Recall of MPs Bill

Richard Drax Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

Clearly, like most legislation, the Bill will not apply retrospectively, but if the Standards Committee was to recommend that an MP be suspended for 21 or more sitting days due to precisely such a breach of the code, that Member would be liable for recall.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I have been here long enough to know that Bills are all too often a huge sledgehammer to crack a nut. If the Bill goes through, I fear that it will be added to in time, as I know that many MPs and members of the public want to take things a lot further. That is why many Members are voicing their fears, which I share, that an MP’s position could be severely destabilised. I recommend caution and that we leave things as they are.

[Greg Clark]

I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will concede that we are proceeding with caution. We recognise that this is a novel constitutional step, and our traditions are that we exercise caution in such circumstances. The Prime Minister made it clear during last week’s Question Time that we regard the provisions as a minimum, and the various arguments that have been deployed today can be properly considered in Committee and on Report. Of course, whatever the House and the other place decide, it will be open to future Parliaments—one will begin next year—to consider whether to take things further still. That is the spirit in which we are proceeding.

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[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the tone and tenor of the Minister’s opening speech and in particular the commitment that he has made seriously to consider amendments that will strengthen the Bill. I will come to that during my remarks.

This is a debate of critical importance to our politics and democracy. People feel more disconnected from Parliament and more disenchanted with the political process than possibly ever before. Polling and academic research reveal the pre-eminence of this distrust, but all of us know that the most vivid displays of antipathy are found on the doorstep when we meet voters while we are campaigning. People feel let down by politics, they feel angry, and they feel that too often their voice is not heard and that we politicians are out of touch.

Of course, politicians have never been the most popular people. It is in the nature of our job that we have to make unpopular decisions at times, as the Minister rightly said. But in 2009 the relationship between politics and the people reached a nadir during the scandal about MPs’ expenses. We can never be complacent or overestimate just how much damage was done to the standing of politics, politicians and this House with the public by what was revealed in 2009. In tough times, when families had been taking difficult decisions about their own household spending and with the economy in recession, revelations about the abuse of MPs’ expenses understandably left the public furious with the system and furious with the individuals involved.

[Richard Drax]

I am tired of this general slagging-off of people who work so hard for their constituencies. Like many of us here, I was not an MP then, but I admit that some dishonourable behaviour sadly occurred in this House. What we need to restore is honour; we do not need legislation for that.

[Stephen Twigg]

I partly agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is about how all of us do the job and about the culture of politics, but it is also about legislation. I will come to that now.

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[Stephen Twigg]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, which reinforces a concern felt by many—not just in this House, but outside it—that without proper regulation a system of pure recall could be subject to abuse.

[Richard Drax]

May I add to the excellent point the shadow Minister has just made that if there were three or four petitions against a sitting MP during a five-year term, their reputation would be damaged, perhaps unfairly, and their chance of being re-elected severely reduced? That cannot be right.

[Stephen Twigg]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman and will return to that point in a moment.

The constant pressure of notices of intent, even if they are supported by only a very small minority in a constituency—a notice of intent could be triggered by just 5% of the electorate—could prove destabilising to the ability of the Member of Parliament to fulfil his or her duties, both in this place and, frankly, in their constituency. Politicians often have to make decisions that are unpopular in their constituency, but they may be decisions that are ultimately right for the country as a whole. In our system, a Secretary of State is accountable to this House, but if they are a Member of this House they also have a constituency. Does it make sense for a Secretary of State to face recall for making a decision that may be unpopular in their own constituency but may make sense for the country as a whole?

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[Zac Goldsmith]

That is a good point that I had not picked up on. The hon. Gentleman made the valid and reasonable point in an earlier intervention that there would be enormous pressure from the media, social media and members of the public for 21 days to become the norm, regardless of the offence.

This shabby pretence of a reform needs to be profoundly amended. With the help of a considerable number of colleagues, I hope to do so in Committee. The goal will be to put voters in charge, but with enough checks and balances to prevent any possibility of abuse. We will attempt to remove the Government’s trigger and replace it with a system that allows voters to initiate the process. In response to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), the protection will be in the threshold. It must be low enough to make recall possible, but high enough to ensure that it happens only when it absolutely should.

Under our proposals, there would be three simple stages. If 5% of the local electorate signed a notice of intent to recall during a one-month period, the returning officer would announce a formal recall petition. The purpose of the 5% provision is simply to show the returning officer that there is an appetite for the formal petition process. It is the least formal part of the process and is designed to prevent the initiation of recall by a few angry cranks in the constituency, which every constituency has.

