Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2023 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

What I can say to the hon. Lady is that I am familiar with the range of activities that need to take place. I am getting into the detail of every single one of them, but I have to gain collective agreement before I can announce anything to this House. This House will be the first place I make any announcements, when I have secured that. I acknowledge her frustrations, and I am doing everything I can. I will update the House as quickly as I can.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

4. What steps his Department is taking to improve access to public sector procurement processes for small and medium-sized businesses.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)]

The Procurement Act 2023 will deliver simpler, more effective public sector procurement and help small and medium-sized enterprises secure a greater share of approximately £300 billion of expenditure per year. The Act places a requirement on contracting authorities to assess the particular barriers facing SMEs throughout the entire procurement life cycle and to consider what can be done to overcome them.

[Martin Vickers]

The renewable energy sector offers great opportunities for SMEs to become involved in the supply chain. Many of them are unaware of the public sector tenders that are out there. What are the Government doing to ensure that SMEs are made more aware of the opportunities available?

[Alex Burghart]

I very much encourage my hon. Friend to take this matter up with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, but for my part I understand that anyone bidding for contracts for difference, our main renewable support scheme, must submit supply chain plans, including how many applicants will support SMEs. The Department is also consulting on reforms that will give greater revenue support to applicants using more sustainable supply chains, including those that make greater use of SMEs.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Glen]

I understand that and, through the hon. Gentleman, I say to Mr Bates that I am doing everything I can to update the House as quickly as possible. There are a range of activities that I am familiar with from the small ministerial group of which I was previously a part. There is a lot of complexity in securing the envelope of money and then working out how to allocate it, but I am doing everything I can to bring that forward as quickly as possible.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

The lives of all our constituents are greatly affected by public bodies that make decisions across a whole range of issues. Would it be better for many of those public bodies to delegate their powers to Ministers, so that Members of this House can question and scrutinise those decisions?

[John Glen]

I will conclude my initial meetings this afternoon with a briefing on arm’s length bodies and the range of different entities that exist beyond Whitehall. I will think very carefully about what my hon. Friend has said and look at what more we can do to ensure that there is real accountability, maximum productivity and efficiency, drawing on my experience up the road at the Treasury.

British Steel

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

I meet representatives of the unions regularly, and I co-chair a steel council. The steel procurement policy note on increasing procurement in the UK was a personal ambition of mine. Previously, we did not calculate enough of the data on what was being procured and how we could continue to secure more contracts. Procurement has increased, with the value of contracts up by £97 million on the previous year. I want to go further; that is only the starting point. Earlier today, I was with the Minister for Defence Procurement, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), and I will continue to work to ensure that there is more UK steel in all our construction, whether rail, road, automotive, aviation or anything else. The reality is that last year it increased by £97 million-worth of work.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I fully endorse all the comments of my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft). Many hundreds of my constituents work at British Steel, and I have a British Streel terminal on Immingham docks in my constituency. What assessment have the Department and the Treasury made of the impact on the local economy if the changes go ahead? The Minister talked about support for workers who may be made redundant. I have witnessed the decline of the fishing industry in the Grimsby-Cleethorpes area, which has ripped the core out of the community, who need generations of support. What plans will the Government put in place to ensure that that happens?

[Ms Ghani]

First of all, negotiations are ongoing, but I fully appreciate that the statements from British Steel will be incredibly unsettling for my hon. Friend’s constituents. Let me explain the way that we worked on Port Talbot. We were keen to ensure that any support we provided continued to guarantee jobs, in consultation with local stakeholders and the unions. We set aside a fund of around £100 million to ensure that people were reskilled and redeployed. That work will continue if circumstances require it. We are anxious about jobs. These are highly skilled workers, recognised internationally, and these are well-paid jobs. That is why negotiations are sensitive and continue at pace. If we provide support, we want to get the best deal for UK steelworkers.

All-party Parliamentary Groups

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I agree with many of the points made—particularly those made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton)—and fully support the report’s aims in respect of transparency and financial accountability. However, I have a few concerns, similar to those expressed by my hon. Friend. For example, I am the trade envoy to the western Balkans, which is six countries. I happen also to be an officer or a member of those six country APPGs, which I think is advantageous to my role as the trade envoy. It may be that showing an interest in those countries before I was appointed to be an envoy played a part in my appointment. I do think it is important that I take an interest in those all-party groups because they give me wider knowledge and an interest in aspects of those countries other than their trade and economy.

