave earlier on, and it is about time that the Minister listened to some of these examples.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord’s track is also rather familiar to the rest of us, if we are going to trade comments of that sort.

Of course, when it comes to the recall process, campaigners can use their financial capacity—subject to the £10,000 limit—during the regulated period. Then we come to the question of whether, if several campaigners agree to work together, the sum of all expenses incurred as part of this common plan would count towards the spending limit of each campaigner—an issue that some of us battled over in the transparency of lobbying Bill. This does not prevent a number of groups campaigning for the recall of an MP and each spending £10,000, provided that they do not co-ordinate their plans.

This would not necessarily always be on one side. In the event of an MP being convicted of an offence on what may be considered a point of principle, there would no doubt be many others who would rally to his or her support in a recall petition—I have to say that it would be a very exciting experience to watch at that point. We do not therefore see that a lead campaigner is desirable or practicable. We wish to encourage local, grass-roots campaigners to be actively engaged in deciding on who should be their representative.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The noble Lord emphasised that the Government are anxious to limit the influence of big money and outside money, and he quite rightly made the point that neither big money nor outside money can trigger the recall process. However, he gave no explanation as to how the provisions of the Bill would in practice limit the power of either big money or outside money to influence such local campaigns. It would be helpful, because it is very important, if he could explain what the safeguards are; and if he cannot, if he could undertake to go away and invent some.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the distinction between local and national money, as all of us currently preparing to fight a range of local campaigns at the next general election know, has become increasingly blurred over the years. As we know well, NGOs and civil society organisations have local branches of national organisations, so of course there is not a rigid distinction between local money and national money. We understand that one cannot entirely build a wall around a particular constituency in terms of funding. However, the limits proposed are intended to limit the amount of money that can be spent, and thus to limit the role of outside funds.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

But there are no limits to the number of organisations that are able to mount such campaigns. The Minister is rejecting the amendment that my noble friend has proposed, but he does not seem to have any other safeguards.

[Lord Grocott]

I put the question in a slightly different way. If the Minister is confirming what I think that he has been saying, it is really alarming. I was most interested in the earlier parts of the Bill. Whereas we all know that in a local election campaign for a particular Member in a particular constituency, there are controls over what each candidate can spend which have been there since about the 1870s, I think that that—not the figure, but the principle—is understandable, because a number of different choices are available: Labour, et cetera. In the case of whether there is or is not to be a recall, there are only two possible positions: you are for it or against it. You may be for it or against it for a variety of different reasons, but the decision to be made is binary, there are two choices.

It seems to me so fundamental as to be hardly worth stating that there must be a balance between the expenditure on the two sides of that simple argument. Is the Government’s position that there is no need to worry about that and that, on a range of different issues, one side in what I repeat is a binary decision can spend vastly greater sums of money than the other? Are the Government comfortable with that?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am saying on behalf of the Government that there can be more than one registered campaign group on either side or on both sides of the recall petition.

[Lord Grocott]

I just wanted to hear from the Government Front Bench that in this choice there could be vastly bigger sums of money spent on whether there should be a recall—or on whether there should not. As the Minister knows, I am not at all keen on the Bill, but I am keen that if that decision is made, there must be some equality of expenditure between the two sides of the argument. I find it incomprehensible if that is not the Government’s position.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have some experience of fighting elections in which I was fighting with an infinitely smaller budget than the other candidates. We are content that there should be more than one registered campaigner on either or both sides. In one recall petition, one side may have several groups and the other may not; in another, it may be the contrary side. That is the Government’s position.

[Lord Grocott]

So the answer to my question—the Minister can either confirm this or not—is that under the Bill, one side of the argument could spend vastly more than the other. Is the answer that yes, that is the Government’s position?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is a precedent in electoral law for limiting the number of people who can be involved. Even at a referendum, where a lead campaigner is appointed, multiple campaigners can also separately campaign for one side or other, subject to the spending limits. So even in a referendum, others can come alongside for the game. We are not persuaded that the tighter limits and much tighter controls proposed are desirable or necessary on this occasion.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

As the Minister said, in a referendum, they are subject to spending limits, which they will not be here.

I do not know whether I disagree most with the Electoral Commission or the Minister. The Electoral Commission keeps saying that these will be essentially local electoral events. If this happens, there will come a time when it will discover that that is not the case. The idea that it does not want to choose and set up one campaign on either side seems to me to be not facing up to its responsibilities.

The major issue is that of the Government, as my noble friend has just been saying. I am not sure that there will even be local campaign groups. I do not know whether in Kentish Town tenants’ groups or local businesses—the groups that we know more—would campaign on this issue. What I do know is that the other political parties would. Unlike some of the noble Lords who spoke earlier, I think the party will sometimes rally round its MP because it will not want a by-election. I hope that it is not as the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, said earlier—that it is going to be a minority Tory Government—but if it is I can imagine that we would be very keen to have a by-election from the Opposition, if we could make that choice. Even with an MP who had been out of the House for 10 days, we might well campaign for him and the other political parties would want to vote against. We on one side would be able to spend £10,000 and the four other parties could all spend £10,000 the other way, and the debate would be about whether there should be a by-election. It will not be about what the MP has done. It will be about whether there should be a by-election. There could be £40,000 spent on one side and £10,000 on the other side. The answer to my noble friend Lord Grocott’s question is that the Government are content with that. I think it is clear that we have our doubts about this, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, Amendments 63 and 67 relate to issues raised by the Law Society of Scotland as referred to by my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and concern matters raised by the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House. My noble friend makes a powerful point about the questioning of the petition and the powers this Bill gives to Ministers to make regulations.

These are very serious matters and I have some concerns about things not being very clear in the Bill. Can the Minister explain carefully why the Government are not being more specific about their intention? Can he also confirm by what process these regulations will be approved by Parliament? Am I right in saying that if anyone were unhappy they could seek the intervention of the court through the judicial review process anyway and that nothing here proposed would stop that? Amendments 64 and 73 in this group tabled by myself and my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town seek to address concerns expressed by committees of your Lordships’ House in respect of excessive powers being placed in the hands of Ministers. In particular, we have concerns as to why the Government think it necessary to give a Minister powers to create new criminal offences by statutory instrument. There is, for what in effect is quite a small Bill, far too much left in the hands of the Government to make decisions through the use of statutory instruments.

We support the principle of recall, but it is very disappointing that the Government have waited until the last few months of this Parliament to bring forward a Bill that was in the coalition agreement. As noble Lords have said before, a paper was due in 2011 and here we are in 2015. Leaving so much unresolved is not good enough. Will the noble Lord tell the Committee why so little preparatory work has been done in advance of this Bill coming forward? Will the noble Lord give us some indication where or what these new offences might be that he may have to regulate on?