[Richard Drax]

At the point when the 5% figure was reached, the MP’s reputation would be damaged because the local newspaper would splash with, “MP to be recalled”, telephone calls would come in and the whole thing would spiral out of control, even though it could potentially be a vexatious thing. I wait to hear what my hon. Friend has to say, but I am not convinced about how he will sieve out non-vexatious calls from the 5% figure, which could ruin a Member’s reputation. That is such a small figure, particularly with modern media.

[Zac Goldsmith]

The purpose of the 5% figure is to take the temperature and to demonstrate to the returning officer that a sufficient number of people would like to have a recall petition. On average, it would be about 3,500 people. That is the least formal part of the process. According to our amendments, it would require a 200-word explanation of why the petition was being initiated. Of course, there will be times when people unfairly and unreasonably initiate the 5% process. However, if they get to 3,500 people, they will have demonstrated that there is enough of an appetite for a proper recall process.

In answer to my hon. Friend’s point about sullying the reputation of the individual, recall is not part of the way in which we do politics in this country, but it is part of the way in which many other democracies work. If it became part of our culture, it would become a normal part of the argy-bargy of politics in this country and would be no source of shame. I suspect that every politician, at one point or another, would find themselves the subject of the 5% recall petition stage. The question is whether it would reach the 20% stage.

If 20% of constituents signed a petition in a two-month period, not online, but in person in a verified, formal context, we would know that there was a problem. It would mean that 14,000 people had left their home and gone to the town hall or another specified venue to sign their name. What is the biggest petition that anyone in the Chamber has faced since they became an MP? Was it anywhere near 14,000? I doubt it. If it was anywhere near 14,000, had it been verified? I doubt it. Was it online? Could anyone have signed it? Was it timeless? Very likely. Was it geographically specific? I very much doubt it. To get to 14,000 people is a massive result. This would not be an online gimmick, but would require people to go to the town hall and vote in person.

The most feedback that I have ever had as an MP—admittedly, I have only been an MP for four years—related to our NHS reforms. Nearly 1,000 people wrote to me. Many of them were template letters, but not all of them. Nearly 1,000 people wrote to me to express their disgust at the policies that I was supporting, but not one of them came to see me. Had they had the opportunity to vote for my recall online, I suspect that many of them would have done so, but how many of them would have left their home to go to the town hall and sign a petition? If 14,000 people had done so in a two-month period, I would have found it hard to put it down to the vexatious activities of the Liberal Democrats, the Labour party, the unions or anyone else.

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[Zac Goldsmith]

Thank you for that helpful reminder, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will wrap up my speech quickly, but I want to address briefly some of the concerns raised. I do not seek to demean or trivialise those concerns, and I recognise that there are genuine, heartfelt and principled concerns about recall, as it represents a big step. The Deputy Prime Minister has referred often in the House to kangaroo courts, but I emphasise that no Member could ever be recalled unless a majority of constituents choose for him or her to be recalled. That is the whole point of a recall referendum.

We must keep a perspective. I am repeating myself, but to reach a point of recall, 20% of constituents—some 14,000 people—would have to make the journey in person to a town hall or another dedicated place within an eight-week period, and there would have to be a very good reason for that recall. Any hon. Member who disputes that should try to think back to the biggest petition they have faced, and to the issue that triggered the biggest e-mail flurry they have received. It will not have been anywhere close to 14,000 signatures—not of constituents, at least.

[Richard Drax]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Zac Goldsmith]

In one moment, if my hon. Friend does not mind.

In dozens of democracies around the world that use recall, it is hardly ever used. In the US, where recall has existed for 100 years—I have already made this point—it has been used only 40 times, and only 20 times successfully. California is the most active recall state in the United States. Only one governor in 100 years has ever been recalled, and there is not a single example of a successful vexatious recall campaign.

I know that other hon. Members worry that recall might somehow turn us into delegates and no longer representatives—a point made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg)—but that is not realistic. Voters care about a wide range of issues, and it is rare for recall to be motivated only by one issue. People might disapprove of a Member’s position on one issue, but support them on a range of other issues. It is rare for one issue to be a deal breaker, and the history of recalls shows that that is very rare—I cannot think of an example of one policy issue being the cause and effect of a successful recall.

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[Chris Bryant]

I will come on to whether there should be a recall in a situation in which MPs disagree with their constituents. It is often said of my constituents—I do not know whether it is true, but it is often said by the commentariat—that they would all vote in favour of hanging. I am passionately opposed to hanging. If there were recalls solely on that matter, however, I think the voters would none the less choose to re-elect me because I was prepared to say what I believe and stand for. I think voters are actually far wiser in that respect than even Burke would suggest. He also said:

“To be a good Member of Parliament is, let me tell you, no easy task.”