I am also an officer of a number of other APPGs, usually because of a personal interest or because they are relevant to my constituency. I am a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Iceland because my constituency is heavily reliant on its trading relationship with Iceland; thousands of my constituents who work in seafood processing are totally reliant on supplies of fish from Iceland. There seems to be a particular logic to that. I am a member of those APPGs because of the trade envoy role, interest in the countries or relevance to my constituency, but why should that stop me from being the treasurer of the all-party parliamentary group on heritage rail? I happen to have a passion for steam railways, some of which are in Wales, I say to the Chair of the Standards Committee. The restriction on membership to six APPGs is perhaps over-egging the pudding to some extent. There is an issue with transparency in some APPGs, but we are perhaps looking for problems that do not exist.

On the issue of 20 Members being a member of an all-party group, on the face of it, that would seem perfectly possible. However, some all-party groups deal with illness and disease—virtually every illness or disease known to man probably has an all-party group. There are the headline ones such as strokes, cancers and so on, but some are rather obscure illnesses that may have affected Members, or their families, who have a particular passion to deal with that and to work with the charities and support groups. To find 20 members could be challenging and make it a little more difficult to do that important work.

The report says:

“There appears to be the real possibility of APPGs having been set up at the suggestion of, and as a result of lobbying by, a commercial interest.”

I set up the all-party parliamentary group on freeports a number of years ago because it was a policy concept I wanted to push that would be beneficial to my constituency and others. We have seen the Government adopt the freeport policies around the country. I set that up because I thought it was advantageous to my constituency, not because I was being lobbied by any commercial interest. However, I was aware that commercial interests were interested in the establishment of freeports—port operators being the obvious candidate. I agree wholeheartedly with the vast majority of what is proposed, but, in respect of the points I have made, it goes too far. I certainly support the suggestion by the Father of the House that we delay a final decision on this.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Standards Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Jeremy Quin)]

One of the things that depressed me about leaving the Ministry of Defence was the fact that I would no longer be across the Dispatch Box from the right hon. Gentleman and his worthy campaign to make certain that, in defence in particular, orders go to UK companies. He is right, and the Government absolutely accept that many areas of our national life must, for defence and security reasons, be provided by UK companies. However, there are huge advantages to working internationally as well, including in the sphere of defence. He knows the answer: from Typhoon and F-35 to Type 31 orders, we can do both.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

T7.   Government agencies such as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the Passport Office, Natural England and the Environment Agency among many more take major decisions that affect the lives of our constituents and businesses based in our constituencies. Delays and inefficiency are causing no end of problems. Will the Minister outline what actions are being taken to improve the efficiency and accountability of Government agencies?

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We constantly have efficiency reviews, and those will continue, and we work closely with the Treasury to make certain that the customer on the ground gets the right service and that that happens as cost-effectively as is humanly possible. That is how we managed to get £3.4 billion of savings through the system last year. We will continue to work at it. It is a huge task, but we are absolutely committed to driving those savings and good service for the customer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Thanks to the Chancellor, the Government are providing support to a typical household of around half its energy bill over the winter. That support was extended in the Budget and will be worth £1,500 to a typical family, but we went further for the most vulnerable families. The Chancellor announced that we will end the discrepancy in unit charges for those on prepayment meters, something many in this House have called for, and provide generous cost of living payments worth £900 to the most vulnerable families.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Two of my constituents, Adrian and Carol Ellis, are my guests in the Gallery today. Sadly, in 2021, their son died by suicide. George was a member of the Yorkshire Regiment. He had become depressed following one of his comrades taking his own life. In memory of George, Adrian and Carol set up a support group, which marries up one veteran with another to enable them to talk and, hopefully, help them. The support group is called Getting Emotions Out, after George. Will the Prime Minister join me in offering condolences to Adrian and Carol, and support for the work they are now doing?

[The Prime Minister]

I join my hon. Friend in sending my condolences, and those of the whole House, to George’s friends and family. I thank his parents for the brave work they are doing to raise awareness of veterans’ mental health. Support is available for anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts, including from the Samaritans helpline. Thanks to the excellent work of the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), we are working specifically to support veterans’ mental health through Op Courage. That is a bespoke mental health and wellbeing service for veterans in the NHS, backed by considerable funding which was increased in the recent Budget. That fully integrated service will be launched next month. Again, I pay tribute to George’s parents for all the incredible work they are doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

3. What assessment his Department has made of the impact of the veterans’ strategy action plan on supporting veterans in their civilian lives.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

14. What assessment his Department has made of the impact of the veterans’ strategy action plan on supporting veterans in their civilian lives.