Amendment 73 would remove the words “(including this Act)” from the Bill. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee thought these words could permit the infiltration of quite substantial and significant additional provisions into the Bill, and we agree. Can the noble Lord explain clearly why the Government think it is necessary to take such wide-ranging powers with little or no explanation?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, Clause 18(1)(b), which Amendment 63 would remove from the Bill, allows for regulations to detail the process for questioning the outcome of the petition to be made. It does not say that Ministers shall decide but allows for regulations to detail the process. Amendment 67 would amend subsection (5) to make it a requirement for the judicial review process to be followed.

Judicial review, as noble Lords will be aware, is a type of court proceeding in which a judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision or action made by a public body. In other words, judicial reviews are a challenge to the way in which a decision has been made, rather than the rights and wrongs of the conclusion reached. The process for challenging the result of an election requires an eligible person to lodge a petition with the relevant election court.

The role of the election court is to establish whether procedural irregularities have occurred, whether an election result should be declared void, and whether any individual or individuals are guilty of offences in relation to the election. As the grounds for challenging the result of a recall petition are also likely to concern irregularities of a type that an election court will be familiar with, this body may be the most appropriate to hear such challenges.

The method for questioning a petition will be set out in regulations, as is the case at other polls where legislation has been made in recent years—for example, European parliamentary elections. The Government do not anticipate the method varying substantially from the established process for challenging the outcome of elections and therefore we do not see a special need to specify the process in primary legislation.

The Government will need to consider the details of the regulations further, but our approach will need to have regard to achieving an appropriate degree of consistency with the established process. We would see it as very much being in line with that.

Amendment 64 on the power to create criminal offences would again affect Clause 18(2)(d). Clause 18 provides:

“The Minister may by regulations … make further provision about the conduct of a recall petition”.

Subsection (2)(d) provides that such regulations may,

“make provision creating a criminal offence”.

Such regulations are to be made by statutory instrument —subject, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, to the affirmative resolution procedure.

In its report of 15 December, the Constitution Committee stated:

“The House may wish to scrutinise why the Government consider it necessary to empower Ministers to create new election law offences by statutory instrument”.

The Government have not yet responded to the committee’s report but will do so as soon as possible. However, I say here that the power is in the Bill to enable Ministers to apply the existing electoral law on offences to the recall petition process, with suitable modifications. Again, this is a matter of adapting existing legislation, not extending or creating new offences.

In order to ensure the integrity of the recall petition process, a number of criminal offences will be required. However, the Government do not consider these to be new offences as they will mirror, with appropriate modifications, well established offences that apply at elections and referendums. The intention is to use the power only to replicate or apply criminal offences that already exist in relation to elections, adapted as necessary for the recall petition process. Examples of the kinds of offence that we anticipate are that it is an offence to impersonate another constituent and sign as them, known as “personation” at elections, as set out in Section 60 of the Representation of the People Act 1983; that it is illegal to tamper with signature sheets, which will be based on Section 65 of the 1983 Act; and that the details of the printer and promoter of petition campaign literature must be included on the literature itself or else an offence is committed, based on Section 110 of the same Act. The Government consider that it would be inappropriate to include in the Bill full details of all the criminal offences, as each offence will be attached to a breach of the detailed rules that will themselves be set out in regulations.

The noble Baroness has tabled Amendment 73, which would amend Clause 21(4) of the Bill to remove the power for regulations in relation to the conduct of the petition to be able to amend this Act itself. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, in turn, questioned this. Again, the Government will respond to the committee’s report as soon as possible. Ahead of that, I will provide an answer to that point here. Clause 21(4) enables regulations relating to the conduct of the recall petition process to amend primary legislation, including the recall Bill when it is an Act. This power was included in the original draft Bill that was published for pre-legislative scrutiny in 2011.

The power in question refers only to the conduct of the petition, as it relates solely to regulations made under Clause 18 and can be used only to make amendments that are consequential, supplementary or incidental to the regulations made under that power. It does not, for example, enable the amendment of the three triggers, or conditions, for initiating a recall petition in the first place. The power was originally included to allow for amendments to be made to the Act to allow for amendments made in other areas of electoral legislation, such as the introduction of individual electoral registration. Since the publication of the draft Bill, the legislation for individual electoral registration has now been put in place.

The Government are considering the committee’s recommendation on this point. As a general point, it is important that we take such powers with care, and only when it is reasonable to assume they will be needed. The Government will continue to consider the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and reflect on the views expressed in this House, and I am sure that we will return to this issue on Report. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

In view of that comprehensive explanation by the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

68: Clause 19, page 13, line 17, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
“( ) If a relevant circumstance arises, the functions of the Speaker under or by virtue of this Act (“the Speaker’s functions”) are to be performed by the Chairman of Ways and Means or a Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

74: Clause 22, page 14, line 44, leave out “quashed” and insert “that there is no longer a conviction for the purposes of section 1(3) or (7) (as the case may be)”

Georgia

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the report of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe on monitoring of trials of former officials and political figures under prosecution in Georgia following the change of government at the end of 2012.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Government welcome the report of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights—ODIHR—on the monitoring of trials of former officials and political figures in Georgia. Georgia has made significant progress on judicial and legal reform in the past few years, although, as is noted in the report, there are still many issues to address. Georgia should continue to implement its programme of reforms and to ensure that all prosecutions follow the rule of law and due process.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