I think we would all agree with that.

We have to bear in mind that not a single one of us in this House receives the votes of more than 50% of the total electorate, including those who choose not to vote—not a single one of us. There was only one British seat in the 2001 election where a Member got more than 40% of the total electorate, including those who did not vote. In that seat, both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats lost their deposit. The constituency was the Rhondda. Even in the Rhondda, the figure is only a smidgeon above 40%. We must have a degree of humility in how we approach our electorate. Sometimes I think it feels to our voters that we are not full of humility.

[Richard Drax]

I am listening to the hon. Gentleman’s arguments and his use of statistics. I would just like to pick up on one point. The number of people voting in elections has dropped not, I believe, because of the misconduct of individual MPs, but because the identities of the three main parties have merged. What I am getting on the doorstep is that they are fed up with politicians not standing up for what they believe in. That does not have anything to do with misconduct. They are two entirely separate matters.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman must have hacked into my computer, because he has basically said what I am about to say in my next couple of paragraphs. That is not an allegation of misconduct, by the way. [Laughter.] I do not think the Standards and Privileges Committee needs to address it.

Edmund Burke has been mentioned a lot. When he campaigned against corruption in Parliament, he complained that there were too many people in the pocket of the Crown. He came to the conclusion that there were 140 Members of the Commons who, because they had a pension, a well-paid salary post in government or had been given some kind of perk or sinecure, were in the pocket of the Crown, and he complained about those 140 MPs. Today, we have 95 paid Government Ministers, 43 Conservative Parliamentary Private Secretaries, five Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Private Secretaries and seven Conservative members of the No. 10 policy board, to say nothing of those on the Government Benches or on the Opposition Benches who want to have those jobs.

My complaint is that there are now more than 150 MPs in the direct employ of the Government who have no choice in how they are going to vote. If we take all the others into account, more than half the Members in this House have their voting determined entirely for them by two people: the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. Ironically, France has just 35 Ministers, none of whom are in their Parliament. Germany has just 17 Cabinet Ministers and two under-Ministers in each Department—50 in total. The UK therefore has more Government Ministers than France and Germany put together. In essence this House, which should be the cockpit of political debate expressed without any fear or favour, where the nation’s grievances are aired and solutions found in what should be a free and fair legislature, is frankly today nothing more than a gene pool for Government. Our primary role is no longer to scrutinise the Government or hold them to account; the majority of Members think that our primary role is to staff or sustain the Government. In the end, that is a problem. It is why we have all the planted questions and obsequious speeches and why votes we pass—on Magnitsky or Palestine—with massive majorities are completely and utterly ignored by the Government. It is why we still have a completely and utterly unreformed House of Lords where patronage remains vital.

It would be all right if the edifice of our present government system was built on a strong foundation of mass-membership parties, but it is not. If we put all the political parties’ members together into one great big rowing lump, we would not get to 500,000 people. It is sometimes compared with the membership of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds or the National Trust. The numbers are feeble, yet that is what it all depends on. There are constituency associations on both sides of the House that have fewer than 200 or even 100 members. I do not like the term “safe seats”; there are seats that have been reliably electing the same kind of MP for decades and where the new MP will be selected by perhaps 50, 60, 70 or 100 people. People introduced the Reform Act in the 1830s complaining about constituencies where only 100 people could elect the MP, and it is no different today, which is why constituency parties are finding it difficult to get more candidates to present themselves, even in safe seats. On both sides of the House, constituency parties are selecting safe-seat candidates from a short list of two or even one.

Therefore, I would of course argue that the parliamentary system is bust. In 1951, 1955 and 1959, the two main political parties, Labour and the Conservatives, received more than 90% of the vote, but now they get barely 65%, and in the European elections this year they got 49.3%. Yet we have a “winner takes all” parliamentary system in which the winner gets to appoint as many peers as they want and decide the whole Government and all business; only the Government get to table motions laying a charge on the taxpayer or to advance legislation as a priority at the beginning of the day, and so on.

For a long time, we had a system that allowed a chink of democracy: we had ministerial by-elections. For centuries, if someone was appointed a Minister, they had to face a by-election in their constituency, because they had to go back to their voters and say, “Is it all right for me to join the Government?” I would argue that that is a perfectly legitimate system, but of course people did not like it. In 1908, when he lost his ministerial by-election, Winston Churchill, who had a terrible habit of losing elections, said:

“It is an awful hindrance to anyone in my position to be always forced to fight for his life and always having to make his opinions on national politics to conform to local exigencies”.