[The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs (Johnny Mercer)]

We have already completed delivery of over 35% of our strategy action plan commitments. Veterans are being supported into employment in the public sector. We are accelerating our investment to end veteran homelessness. The veterans’ survey has been a game changer, and Op Courage is delivering more mental health support than ever before and is on track, despite what the Opposition might say.

[Johnny Mercer]

I am clear that having a job—a meaningful job—is the No. 1 factor that will improve the life chances of any veteran and their family. We are putting a great deal of resource and time and effort into that space. On pathways into the public sector, the STEP into Justice programme gets people into the justice system. The Office for Veterans’ Affairs has a veterans employment group. There are some fantastic employment opportunities. We are trying to bring it all together so that it is clearer for people. I commend the work of James Cameron and Mission Automotive in that space. I would like to see those pathways across different sectors, and we are looking to roll that out this year.

[Martin Vickers]

I recognise the excellent work that is being done by the Minister and his team. Could he give more detail about Operation Fortitude in respect of homeless veterans? And while he is on his feet, could he give a word of praise to Alex Baxter and his team in Cleethorpes, who do so much for veterans? May I invite him to visit them some time in the near future?

[Johnny Mercer]

I of course pay tribute to Alex in Cleethorpes, and to everybody who works in this sector. I say to the House again that the nation has a duty to these people. It is not about me, the Government or charities delivering—it is the nation’s commitment and we all need to work together. I pay tribute to the charities that do that work.

Op Fortitude is a referral pathway that will enable anyone who has served and is at risk of homelessness to get into good-quality supported housing, to access wraparound care and treatment for addiction or any comorbidity factors, and ultimately to upskill and get back into civilian life. It is a game-changing programme and I am proud to deliver it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Can the Minister outline what immediate plans the Government have to relocate civil servants out of London? Does he agree that my Cleethorpes constituency and neighbouring Grimsby, as major centres for the renewable energy sector, would be an ideal location for officials who oversee that sector?

[Jeremy Quin]

The good news to share with my hon. Friend is that we have already got halfway to our target of 22,000 jobs moved out of London around the UK, and a huge number of those jobs have gone to the north of England. I am sure that my hon. Friend will make his case for his constituency in his normal, incredibly effective way.

Ministerial Code

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Ministerial Code.

It is a delight to see you in your place, Mr Vickers. I am speaking in my own capacity, and not as Chair of the Standards Committee. The ministerial code is bust; it does not work. Civil servants find it confusing, Ministers do not care about it and Prime Ministers find it irritating. Central to it is the adviser on the ministerial code, but it is now 167 days since Lord Geidt resigned, and I gather the new Prime Minister has offered the post to three people, all of whom have said, “Not on your nelly”. At least two investigations are already pending, but they cannot be investigated because there is no adviser. There cannot be a publication of the ministerial list of interests because there is no adviser. Frankly, the system is broken.

Most importantly, the code does not do what it says. It says that Ministers are expected to observe the seven principles of public life—the Nolan principles. Let us just go through a couple of them. First, transparency. One would think that transparency requires that the public know all interests held by Ministers: what business interests they have, if any; who had invited them to expensive social occasions, such as movie premieres; what clubs give them free membership; who had paid for trips abroad; what charities they were trustees of; and what meetings they had with lobbyists, trade associations or press barons—anything that might affect their decisions as Ministers. One might also expect the interests of Ministers’ spouses and family members to be publicly available, and that all that information would be available within a week or so of any Minister taking up office or acquiring a new financial or personal interest.

That could not be further from the truth. The most recent register of Minister’s interests was published on 31 May this year. It is not an accurate list of Ministers now. It is not even an accurate list of ex-Ministers, or of Ministers who have been Ministers in the intervening period. In case we think that this year they should be forgiven for being in a bit of a mess, because of the terpsichorean dance that has been played in Downing Street—let us face it, many of us do not know who is the Minister for what at the moment, including some Ministers, who do not quite know their areas of responsibility—the list itself is very out of date.