I thank the Minister for his reply, but does he not agree that what is revealed in the report is not just the occasional violation of criminal procedure but a systematic abuse of the criminal system against former officials and political figures connected with the previous Government? Will Her Majesty’s Government make it clear to the Government of Georgia that this is totally contrary to European standards and that it can only frustrate—and in the end block—their aspiration to join the European Union? Will they also further encourage the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights to pay a return visit to Georgia, perhaps in a year or 18 months’ time, to see what progress has been made?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not sure that I would use the term “systematic”, but clearly there have been a large number of weaknesses. I would emphasise that, as the report says, the ODIHR was invited to visit Georgia by the Georgian Government. It has made some very robust criticisms of the failings and weaknesses of the Georgian system, but the Georgians did invite it in, they have accepted the report, and now the question is how far the reforms will be pushed through. The European association agreements have political conditions attached, and we will be watching to see how those conditions are fulfilled by the Georgian Government.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, attitudes in Russia to the new President are well known. Given that closeness, are the Government concerned that he may be seeking, in his relations with the Opposition, to follow the example of President Putin? To what extent are we using our influence in other international fora to bring these abuses before them—for example, in the Council of Europe, which is the foremost human rights organisation in Europe?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Venice Commission and others are also engaged in discussions with the Georgian Government about human rights and judicial rights. The ODIHR report was absolutely about prosecutions of members of the former Government and the processes by which prosecutions are carried out, court procedures and so on. We are in very active dialogue with the Georgian Government, as are other EU ambassadors—and, of course, Georgia, through its association relationship with the European Union, has a constant dialogue with that and other international organisations.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, given that this is a 116-page report, is my noble friend not right to use the term “systematic” when he describes the violations of human rights and the undermining of natural justice that is alleged within the context of the report? Will the Minister therefore look again at whether or not those violations should be classified as systematic? Will he also say whether British or EU diplomats are able to attend some of the trials of former officials to ensure that due process is conducted?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Yes, British officials are engaged in that sort of extremely active dialogue, and British officials have gone out to advise the Georgian Government. I stress the word “failings”. Georgia is a country in transition and has not yet entirely established what we regard as western European standards. I remember visiting Poland and Hungary in the mid-1990s, and they had not reached that stage yet either. We are doing all we can to make sure that Georgia follows the same path—but it is rather behind them.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in this matter, as listed in the register. Georgia, a friend to us, is in a geographic region of the world steeped in cronyism, political abuse of power and clan loyalty. It has made definite steps away from that in recent years and we need to help it on that journey. The OSCE was indeed invited in, as has been referred to, and has pointed up a number of very substantial shortcomings. My question is simply this: preaching is not enough; what practical steps are we taking—using the links, for example, between the United Kingdom organisations and Georgian associations of lawyers—to help the development of the legal sector in Georgia?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, a number of Georgian Ministers and officials visited Britain in late November for a dialogue—the Wardrop dialogue—chaired by the Minister for Europe. It included the Georgian ambassador-at-large for human rights. Therefore, we and other Governments are engaged in an active dialogue and we are offering all assistance that we can provide. Unfortunately, one of the factors that one has to be aware of in Georgia is that although we are deeply uneasy about what appear to be political prosecutions of members of the former Government, these are actually quite popular within Georgia itself, as far as one can see from public opinion.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise that there is a long and bad story in Georgia, and it needs help to get out of it? The present Government were voted into office because of the revulsion of Georgians at the treatment in jail of prisoners by the previous Government, many of whose members—and it is right that we should ensure this—are now being treated properly under the rule of law. But it is a long story and the country is under considerable pressure, like some others in the former Soviet Union, and it needs our help as well as a bit of chivvying.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are all aware of the very delicate circumstances in which Georgia has to operate, with two regions that have broken away and are under, effectively, a close relationship with Russia. We are also aware that it is unusual in that Mr Ivanishvili, the richest man in Georgia, has close but now unofficial relationships with the current Government. Georgia is a very fragile democracy and we are doing all we can to provide help.

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that the British Council still has a presence in Georgia? As I recollect, it was one of the first British institutions to be established after the opening up of that country. Is it still doing its valuable work?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I visited the British Council in Tbilisi two years ago. I cannot say absolutely that it is still there but I think it is. I see the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, nodding.

Sri Lanka: Presidential Elections

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as chairman of the All-Party Group on Sri Lanka.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, we commend Sri Lanka’s electoral commission for its conduct of the election and all Sri Lanka’s political parties and people for accepting the final result and committing to the peaceful transfer of power. However, we also note the view of Commonwealth observers that the election contest fell short of key benchmarks for democratic elections. We welcome President Sirisena’s early commitment to good governance and to working with all international partners. We stand ready to help the new Government implement their commitments.

[Lord Naseby]

Does my noble friend agree that it is greatly to be welcomed for any democracy to have an 80% turnout and, as he says, to have carried out an election so well? Is he also aware that, on the back of that election result, the new President Sirisena—supported by all the minorities, including the Tamils—has pledged to have a revitalised domestic human rights inquiry into alleged war crimes, possibly using the missing persons commission, with two highly respected Britons in Desmond de Silva and Geoffrey Nice? On top of that, he has stated clearly that there will be independence of the law and the judiciary, and media freedom. Against that background, will Her Majesty’s Government give a commitment to give forth the hand of friendship and to give this new all-party Government time to implement the pledges that they have made?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are entirely ready to give that commitment. The Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have already sent messages. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, will be aware that the new Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, is known to many people within his own party, as his party is associated with the Conservatives on an international basis.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, we on this side join in the congratulations to the new President and wish him and his Government well. Will Her Majesty’s Government, when they are in discussions with the new Government of Sri Lanka, encourage them to review, seriously and as a matter of urgency, the allegations that have been made about human rights abuses over the last few years in that country? Further, would Her Majesty’s Government encourage the new Government in Sri Lanka to sign up to the initiative of the former Foreign Secretary, the right honourable William Hague, on sexual violence in conflict, something that the previous Sri Lankan Administration singularly failed to do?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are in a regular dialogue with the Sri Lankan Government and Administration on all these matters. Members of this House may not be aware how closely the British Government and their representatives work with our colleagues in the European Union on issues such as this—in Sri Lanka as in Georgia—to exert pressure and bring it to bear. There is of course the UN human rights investigation, which will continue. The UN Human Rights Council will discuss that at its forthcoming meeting in March.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, one of the early pronouncements made by the new President was about the establishment of an all-inclusive Government. There seems to be some reluctance on the part of the Tamil National Alliance to participate in this political process. Now that the elections are coming up in April, what efforts could we make, and what advice and assistance could we offer, so that there is proper participation by Tamil nationals, not only in Sri Lanka but among the large diaspora in this country?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it was a very broad coalition election that elected President Sirisena, and it will be very difficult to hold all of that coalition together. I understand that the Tamil National Alliance has said that it is willing to support the Government from the outside but does not at the moment want to take ministerial posts within the Government. However, it is a temporary Government and there will probably be elections in April.

[Lord Luce (CB)]

My Lords, given that Sri Lanka is the current chair of the Commonwealth, can the Minister say whether the new President is fully committed to the Commonwealth charter, which reflects all the values of the Commonwealth?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I cannot say that, but I certainly hope so.

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister mentioned that President Sirisena has undertaken to conduct a domestic inquiry into the allegations of war crimes that were committed in the final stages of the conflict in 2009. Has anybody suggested to him that he should facilitate the inquiry which was launched by the United Nations Human Rights Council at a meeting last March? Will our Government encourage him to invite it to Sri Lanka and facilitate its work there?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that has been the position of our Government for the past year. Of course, there are some sensitive issues of national sovereignty. The noble Lord may be aware that there are even some people in the United Kingdom who take objection to international organisations looking at human rights issues within this country.

[Lord Naseby]

Is my noble friend aware that, on that last point, both India and Australia stand foursquare with the sovereign Government of Sri Lanka; that, yes, they do need an enhanced domestic enquiry; and that perhaps they can work in tandem with Europe, but that both the former Government and the present Government have made it quite clear that they are not willing to take part with Europe?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am well aware of the previous Government’s resistance to the UN inquiry. I hope that the new Government, as they get under way, will take a more generous approach to the UN investigations.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

As the Bill stands, it does say,

“as the result of a report from the Standards Committee”—

so suspension by the Speaker would not be included.