Some of our objections to recall are basically that self-same arrogant attitude towards the electorate. It is an awful hindrance, isn’t it, to let the voters get in our way?

The key issue in the Bill is the threshold. In essence, it places the initial decision in the hands of MPs or the courts. The danger is that the courts would decide not to imprison an MP because it would of necessity start the recall process, so MPs would not be treated the same as others before the law. Furthermore, if we put the decision in the hands of a Committee of MPs, regardless of how many members of the public—it does not matter whether they are genuine or non-genuine members of the public—also sit on it, it just will not wash with the public.

There was an extraordinary moment in 1911 when Asquith was Prime Minister. There had been a big battle between the House of Commons and the House of Lords over the “people’s Budget”, which introduced national insurance and the rest of it. Asquith was at the Dispatch Box and blind drunk. He was the Prime Minister; it was the most important piece of legislation in his life; and he was blind drunk, and we only know about it because Winston Churchill and Lloyd George both wrote home to their wives to tell them that he was blind drunk and had to be carried out of the debate—you cannot tell from Hansard. Churchill made the interesting point that it was only thanks to the freemasonry of the House of Commons that the public would never know about it. That is the danger. The public think we are engaged in a freemasonic activity by protecting one another. They think we protected one another in the expenses scandal and that we look after one another even across the party divide, and that is why I do not think the initial threshold—of allowing the decision to be made by Members—will be good enough.

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[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.

[Richard Drax]

I do not want to get personal about other Members of Parliament, as I do not think it appropriate that we should in this place. On the hon. Gentleman’s very point, as I said earlier, if someone commits an offence, such as those during the expenses scandal, it is a matter of honour for the individuals in this House. An hon. Member should resign their seat if such an offence is committed. There is no need for laws, recalls or anything else to do the job for us.

[Douglas Carswell]

The point I was illustrating is that MPs often look at recall, but recoil from it because they fear it will somehow make them vulnerable. I would argue that MPs who do their job properly, stick to their promises and do their best by their constituents will find that their hand is strengthened by recall. It should in fact give them greater confidence to do their job in the knowledge that, if there is a question mark over whether they stay here, those who trust them the most will make the final decision.

There has been some suggestion that real recall would lead to vexatious attempts to remove MPs. Let us think about that for a second. This country has had a recall vote—we do not call it that, but that is what it was. In 1997, the Liberal Democrats won the Winchester seat at the election. The Conservatives claimed that the Lib Dems had done so by error and that they had been cheated of victory because they had lost by a mere two votes, and that that was somehow wrong. They got a judicially sanctioned recall, but it was seen by local people for what it was—a vexatious attempt by bad losers to overturn the democratic will of the people. What happened? Having initially lost by two, the Conservatives went on to lose by more than 20,000. I thus emphasise that we have nothing to fear from vexatious attempts at recall.

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[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I think that 10 years ago I would have opposed the Bill, because I would have taken the conventional view that has been expressed by one or two Government Members today. The last decade, however, has led me to believe that the chasm that has grown between the political classes and the ordinary voters—the population of the country—has become too wide. Some of that has, of course, been due to the expenses crisis, but it is by no means either the only or the first reason. As my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) pointed out, the current trend has been ongoing for a long time, but I believe that it is now approaching a crisis point.

I have therefore concluded that a recall Bill is necessary, and, like the hon. Member for Clacton (Douglas Carswell), I shall vote for this Bill, although I must add that I do not view it as a recall Bill. If anything, it is a parliamentary expulsion Bill, because it makes it easy for the establishment of the House to expel someone from the House. Let us imagine the circumstances. A Member is found wanting by his peers in the Standards and Privileges Committee—no doubt amid a vast hue and cry from a number of tabloid and red-top newspapers—and his constituents are then told “If 10% of you vote in the referendum, this man will go.” No matter that 90% of them might want him to stay; in those torrid circumstances, only 10% need to vote, and he will be expelled. I do not think that anyone who was criticised and set up in that way would survive the process, or would be reselected by his party thereafter. He might stand on his own account like Dick Taverne, like the hon. Member for Clacton, or indeed like me, but he would not survive the normal political process. This is, as I have said, a mechanism for political expulsion.

I might find that tolerable if our mechanisms in the House met any sort of judicial test, but, having been here for some 25 years, I suggest Members conduct an experiment. I say this with no ill reflection on the people who serve on and chair the Standards and Privileges Committee. I suggest that Members make a list of the names of all who have been ruled against by the Committee, separate them into two columns consisting of Front Benchers and Back Benchers—I do not suggest that the two columns should consist of those who are within the gilded circle and those who are the mavericks—and compare the treatments of people who have committed the same crime. They will then find two classes of justice. We do not deliver justice in this House; we deliver an opinion of the establishment of the House, and that is why the public are not wrong to view our systems as intolerable.

