Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Mike Thornton and Douglas Carswell

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)]

I feel so strongly about recall that I recalled myself. All three established parties pretended that they were in favour of recall, too, and went into the last general election offering voters a right of recall, but four and a half years on that has not happened. They have found time to debate a referendum on the alternative vote system and to talk at length about non-existent Lords reform. We have debated every subject imaginable under the sun, but somehow we have failed to pass legislation to make MPs meaningfully accountable to voters. And we wonder why there is such distrust in politics.

Worse, the coalition now brings to this House measures so deeply flawed that they are unworthy of the name recall. Let us be clear about what is being proposed. If an MP is suspended from the House of Commons for 21 days or more, a petition process is triggered. Should 10% of local people sign it, the MP ceases to be a Member of this House and there is a by-election. Therein lies the first and most fundamental flaw in the Bill: it is a recall Bill without a recall mechanism. As those on the coalition Front Bench well know, recall mechanisms involve a local referendum that asks whether the sitting MP should be recalled—yes, or no. It should be a binary choice, not a by-election. If 50% plus one agree, there should be a by-election, but it is up to local people to decide whether there should be—not 10% of local people, but a majority of local people. Where in the legislation is that mechanism? The coalition has forgotten to include a recall mechanism in the recall Bill.

Worse than being a recall Bill without recall, the Bill will have precisely the opposite effect to that which is intended. It is a proposal that is supposed to make MPs more accountable to voters that leaves the trigger firmly in the hands of Westminster grandees. A measure designed to make MPs answer outwards to the electorate ends up strengthening the power of Whips. As the Bill is drafted, MPs and Whips, not voters, will sit in judgment on errant MPs. It is an implausible Bill from an implausible Front Bench with an implausible record on political reform.

[Mike Thornton (Eastleigh) (LD)]

If there was a way to put more power back in the hands of the electorate to decide whether an MP should be recalled, although not necessarily without any grounds whatsoever, would the hon. Gentleman feel that that was a better way of proceeding?

[Douglas Carswell]

I certainly would. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) is going to table some excellent amendments, which I will do everything I can to support. That will ensure that we have a recall Bill worthy of the name and of the promise made to voters.

The Deputy Prime Minister has expressed his concern that real recall might leave MPs subject to partisan pressure and sectional interests, yet by leaving it to Westminster insiders to decide who gets to face a by-election, MPs are going to be vulnerable to precisely the sectional interests from which they most need protection—the party Whips.

I would like hon. Members to cast their minds back to the previous Member who represented Norwich North—Dr Ian Gibson. I mean no disrespect to the current MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), when I say that I have known Ian Gibson for over 20 years and I know what a good and decent man he is. More to the point, I know that his constituents in Norwich, a city I know well, knew what a good and decent man he is, yet he was thrown to the wolves by the Whips. At the height of the expenses scandal, after a couple of awkward headlines, he was judged by his party Whips to be guilty. Perhaps his real guilt lay in the fact that he failed to sign someone’s nomination papers; I do not know. However, had there been a proper recall mechanism in place, I am absolutely certain that Ian Gibson would have been exonerated by those who knew him best—Norwich voters. As MPs, we should have nothing to fear from recall.

--- Later in debate ---

[Douglas Carswell]

I am grateful for that powerful point. If I thought that this measure would allow lynch mob justice, I would be against it, but I trust the judgment of the people in aggregate. Just as we can trust a jury to decide and sometimes exercise perhaps more common sense than public prosecutors, so we can trust the electorate in aggregate to make decisions about the conduct of Members. If we proceed with this, I think we will discover that the voters are a pretty liberal bunch and a pretty forgiving bunch. I generally think that if we trust remote, unaccountable officials and grandees in Westminster, we are likely to get worse decisions than if we trusted the voters in aggregate. If we can improve the proposals by widening the body of people who decide, so much the better.

[Mike Thornton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his forbearance. He makes a good point about jurors, but before something gets to the jury, it has to be established whether there is a prima facie case to answer. The jury is thus deciding on a case that has already had some legs to go before the judge and jury in the first place. Following the hon. Gentleman’s reasoning to a logical conclusion, perhaps there should be some way of judging a case before it came before the public through the recall petition.

[Douglas Carswell]

That strengthens my point considerably. Until the 1930s, this country had grand juries to determine whether there was a prima facie case. If that had happened, we would not have had the number of cases being brought to court when common sense would have dictated that they should never have been brought to court. If we have grand juries and trust the people, we get better decisions in the courts. If we trust a wider body of people to determine whether or not an MP should remain, we get better judgments and more effective recall proposals. Wherever more people are included in a decision-making process, we generally get better decisions.