[Lord Grocott]

Surely I can at least persuade the Minister that that is a seriously anomalous situation that he really should go back to his advisers and sort out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I do not agree with the noble Lord. The amendment was tabled by the Opposition Front Bench because these are serious matters. Members who committed serious wrongdoing would have got away with not being recalled. By tabling the amendment, we wanted to reflect that their punishment was not enough; they should have been recalled. We wanted to give a clear signal to Parliament and to the country that, in future, 10 days is the right length after which that should be dealt with.

In conclusion, I regret that my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours is not here tonight, as many other noble Lords have said. I wish him a speedy recovery.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, let me speak briefly to the government amendments, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, remarked, are consequential to amendments tabled by the Opposition Front Bench and passed in the Commons by a significant majority. We have also tabled three amendments, Amendments 6, 9 and 10, to future-proof the second edition by ensuring that the reference to the Standards Committee captures any other committee that in future exercises the relevant functions. Perhaps I should mention that the Standards Committee is at present reviewing its arrangements, including the role of lay members—although I suspect that it is more likely to expand the role of lay members rather than to do what the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, would like, and dismiss them.

The amendments therefore make it clear that any other committee doing that function, whatever it is called, will continue to be given that function. They also make it clear that it is the report of the Standards Committee from which suspension follows and has to relate to the conduct of a particular MP, rather than, for example, a report about conduct or suspensions more generally.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has tabled several amendments. Amendment 5 is a wrecking amendment, which would render the Bill unworkable by making the first condition ineffective and by removing the second condition. Amendments 7 and 8 would overturn the will of the other place, which voted on Report by 204 to 125 to support an amendment tabled by the Opposition Front Bench to set the threshold at 10 sitting days, as has been remarked on. I suspect that those who were absent were doing other things elsewhere, rather than sitting outside determined to abstain but frightened that the Daily Mail might see what they were doing, which is what I think some noble Lords were suggesting.

Amendments 12 and 36 would amend how the seat might otherwise be vacated by deleting the phrase “or otherwise” from the Bill. Another way of future-proofing the Bill is to emphasise that the seat may be vacated for a number of other reasons—disqualification, death or other causes which the Commons may in future decide for itself. That would of course mean that no recall process was necessary. If the MP’s seat becomes vacant for whatever reason, the MP will not need to face a petition. Those words are therefore needed to stop unnecessary recall petitions being started where the seat has already been vacated.

Perhaps I may say a few wider words on the tone of our Committee so far, because what I hear is a number of noble Lords saying that we have to save the Commons from itself—we know better than the other place. I wish that when we had been debating House of Lords reform, we had the same sense that the other place knows better about us, but I did not hear that sentiment from noble Lords—particularly those here at the time. We have to be very careful not to have nostalgia for British politics of the 1960s as a golden age in which we had two-party politics, mass parties, respect for MPs and Parliament and deference.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Do not Members of both Houses equally have a responsibility to try to ensure the integrity of Parliament and that our institutional arrangements are such that Parliament is effective in the way that we all wish? Is not the right test to apply whether proposed reforms will improve the performance of Parliament or otherwise?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I wish we had heard that sentiment a little more often when we were discussing reform of this House. We have to be very careful about nostalgia. I think I heard the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, say: “It should be as it always was”. I thought about that wonderful quotation from The Leopard:

“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change”.

We have to be very careful not to abandon ourselves to the same nostalgia for the world of our youth that motivates those who vote for UKIP.

[Lord Soley]

Although the noble Lord might be right about not being nostalgic about things going back to 40 years or so ago, when you talk about separating legal processes from parliamentary ones you are looking at a few hundred years and things like the principles put forward by Burke in the 18th century.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

We understand that we are dealing with some fairly fundamental principles. The noble Lord, Lord Maxton, made an extremely important point about the denigration of democracy, and the depths of public disillusionment which we now face and how we come to terms with that. The defence of democracy is not necessarily the defence of Westminster as it is now, let alone as it was 40 years ago.

[Lord Maxton]

It is the link between politics and the public—the media—which is the cause of the problem, not the public itself. People can only go with what they receive from the media.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I wish I could entirely agree with the noble Lord. There are many good aspects of the end of deference. People question the elite and the establishment much more than they did. We have to be very careful not to think that the preservation of Westminster in aspic is the way to regain or rebuild public trust in politics. I see that I have provoked a few noble Lords. I call upon the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Before my noble friend concludes his remarks, would he do us the courtesy of dealing with the argument about 10 and 20 days? I listened very carefully to what he said and the only justification he put forward was that this was passed by the House of Commons. There have been a number of speeches making very pertinent points about ensuring that there is public confidence in parliamentary procedures. Will the Minister explain why the Government are rejecting those arguments?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

We do take our lead from the House of Commons on this. I remarked that the Commons Standards Committee, of which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, was bitterly critical in a speech that I recall very well, is now looking at its structure and procedures. We should welcome that and, on that basis, the Government support the decision of the House of Commons.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He said, in answer to his noble friend Lord Forsyth, that the Government accepted this because the Commons did. However, the Government supported this in the Commons. What was the rationale for that support? Does the Minister accept the basic point, made by several noble Lords this evening, that there is a really serious danger of the Standards Committee making decisions along political lines?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Politics cannot be entirely dismissed from anything. Going back to that wonderful period in the 1970s, I recall seeing the excellent play “This House”, in which the noble Baroness is portrayed, about how the House of Commons behaved at the time. I suspect that politics was not entirely absent from the Privileges Committee then. The introduction of lay members to the Standards Committee was intended to make it less political and strengthen the safeguards against it being used for political reasons. That is part of the basis on which the Standards Committee is now reviewing its procedures.

[Lord Grocott]

Whatever the Minister’s reservations about the rights of this House to try and improve legislation that has come from the Commons when it relates largely to Commons matters, could he please agree that if there appears to be a bizarre anomaly in the Bill, it is our duty at least to look at it? To repeat myself, the anomaly is this: on one day, as the Bill stands, a Privileges Committee report giving a sentence of 10 days or longer could be endorsed, leading to a recall petition being triggered; on the same day, in relation to another Member, the Speaker of the House could—as I understand it—impose a suspension of longer than 10 days. Whatever his reservations about our right to amend the Bill, does he acknowledge that there appears to be an anomaly and that he will, at least, go away and look at it?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am not aware of what the Speaker did on the same day. I will certainly look at that.

