Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Mark Durkan and Graham Stuart

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I struggle to find any part of the remarks of the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) with which I can associate myself, but he has clearly stated his opposition to the Bill and the amendments that we know are to come from the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) and others. As one of those in the pick-up band of MPs the hon. Member for Richmond Park put together to sit as a cross-party committee to consider an alternative Bill, obviously I support the general thrust of the amendments, but I also take the point, aired as a trailer for subsequent debates, that some of them need to be tested just as much as some of the clauses in the Bill before us do.

Warning against legislation, the hon. Member for South Dorset said that the Bill addressed an issue that should not be dealt with by legislation, but which should be left to honour and responsibility. He indicated that hon. Members know when we have done something wrong and will take the appropriate course of action, and that we do not need any rules. If we took that argument to its extreme, we would not even have the Standards Committee, because we would simply know automatically that we had done wrong and would make amends; there would be no need for anybody else to come to a judgment—we could be entirely reliant on our own sense of honour and conscience—but clearly that is not the case and would not wash with the public.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

I agree with the thrust of the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. Does he not think that what lies behind the amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) is a belief that trust in the people is the main thing, and that it is not honour, honour, honour from MPs that we need, but trust, trust, trust in the electorate to do the right thing?

[Mark Durkan]

Absolutely. I fully take the point. I believe that the bottom line, as regards the democratic principle, should be to trust the judgment of the electorate and to show belief and trust in their decisions by equipping them to deal with such issues. The idea that we must be protected from other judgments goes back to some of the issues that gave rise to some of the problems with the expenses scandal. I do not believe that this Bill is before us at this stage in this Parliament in the same way as the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 was introduced at this stage in the last Parliament; I do not buy the argument that it is comparable panic or anything else.

Long before we had the expenses scandal, there were many warnings that the expenses system was open to a lot of confusion and potential abuse, and that it was ripe to scandalise the public if there was more transparency. Those warnings were not heeded and the Good Ship Lollipop ran aground on what was leaked to The Daily Telegraph.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Stuart]

That is a fair point. However, the public are not one thing, are they? The public are made up of a lot of individuals, and therefore one has to allow a certain collection of them to come together before starting to suggest that a recall reflects a wider public opinion. Otherwise we stand the chance of very small numbers of people being able to trigger it.

[Mark Durkan]

The thresholds that the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) talks about would be in the hands of the public. The 5% premise petition, the 20% test petition, and then the referendum are all in the hands of the public.

[Mr Stuart]

The hon. Gentleman is right. That is why, although I will reflect on what I have heard today—I am less sure than I was about supporting the amendments —my opinion is still that we should trust the public. We want the public to trust us, and we need to trust them. However, we need to ensure that we do not allow a tiny minority of the public to use recall in a way that most people, even in the area concerned, regard as untoward and unreasonable, simply because it is there and they feel they can use it. If that small minority are feeling powerless and think that their voice is not being heard, they will pick up whatever instrument is to hand and seek to use it to propagate their case, which they no doubt feel strongly about. That balance is what we are agonising about today.

I try to look at this from the perspective of the public outside. They will wonder why we are putting so many barriers in the way of their deciding to exercise a right of recall and remove people from this place. As Chair of the Education Committee, I am reminded that so many teachers, or certainly the teaching unions, appear to go to such lengths to protect the worst-performing teachers in the system even though, in every case, the teacher who is idle, has low standards or fails their pupils undermines morale in the staff room and all the hard work of most teachers in the school, and those elsewhere who do so much to prioritise teachers. However, standing here in this Chamber, I guess I can recognise the sense of, “If they come for one, they may come for all.” A certain paranoia runs through us.