At the best of times, the list is published only once every six months. By contrast, the Commons Register of Members’ Financial Interests is updated every fortnight when the House is sitting. The situation is often even worse with the ministerial register. The new Government appointed in December 2019 did not produce a list of its Ministers’ interests until July 2020. There was then a 10-month gap before a new list was produced, during which lots of new Ministers had arrived in post.

As for the supposedly annual report by the adviser on ministerial interests, there was no annual report in 2020 because there was no adviser. Ministers are meant to advise their Department of any relevant interests whenever they take up a new ministerial post. However, because that is published at best only twice a year, the public is nearly always in the dark about what financial interests a Minister might or might not have.

Bizarrely, because the report appears so infrequently, some financial interests are reckoned to be more than six-months old by the time they are reported, and are therefore never published at all. That is not transparency. As things stand, we have no idea what ministerial interests the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Transport Secretary, the Secretary of State for the Department for Work and Pensions or the Minister for Security might have, because they simply have not been published.

The system leads to glaring anomalies—the following instances prove my point. None of the Members concerned have done anything wrong. To my knowledge, they have fully declared everything they are required to declare, but the way the Government operate ministerial registrations means that discrepancies abound. I have told all Members to whom I am about to refer exactly what I am going to say.

For instance, the latest version of the register, dated 31 May, states that the right hon. Member for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden), who is Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, has as his only interest his role as patron of Watford Peace Hospice, yet according to Companies House he is the director of C&UCO Services Ltd, C&UCO Management Ltd and C&UCO Properties Ltd of 4 Matthew Parker Street, London. I do not know whether that is still true—I presume those are the Conservative and Unionist party’s official management companies—but there is a discrepancy. I am told that he declared that to his Department, but it was decided that it was not a relevant interest. I do not understand why.

Likewise, the entry for the right hon. and learned Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) states:

“Trustee of discretionary family trusts”

without specifying what the trusts are, unlike the entry for Lord Benyon, which specifies all the trusteeships he holds. The entry for the right hon. and learned Member for Northampton North does not include the following shareholdings, which are in the Commons register, however: Arnold Estates Ltd, Arnold Estates LLC and MSA Properties Ltd. I do not understand why those are not in both registers.

Similarly, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), who is Economic Secretary to the Treasury, has registered in the Commons that he has been a member of Wilton Park Advisory Council from 1 July 2020—that is, he assures me, an unremunerated ex officio role that he quite properly disclosed to the permanent secretary to the Treasury—yet that does not appear in his list of ministerial interests, presumably because the Department or the adviser—

[Martin Vickers (in the Chair)]

Order. May I clarify whether the Member has advised any relevant Members that he will refer to them?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, I have said so already, Mr Vickers.

[Martin Vickers (in the Chair)]

I wanted to place that on record.

[Chris Bryant]

I have sent Members copies of precisely what I am going say.

However, that role does not appear in the list of ministerial interests for the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs, presumably because either the Department or the adviser, for some reason best known to themselves, thought it irrelevant.

The ministerial entry for the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, says that he is

“a director of Millgap Ltd, an investment holding company personally owned by him.”

The Commons register, however, lists the following:

“Shareholdings: over 15%... Pluto Capital Management LLP… Millgap Ltd… Pluto Partners LLP… Pluto Silverstone Co Invest LLP… Pluto Monza Co Invest LLP… Pluto Development Partners LLP”,

although it does not include his directorship of Millgap Ltd.

I do not think that any Member I have mentioned has sought to hide anything. Indeed, I think in each case the Member has made a full declaration to their Department, but the Department, or the adviser, has published only what it thinks fit. Different Departments clearly treat matters such as trusteeships differently, and the rules differ as between the ministerial code and the House of Commons code of conduct, which leads to ludicrous anomalies and undermines transparency.

Moreover, the Government continue to insist that Ministers acting in their ministerial capacity should be exempted from the requirement placed on all other MPs to register within 28 days hospitality they receive that is worth more than £300. The Government say that ministerial transparency returns cover that, but those returns carry far fewer details than the Commons register, and they are published at least three months late, and sometimes up to a year late. Unlike the Commons, which produces a single document, each Department does that separately, so anyone who wants to see the full picture of ministerial interests across a year has to look at more than 300 online forms every year.

This is about as transparent as a hippopotamus’s bathwater. It would make far more sense for all financial and other interests of a Member, whether a Minister or not, to be available in one place, published as close as possible to real time, and certainly no less than every month.