[Lord Tyler]

I shall assist my noble friend briefly on this because I think there is a potential anomaly, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, says. What it stems from is that the suspension that is handed down from the Chair by the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker or whoever may be in the Chair at that time is, as I understand it, always related to behaviour in the Chamber. A suspension which is recommended to the House by the Standards Committee is, as has been said by a number of noble Lords, on the basis of a commissioner’s investigation of serious wrongdoing. The committee then decides whether that wrongdoing is an appropriate decision and then decides, again on recommendation, what the verdict should be. That is quite distinctly different.

It may be that there have been circumstances—I cannot put my hand on my heart and say—where the Speaker has laid down such a very long suspension. Throwing the Mace around in the Chamber was the big case, was it not? I do not know whether that exceeded 10 days. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, is right to say that it would be very exceptional for the Speaker, in circumstances of that sort, to insist on the suspension of a Member in any way that would trigger the 20-day limit—but it might trigger the 10-day limit. That is an additional reason for this House to ask the other House to think again about the number of days’ suspension that should trigger the recall procedure.

I do not know whether I entirely answered the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, but perhaps I have given my noble friend on the Front Bench time to think about it at least.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

6: Clause 1, page 1, line 19, after “Standards” insert “in relation to the MP”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

9: Clause 1, page 2, line 5, leave out “in relation to subsection (5)(a)” and insert “where that period is expressed as a number of sitting days”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

14: Clause 2, page 2, line 23, leave out “(the first recall condition)” and insert “and (7) (the first and third recall conditions)”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

15: Clause 2, page 2, line 23, leave out from “condition)” to end of line 26 and insert “—
(a) the reference to an offence includes an offence committed before the MP became an MP and an offence committed before the day on which section 1 comes into force, but(b) the reference to an MP being convicted of an offence is only to an MP being convicted of an offence on or after the day on which section 1 comes into force.”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

17: Clause 2, page 2, line 26, at end insert—
“( ) The reference in section 1(3) to an offence does not include an offence mentioned in section 1(7).”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

18: Clause 3, page 3, line 5, leave out “(the first recall condition)” and insert “and (7) (the first and third recall conditions)”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

21: Clause 4, page 3, line 40, after second “MP” insert “—
(a) ”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

34: Clause 5, page 4, line 23, leave out “or second” and insert “, second or third”

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I will start by answering the question on the role of the Speaker. I will take that away and make sure that we are absolutely correct on that. My understanding is that, unlike in a by-election where a writ is moved, the Bill provides for the Speaker to exercise certain administrative functions to enable the process to work efficiently. It is based on the Recess Elections Act 1975, which also places administrative duties on the Speaker. We will look at that carefully; it is clearly an important point.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, leaves me breathless, in a sense, because if we are talking about 13 months instead of three months, we are in an entirely different world of course. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, we had considered that on the existing basis that six months before the next anticipated election is the point at which local by-elections are not undertaken. I understand that in 1973 the Speaker’s Conference looked at the question of when by-elections should not be called and recommended:

“In the fifth year of a Parliament, some relaxation of these guidelines should be allowed, in order if possible to avoid by-elections being held immediately before a general election”.

We are therefore incorporating into the Bill previous accepted practice.

On the question of the Lord Speaker, perhaps we can have a discussion off the Floor. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, it has not been the practice to inform the Speaker of the other place formally when we take particular actions here. As to whether it should be introduced—it would clearly be appropriate for this to be on a reciprocal basis—I am not sure.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, raised a very interesting, wide question about four-year parliaments versus five-year parliaments—which, again, I would be very happy to talk to him about. I have been doing some quick calculations, which I hope I have got right. There have been, including the election we are about to face, some 19 general elections since 1945, seven of which have led to five-year parliaments. Had we had the Fixed-term Parliaments Act in 1945, there would have been 15 general elections including the coming one—just four fewer. If we had had a four-year Fixed-term Parliaments Act in 1945, we would now be past the 17th general election and half way through to the 18th. So we are not talking about a vast difference.

I am sure that the noble Lord does not want to go down to the two-year, Congress style, where electioneering takes over everything and reasonable government has to stop, but let us discuss this further outside the Chamber. The noble Lord raises some very interesting, long-term questions about constitutional reform that we clearly need to discuss further.

[Lord Grocott]

The good news is that in five of the seven parliaments that lasted for the full five years, the Government in power were thrown out. Clearly, we hope that is a precedent that will be seen this time.

[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.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Thank you. I knew that someone younger than me, with a keener brain, would remember his name. Eldon Griffiths went to live in California—yet he was supposed to be representing his constituents. That seems to me a better argument for a recall, if we are to have recalls. This has not been thought through.

As for the provisions about imprisonment, if, for example, Caroline Lucas, as a result of her recent protests against fracking, had been sent to prison, would that have been a sensible reason for a recall? She was making a legitimate protest. If she had been sent to prison, would we all really have thought that she should be made to go through this tortuous procedure? Or if some of us had been arrested when we were picketing in the miners’ strike, and had been sent to prison, would that have been a good reason? And what would have happened to the Red Clydesiders? This has not been thought through. It is a terrible piece of legislation.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I know that the noble Lord disapproves of constant interruptions of speeches in this House but, although I congratulate him on making the Second Reading speech that he would like to have made at that stage, I do not think that he has yet mentioned any of the amendments we are supposed to be discussing.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I have been rumbled. But in fact I did start off—I have a note of it, unusually for me—by saying, “These amendments deal with the third trigger”. As I pointed out to the noble Lord earlier, he and his golden trigger gave me the opportunity to bring that up.

I am about to come to the end of my speech anyway, because if I had been able to speak at Second Reading I would have finished by saying that this is yet another piece—and probably the worst piece of all—of constitutional Cleggery. This Parliament has been bedevilled by constitutional Cleggery. Fortunately, the people of this country got rid of the alternative vote by a large majority—and, fortunately, this House and this Parliament got rid of some of Mr Clegg’s other measures. Unfortunately, I fear that we will not be able to get rid of this Bill—but the country, and Parliament, will be much poorer places because we are going to pass it into law.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to which the Recall of MPs Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:

Clauses 1 to 6, Schedule 1, Clauses 7 to 10, Schedule 2, Clauses 11 to 16, Schedules 3 to 5, Clauses 17 to 20, Schedule 6, Clauses 21 to 25.

Motion agreed.

Chilcot Inquiry

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to suggest that the report of the Chilcot inquiry is published before the start of the pre-election purdah.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, as I said to the noble Lord in my Answer of 3 November, the inquiry is completely independent of government. It is up to Sir John Chilcot to decide when to submit the inquiry’s report to the Prime Minister. I continue to hope that its conclusions will shortly be available for all to see.

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

I am certainly not blaming my noble friend, and least of all Sir John Chilcot, but is not this continuing delay an utter and total disgrace after so much time has elapsed? Is my noble friend aware that more and more people think that it is some kind of attempt to prolong the agony for Mr Blair facing possible war crimes charges?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we all regret the delay, but I wish to stress that this is not unusual for inquiries of this sort. I know that we were all looking at the al-Sweady inquiry as part of our Christmas reading. That took five years to report on two battles in one afternoon and cost £24 million. The Baha Mousa inquiry, looking into the death in UK custody of one Iraqi civilian in September 2003, took three years and cost £13.5 million. This inquiry has been looking at nine years of British policy and operations within Iraq. It is not entirely unexpected, therefore, that it has turned out to take a long time.

[Lord Hurd of Westwell (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that my noble friend’s point is at the heart of this whole matter? This has dragged on beyond the questions of mere negligence and forgivable delay; it is becoming a scandal. This is not a matter of trivial importance; it is something to which a large number of people in this country look anxiously for the truth. Is it not time that the Government exerted themselves to make sure that that reasonable demand is met?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we all regret the amount of time that has been taken. I think in retrospect, as an outside observer, that it might have been a good thing to have recruited a larger staff at the beginning of the inquiry, because the sheer volume of the documentation that the inquiry found itself looking through was much greater than had originally been anticipated. It is, however, an independent inquiry. The Government will receive the report. The one decision that the Government will then take is when it will be published. It is up to the chairman of an independent inquiry to decide when and how it completes its report.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, in setting up the inquiry, Mr Gordon Brown made a sweeping statement that all British documents, save those involving the most sensitive national security, would be made available. Has that promise been breached, in either spirit or form? The House also needs a clear, unequivocal statement as to who is responsible for apparently kicking publication into touch until after the election. Is it former or present Prime Ministers, Cabinet Secretaries or Sir John Chilcot and his committee?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there were two questions there. The Government made all documentation available to the committee at the outset. The further question, which has taken rather longer than anticipated, was the subsequent discussion as to how many of those documents should be published. After all, some of them are highly classified and deeply sensitive about British foreign policy and relations with other major Governments and allies. I understand that that process is also now complete. When the report comes out, it will contain more than 1 million words and will publish substantial documentation from more than 200 Cabinet meetings. That is all agreed and under way. In terms of the publication, the Prime Minister has not intervened at any point—and nor, as I understand it, did his predecessor. It is up to the inquiry and its chairman to decide when the process is complete. As we know, Maxwellisation is part of the process of completing the report. When that is complete, it will be published.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside (Lab)]

My Lords, I join those who wish for an early publication of the Chilcot report, if for no other reason than to put a stop to the conspiracy theories multiplying. The ridiculous comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, are a disgrace to this House and a disgrace to him.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I also wish for an early publication, but we are waiting for the inquiry to submit the report to the Government. The Government have taken the decision, as my honourable friend Rob Wilson and I have both said on previous occasions, that if it is submitted after the end of February it would not be appropriate to publish it until after the election because part of the previous Government’s commitment was that there would be time allowed for substantial consultation on and debate of this enormous report when it is published.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, when the inquiry was announced, some of us took the position that it should be a two-part inquiry: one part into the conduct of the war and one part into the events that led up to the war. Would my noble friend agree that that would have been the better way to deal with it? In other words, we should have produced a report on what led up to the war itself and left in the long grass the business of the conduct of the war. In that event, we would certainly by now have had the answers and the truth that the British people seek.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that might have been wise, but I am afraid that we are being wise a little after the event. We are well under way with this inquiry. Indeed, I hope that we are very close to the finishing line.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister join with me in asking people to stop calling this intervention “illegal”? It has never been declared illegal by any court, national or international, and, since it was the first intervention ever to be approved by a vote in the House of Commons, it has more authority than any other intervention.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I was not aware that I, certainly, had ever called it “illegal”.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, after all the excitement and excitable nature of yesterday’s proceedings, would not pre-election purdah be rather a good idea?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Pre-election purdah does not formally start until late March, but the Government have committed that if the report is not available for publication by the end of February, it will be held back until after the election.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a very impassioned debate in many ways. On the question of how many elections we should have had since the Second World War, I can remember very well the two indecisive elections of 1974, and the weakness of government which resulted from that, which led to a Labour Government first having to run to the IMF and then losing their majority and having to come to the Liberals, as we then were, for outside support. I do not in any sense go back on my support for the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. I think of the two elections in 1964 and 1966, when Labour was successful in getting a second majority, and the two attempts in 1974, when Labour was unsuccessful in getting a second majority. If there were to be a second election in 2015 if no party obtained a majority, I have no doubt that that would happen again because such a procedure is promoted to the public, so I do not resile from my support for fixed-term Parliaments.

[Lord Grocott]

What about the two Liberal elections in 1910? The noble Lord presumably now feels that there should have been five years between those two elections.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I was not involved in that election; perhaps the noble Lord was. However, I have to admit to the House that early one morning, when I was half awake, my mind turned to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. I had an image of a debate in this Chamber in about 1831, in which an Earl Grocott denounced the proposals for major constitutional change as being unnecessary and disturbing the established traditions of party patronage. Perhaps the noble Lord and I might discuss off the Floor which proposals for constitutional reform over the past 150 years he might have supported at the time.

All three parties committed to a recall system in their manifestos, and this was included in the coalition’s programme for government. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, had some fun talking about parties that do not carry out all the pledges in their manifestos. All three parties were committed to this in principle in their last manifestos, which provides a certain basis for it. I remind her of something that I have said previously to other members of her party—namely, when one examines the 1997 Labour Party manifesto, the clearest pledge was to bring forward proposals for electoral reform. However, the Labour Party then entirely abandoned that pledge, as it did with a number of other things as well.

This Bill will introduce a system where MPs will be subject to a recall petition where they are found guilty of wrongdoing under a specific set of triggers, as set out in the Bill. Regulations have been mentioned. I assure noble Lords at the outset that before Committee we will put in the Libraries of both Houses an early draft of the regulations which will need to be made under the Bill, which will set out the areas that will need to be covered. The regulations will build upon the principles and precedents in electoral legislation. Noble Lords will have recognised already the extent to which the drafting of the Bill has followed as closely as possible the language in a number of previous Bills about electoral and political regulation.