Enabling the Public to call a General Election

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon]

I thank the hon. Member, who is ever assiduous in attending and contributing to these important debates, for his intervention. My opinion is that this Government have had more than enough chances to deliver, and while we disagree on the need for a general election now, I will make some wider points that he might be interested in considering.

I hope that this discussion will help to kick-start a conversation about why we need to modernise our democracy to empower ordinary people and prevent an unrepresentative Government or unrepresentative Governments from clinging on to power when people have had enough. Of course, such a mechanism should only be able to be used in extraordinary times, but the current crisis shows why it is needed.

Such a Bill is part of a series of measures that we need to restore trust in our democracy. For example, last year I introduced a Bill seeking to ban MPs from taking second jobs. My latest proposal is for a form of recall mechanism, and it is a response to the political crisis we face. We have had two new Prime Ministers since the public last had their say at the 2019 election. Just 80,000 Conservative party members put one of those Prime Ministers into Downing Street, and even fewer people had a say with her successor, who was chosen solely by Conservative MPs. Both these Prime Ministers have been intent on tearing up the promises that their party was elected on in 2019. For example, who voted in the 2019 election for the new wave of austerity that looks set to be announced later this week?

This Government have no mandate. They have also undermined political trust. Institute for Public Policy Research findings on levels of trust in our politics should concern every single Member of this House. It found that trust in politicians is at the lowest level on record, with two in three now seeing politicians as “merely out for themselves” and just 4% of British people believing that parliamentarians are doing their best for the country. No one side in this House can take satisfaction from this. Voters across the political spectrum are united in their distrust: 67% of remain voters, 68% of leave voters, 64% of Conservative voters and 69% of Labour voters believe that politicians are merely out for themselves.

Trust, I am afraid, is in free fall. The 9% fall we have witnessed over the last 18 months shows a rapid acceleration of growing distrust. In comparison, it took seven years for the previous drop of 9 percentage points, and 42 years before that. The IPPR warns that a decrease in trust in politicians is profoundly disturbing. It is linked to long-term damaging consequences such as lower voter turnout, especially among under-represented groups. The Office for National Statistics reports similar concerns with trust in our democratic institutions. Deep reform of our economy and politics will be needed to address this.

It is clear that our democracy is not fit for purpose, and there are two ways of dealing with this crisis of democracy. There is the method of this Government, which is to attack hard-won civil liberties and curtail democratic rights. This authoritarian drift combines anti-trade union legislation with draconian attacks on the right to peaceful protest and voter suppression through the introduction of voter ID, which will target black, Asian and minority ethnic and working-class voters. This authoritarian approach has even led to police arresting journalists covering protests. The alternative is to strengthen democratic rights and modernise our democratic processes.

That brings me on to my proposal, which is a form of recall procedure through a verified petition to call a general election. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance describes such recall processes as a form of “direct democracy” and a

“political instrument through which the electorate in a particular electoral jurisdiction can express their dissatisfaction.”

It adds that

“the procedure of the recall is associated with the idea that representatives must remain accountable to the people who elected them.”

So, voters should be able to terminate the mandate before the end of a term when their representatives fall short of expectations.

Welp and Whitehead explain in their 2020 book “The Politics of Recall” that

“The idea of ‘recall’ elections is not a last minute ‘add on’ to principles of representative government, but a logical strand of thought interwoven into its foundational reasoning.”

In the same book, Matt Qvortrup traces the development of the recall in the history of political philosophy from the Roman republic to the present day. While I do not have time today to recount the history of recalls in full, I would like to highlight that movements that did so much in the development of our own democracy envisaged mechanisms with echoes of what I am proposing today. During the English revolution, the leading Leveller, Lieutenant Colonel John Lilburne, championed recall as one of the democratic correctives to the risk of an oppressive, overbearing Parliament. The Chartists envisioned annual elections, with the arguments given then not so different from those offered by contemporary movements in favour of recall. There was even a provision for the recall of congressmen by their voters in the first draft of the American constitution written by James Madison.

Later in the United States, the Socialist Labour party and the Populist party pushed that idea as we approached the 20th century. Recall was then included in the new charter of the city of Los Angeles in 1903, and within a decade, it had been taken up by 200 cities and three states. Switzerland was the first modern liberal democracy to introduce recall at the end of the 19th century, although only at a sub-national level.