Some large and detailed issues have been raised. Most of those who have spoken have said that they supported the principle of the Bill. I think I counted at least three, perhaps up to five, speakers who explicitly or implicitly opposed the principle of the Bill. Let me start with the detailed scrutiny issues that have been raised. I particularly welcome the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, who raised a number of specific questions that we must address in Committee and on Report. There is the question of whether this is a secret and open process, and how far the process is in the hands of the constituents themselves or outside, wealthy groups. There are also questions on how many signing points there may be within the constituency and who will check on permissible campaigners and permissible donors. Those are very much the sort of point on which we, as a revising House, would wish to focus in our further consideration.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Can I take it from that that the Government still have not decided whether they want an open or secret vote?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, unavoidably, as the noble Baroness has said, this has to be partly a public process. One goes to vote. Incidentally, the fact that this is a more public process does not mean the end of the secret ballot because the ballots when one is electing someone remain entirely secret. Access to the register of people who take part by post is a matter that we need to explore further. There are perhaps mechanisms to write into the regulations that will restrict access to the register for those who do not want their names to be entirely public. However, that is something that we need to explore because there are important principles here. Some noble Lords might wish to argue that signing a petition should be a public declaration because that is part of the transparency of objecting to one’s current representative. We will explore that further.

The question of the number of facilities in a constituency has also been raised—the Brecon and Radnor question, as we will have to refer to it. Again, we will come to that as we go through Committee and Report. The Government have consulted electoral administrators and returning officers, and their representative bodies—the Association of Electoral Administrators and SOLACE—throughout the Bill’s development, and we welcome their responses. They agree with the policy intention of the campaign regulation provisions in the Bill that petitions should be events with a local feel, without a need for a statutory register of campaigners. The question of how we deal with separate campaigns, and how, in particular, we interpret the existing rules on those who are acting in concert, is a matter that we will want to test and make sure that we get right in Committee and on Report. We appreciate that there are important questions at stake and we are all concerned to limit the influence of money in this process, as in others. Much of the debate so far has brought back the painful memory of the transparency of lobbying Bill, in which some of us took part this time last year.

The question of who is responsible for regulating the campaign has also been raised. We will, again, explore that further. Enforcement of the rules will be the responsibility of the police and the courts. Transparency is intended to be the basis of the campaign. Responsibility for the administration and conduct of the recall petition falls to the petition officer, whose role in the recall petition process will be analogous to that of a returning officer in an election in ensuring that relevant information is open to public scrutiny. The Electoral Commission will be responsible for oversight of the rules in the way in which it already takes that part.

The question that the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, raised about the numbers of groups spending £10,000 is a matter that, as I say, we will need to look at to make sure that the regulations cover that. The noble Baroness raised the question of whether those spending less than £500 would remain entirely unregulated. Non-accredited campaigners spending small sums will of course have to include their imprint in everything that they publish. That comes within the normal rules. Those who spend less than £500 will also be subject to the “acting in concert” provisions that cover existing elections.

On double signing, the intention is to ensure that the maximum number of people have the opportunity to sign, but the normal checks will be in place to ensure that each person signs only once and that the petition clerk at the signing place will mark the register to check whether the person is eligible to be issued with the signing sheet.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, also raised the question of whether the petition process places a heavy burden on local authorities. I stress that the Government see this process as a reserve power. This also partly responds to the suggestion that there should be a sunset clause; the noble Lord, Lord Soley, suggested a period of five years. We see this not as a mechanism that would need to be used often—five years is, therefore, far too short—but as a necessary reserve power for the public and Parliament to have, because it has become a necessary element in re-establishing a degree of confidence in our parliamentary democracy.

We all accept that the vast majority of people involved in politics are entirely honourable. Indeed, I think that many of us who have read about British politics in the 1920s, 1930s and 1950s would accept that the degree of misconduct is much less now than took place then. I can think of several Prime Ministers who would not have survived current scrutiny of their personal or financial affairs but who nevertheless had good careers in the first half of the century. Nevertheless, we recognise that there are always some bad apples in every single basket and that some measures to make sure that where misconduct takes place there is a degree of comeback. That is what this Bill is about.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, asked about the wording of the petition signing sheet. It has been developed in consultation with the Electoral Commission to ensure that it is balanced and fits in with the commission’s guidance for referendum questions. We are confident that the wording we have devised through discussions with the commission gives petitioners the information they need, including making the important addition that if an MP loses their seat as a result of a petition there is nothing to stop them standing as a candidate in the subsequent by-election.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

The noble Lord said that the petition wording had been developed in consultation with the Electoral Commission. Has the question actually been tested? That was the point I raised.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Officials are now arranging the use and testing of the wording of the petition and are in contact with the commission about the form that that testing will take. We can discuss that further—if necessary, off the Floor.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, I raised the question of Phil Woolas and the election court. Is that what the noble Lord is talking about now, or will he comment on that?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I would say simply that under this Bill, if a recall petition is successful, the sitting MP will be entitled to stand again in the by-election; so the Woolas incident could not happen under this Bill. I hope that that is entirely clear.

[Lord Dubs]

My point is that we now have two different systems—the system in the Bill and the system in the electoral court that caused Phil Woolas to lose his seat and not be allowed to stand again. That seems to be an anomaly. Surely we should encompass the electoral court within the ambit of the Bill, so that a future Phil Woolas could stand again or there could be a recall procedure.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I think I hear the noble Lord considering an amendment in Committee on that question. Again, we are open to consideration on all of this.

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, tells us that he will reintroduce into our Chamber a revised form of the amendment introduced by my honourable friends David Heath and Julian Huppert. I look forward to that with interest. I have already discussed this with him, although I have to say that, at the moment, neither I nor the Bill team is persuaded that it is a workable additional trigger in its current form.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asked about the technical amendments that the Government are introducing and whether that changes the 10-day trigger. The answer is no, they do not change the 10-day trigger. These are purely technical amendments to ensure that the amendments put in in the Commons fit with the language of the Bill. If he wishes to raise the 10-day question in Committee, that is a matter for him.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

In the light of a number of contributions today referring to the difficulties that will arise in the Standards Committee, will Ministers now consult, both privately with members of the committee and with the leadership of other political parties in the Commons, to see whether there may be a need to rethink the position that has been taken on this?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I will consider that but I am not going to give any commitment on the Floor. Indeed, the noble Lord spent a good deal of time talking about the operations of the Standards Committee. I recognise that that is a particular concern to him, although it is not in the middle of the consideration of the Bill.

The wider issue, which a number of noble Lords mentioned—I recognise that 10 of the 17 speakers in this debate are former Members of the other House—is public trust in the Commons and in democracy as such. As we consider the Bill, we have to be careful not to propose that we should engage in saving the Commons from itself, which was the echo I got from some of the contributions—to supply the courage, which MPs have failed to show, to resist the popular mood was the underlying argument of one or two contributions, I think. Yes, popular attitudes to politics at present are dangerously negative. Yes, it would be wonderful if they were different, but we cannot change the public. I am afraid that Parliament has to adapt to the public while we provide—and we all need to provide—the political persuasion and political leadership to begin to change the level of public disillusionment. However, we cannot entirely stand up against it and dismiss it.

[Lord Soley]

I can assure the noble Lord—I think this applies to everyone—that it is not about doubting the courage of MPs, but about wondering whether they have thought through the consequences of exceptional cases, which will occur. Just as there was an outburst against expenses issues in this House and the other, when you get someone, whether they are imprisoned or something else, who is sentenced for something that the public feel positively about and want that person to remain an MP—as has happened on a number of occasions in history—you might get the exact reverse feeling. That process has not been thought through. It is not about courage.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I take that point.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott—the Earl of Grocott, as I shall always think of him now—and the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, both said that we should leave this—

[Lord Grocott]

Perhaps I can nip this in the bud. If the noble Lord insists on referring to me as Earl Grocott, could he at least acknowledge that, contrary to his party and its supporters, when the views of Earl Grocott respecting the voting system were put to the Great British public, they supported the noble Earl by a majority of 2:1, rather than the Liberal Democrats?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord.

The noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Hughes, said that we should leave this to political parties. Part of our problem in current-day British politics is that the golden age, when political parties were mass parties and mass movements, has gone. When I first stood for Parliament the membership of my political party—the third political party, the Liberals—was larger than the membership of any of the three parties today. The Conservative Party had more than 1 million members; the Labour Party was a mass movement, with large trade unions and very large constituency membership. We all know that that is, sadly, not the case now.

We fail to engage the public. That is partly because there has been social transformation, and communications transformation, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said. Globalisation has affected the way that the public look at politicians. We have lost that age. It is not only in Britain: we see it in the United States, Germany, France and elsewhere. In an age of instant communication—I think the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, referred to the “online mob”, by which I think he means 38 Degrees; I am sure that 38 Degrees will quote him on that tomorrow, as it is likely to do—we have a problem that the public are irreverent about all elites, not just politicians, and see a Westminster bubble as much as they see a Brussels bubble. We need to do a whole host of things together, across the parties, to begin to re-establish public trust in our institutions. I think, very strongly, that decentralisation, devolution and the revival of local democracy is a very important part of that. However, I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Norton, that political leadership and political persuasion is something we have failed to make towards a disillusioned electorate. Perhaps a little less partisan sniping as we go towards the general election and more common defence of reasoned debate is something that we all need to reflect on.

The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, talked about a slippery slope, but there are other slippery slopes. The slippery slope towards mass popular disengagement in politics is also one that we are on.

We have put forward the Bill believing not that it is the golden trigger that will somehow revive public trust alone, but that it is one element among many that we need to begin to re-establish public trust in democratic politics and in Westminster. I look forward to Committee, when we will discuss some of the detailed issues that have rightly been raised.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

CIA: Torture

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sheikh]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the report prepared by the United States Congress on CIA involvement in torture.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Senate committee’s account of the treatment of some detainees by the CIA is troubling. After 9/11, things happened that were clearly wrong. In Britain, we have made clear our determination to address allegations of UK complicity in the alleged mistreatment of detainees by others overseas. Her Majesty’s Government stand firmly against torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.

[Lord Sheikh (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Will our Government undertake an independent, judge-led inquiry to examine possible British complicity in the programme of torture, secret detention and rendition? Will our Government also provide all suitable help and assistance to UK citizens and residents who have been detained to enable them to seek justice and remedies? I point out that Shaker Aamer is still in detention and needs help to be released. He has apparently been very badly treated.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government set up the Gibson inquiry in July 2010. It was asked to produce an interim report when police investigations into a number of potential criminal charges were instituted in 2012. The Gibson committee’s interim report raised 27 questions for further investigation. They have been taken up by the Intelligence and Security Committee, which has now been working for a year with some additional staff on that inquiry. When that inquiry is complete, it will be for the next Government to decide whether a further judicial inquiry is necessary. On the question of Shaker Aamer, the Government are engaged at the highest levels for his release as a matter of urgency.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords—

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[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his original Answer to this Question. Will he set out whether Her Majesty’s Government believe that the Intelligence and Security Committee has the capacity and the resources that it needs to investigate these matters?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I already said that the Intelligence and Security Committee has taken on additional staff to cope with this inquiry. I recognise that there are some considerations as to how open the report of the Intelligence and Security Committee will be. We have to wait to see how much it will be able to publish. I think we all recognise that this is all an extremely delicate area in terms of how much one can publish. I wish I could give an assurance that the next Government, whoever they may be, will do their utmost to ensure that as much as possible is published.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

Does not my noble friend accept that, however delicate these matters are, there is widespread concern that this Government should show themselves utterly open on these issues? It is therefore very important that the answers to questions such as this are rather clearer, so that people can see exactly what we are doing to ensure that the reputation of this country should no longer be besmirched by such allegations.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I entirely accept that. We are talking about allegations of behaviour undertaken between 2001 and 2005, in most instances. The Government are doing their utmost to ensure that they are fully investigated.

[Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that reacting to terrorism by brutally torturing suspects can induce revenge terrorism in a never-ending cycle? Will he condemn torture in those terms?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Geneva Convention condemns torture; that is very clearly set out in the Geneva Convention. We certainly condemn torture, and we will watch with interest the response of public opinion in the United States to the Senate committee’s report, including that within the Senate, where there are very divided opinions.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords—

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, does this difficult question not take us back to the problem that stands at the heart of the operation of the Intelligence and Security Committee? A witness before that committee who does not tell the truth cannot be held in contempt of Parliament because that committee, while it is described as a committee of Parliament, is not a full Select Committee and does not enjoy parliamentary privileges.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I take the noble Lord’s point and I encourage him to read the short 500-page executive summary of the US Senate committee’s report which has, from the summary of the summary that I have read, some rather shocking things in it. We very much hope that British officials were in no way associated with some of those actions.

[Lord Avebury]

How can my noble friend promise to address the claims of British complicity in acts of torture when those allegations have been redacted from the report, presumably at the request of the British Government themselves?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government are clear that the question of the presence or participation of British officials in some of the acts that are alleged is one of the things that must be investigated.

[Lord Goldsmith (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that at the moment we have the worst of both worlds? The interim report of the Gibson committee was published, which listed a number of questions that were taken by the media as being findings and therefore we do not know what the truth is. I do not say this because I want to see anything hidden—quite the opposite, as I was one of those who called for that inquiry. However, at the moment we have the problem that things are believed to be true about the British security services, maybe about British people involved in political life, but because we have not got to the bottom of them and have not got a report, they are being condemned without it being properly investigated and heard. I am hopeful that the noble Lord will do what he has said, which is to make sure that the ISC, or whoever it is going to be, reports as soon as possible and we actually know what the truth is in the interests of everybody.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are all entirely clear that we need to get to the bottom of this and to spell out the involvement of British officials, in so far as it took place, as publicly as possible. I stress that will be a matter for the next Government. It is not therefore a partisan issue. We are all concerned about the reputation of Her Majesty’s Government.