In the post-war era, recall was used as part of a series of direct democratic provisions in Japan from 1947 to empower citizens with the right to initiate petitions to dissolve local assemblies, recall individual assembly members and recall mayors or governors. More recently, the push for recall has been linked with the introduction of democracy. After the demise of Latin American dictatorships in the 1980s, recall increased its presence and integrated representative democracy with participatory democracy. Likewise, Germany and Poland introduced recall powers after the fall of the Berlin wall.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I allowed the hon. Gentleman to develop his argument, because I assumed that he was going to at least give a date by which time a recall would be permissible. Surely, if we are to have any form of stable Government, there must be a time limit between the election of a Government and a recall petition of at least—what?—two years?

[Richard Burgon]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates the point that I will move on to. It may be a case of great minds think alike.

That brings us to today. A form of recall power exists in a diverse range of countries and political systems. Over the past century, the countries that have made the greatest use of recall are Peru, Japan, the United States and Poland. Academic researchers note that recall provisions also exist at one level of Government or another—local, regional or national—in Argentina, Bolivia, Canada, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Germany, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Latvia and Switzerland.

Perhaps the most famous case of recall in recent decades is the 2003 recall in California of Governor Gray Davis, where growing dissatisfaction about energy provision and public services led to the election of Governor Schwarzenegger. Because of the high interest in the recall election, the new governor received 650,000 more votes in his election than Governor Davis had received. Recall is generally used to remove individual elected officials, including Presidents, but there are examples, including the German Land of Berlin, where recall, initiated and approved by citizens, can be applied to the entire Parliament. Latvia goes even further: the electorate have a constitutional right to initiate a national referendum to recall Parliament. It is worth noting that recall is now supported by the largest progressive party in France. Mexico held its first-ever national recall election on the President earlier this year. Although that was initiated by the President, perhaps Mexico will be the next country to hold a citizen-initiated recall in the future.

According to Welp and Whitehead, the recall is currently in a “boom phase”, with Welp noting that recall provisions

“have been introduced more frequently since the 1980s”,

while

“in the past were restricted to small municipalities, they have recently reached bigger units such as California, Warsaw, Lima and even presidents.”

Why is recall becoming more popular? Welp and Whitehead explain that

“citizen dissatisfaction with their elected representatives is sufficiently acute and widespread to generate persistent pressure for the introduction of more direct forms of accountability.”

They argue that although recall is not without risk,

“There is some serious empirical support for the proposition that recall mechanisms...can indeed provide genuine improvements to the quality and credibility of democratic institutions when introduced and integrated into the rest of the representative system in a careful and constructive manner.”

My proposal would, as a starting point, seek to amend the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 to allow people to directly call an election under the following circumstances: first, if we are more than halfway through the five-year maximum period for a Parliament; and secondly, if at least half the number of voters in the previous general election endorse the call for an early general election via an official petition process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This is the country that secured furlough and that delivered the vaccine across the whole of the UK, while the SNP gets on with overtaxing to the tune of £900 million—that is how much they are overtaxing in Scotland. And we had a referendum in 2014.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I know that my right hon. Friend is aware of the importance of the seafood processing industry to the Grimsby-Cleethorpes area. However, there is one cloud on the horizon: the recently imposed 35% tariff on white fish, which is causing industry leaders considerable concern even though they recognise the importance of maintaining sanctions on Russia. Will my right hon. Friend arrange meetings with me and my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici) with the appropriate Ministers, so we can discuss measures to mitigate the impact on the industry?

[The Prime Minister]

I will make sure that my hon. Friend gets a meeting as soon as possible with the relevant Minister, but it is very important that we encourage our great fish and chip shops in Grimsby, Cleethorpes and elsewhere to make sure they are not just using Russian fish for their fish and chips.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I have received 1,800 recommendations from the wise readers of The Sun. I believe that the British people have an enormous amount of wisdom from which politicians, particularly politicians in Scotland, could benefit.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Businesses and business organisations in my constituency are eager to engage with the Brexit Opportunities Unit. Will my right hon. Friend be touring the UK to promote Brexit opportunities, and if so, may I invite him to visit Cleethorpes in the near future?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friends the Members for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) compete with each other to be greatest champion of their constituencies. I look forward to visiting Cleethorpes in the not-too-distant future. There is a date in the diary, and I am looking forward to the finest food that Cleethorpes can provide when I go there to speak.