Let me give one example. I shall not give the examples of those who have been let off, because that might be mean in the circumstances, but I will give an example of someone who, in my view, was very badly treated. It was someone who was no friend of mine and, indeed, no friend of almost anyone in the House: Ken Livingstone. About a decade ago, he received income from a series of speaking engagements. He went to the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests and asked how he should declare that income, and he then declared it in the way the Registrar recommended. Later, someone found out how much money he had made. I think that it was more than £100,000, but in any case it was a lot of money. He was then suddenly hauled before the Standards and Privileges Committee, and forced to make an apology here in the Chamber. Why? He was an outsider. He was a maverick. He had no friends in the House, or at least no friends in the parties in the House. His was not the only case of that kind—I could have picked a number of others—but that was not justice, it was not democracy, and it would not improve this House to formalise such a process by means of the mechanism with which the Minister has presented us today.

Such a system could be made to work only if we replaced the standards and privileges process with a judicial process. I do not think that the House really wants to introduce the law into its mechanisms, but if it wants to adopt a test it will have to be a judicial test. I suspect that, if I were ever in front of the Standards and Privileges Committee, I would be looking for a judicial remedy immediately. So this is not a recall Bill as it stands; it is a parliamentary expulsion Bill, and we should understand that.

I support the proposals made by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), who has been a principled campaigner for these reforms for some time. I shall not take up much more of the House’s time, but I want to remind hon. Members of the differences involved. The Government’s proposal would take either a criminal mechanism or the House’s judgment and turn it into a one-off, 10% referendum. Then it would be over. My hon. Friend’s proposal would have a 5% first threshold to start the process. That would trigger the timetable, and a 20% threshold would follow. In my constituency, that would equate to just short of 15,000 voters. I have never seen a campaign in my constituency get 15,000 voters to go out voluntarily and put their name on a petition.

[Richard Drax]

I am listening carefully to my right hon. Friend. If, as a result of such a referendum, a political scalp were gained and a seat lost, does my right hon. Friend agree that supporters of an opposing party would get out and vote, as they would at a general election? I accept that the numbers would be down, but there could still be significant numbers voting. The numbers that he is talking about would certainly be possible if a seat could be gained in that way.

[Mr Davis]

This point has been made a number of times, particularly by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)but also by others. My hon. Friend is presuming that his constituents would vote on the basis of a simple political judgment, according to whether they wanted a Labour Government, a Tory Government, a Liberal Government or even a UKIP Government, but I do not believe that our constituents behave like that. I believe that they behave in a moral way and make judgments about us. I have discussed this matter with my constituents. Many of those who have never voted for me in my 20-odd years in the constituency would not vote to remove me on that basis. They would not make such a judgment on a political basis. They would recognise that this was a quasi-judicial judgment. That is why we are better off trusting the public than trusting the hierarchy in this House.

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[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson). [Interruption.] He may have a safe seat, but it was a great privilege. I listened very carefully to what he said—like him, I do not support recall at all—and I agreed with every word as he set out his reasons for not supporting the Bill or the amendments proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith).

I think that this is rather a sad day—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Clacton (Douglas Carswell) is shaking his head, so I am doomed from the start. There again, he used to shake his head at me when he sat on the Government Benches, so perhaps I will just get on with my speech.

It is a sad day when in a place where we are meant to be honourable—the huge majority are honourable—we are navel gazing, as it were, about how we do behave, while all around us the world is in meltdown, with eurozone economies about to go splat again and wars across the world. There are very serious issues, but we are discussing us, which is what our electorate are not so keen about.

Millions of people have died in two world wars and in other wars for our freedom. Several Members have praised and applauded our system of democracy in this country, and I join them in doing so. This is the most extraordinary place that I have ever been in. It is bigger than us, and so it should remain. The day we tame it is the day that democracy will really start to die in this country. The general election is the most special day for all of us, as well as for our electorate and the country. It is the day on which many of us lose our jobs, many of us keep our jobs and many candidates earn their jobs. Anything that undermines that extraordinary event has to be considered seriously. It could seriously damage the democracy that so many people have died to protect.

I have no doubt that the motives of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park are entirely honourable. I have a lot of respect for him and all those who will support his amendments, and I have respect for the Government who brought forward the Bill. I hope that I do not disappoint the Government, my hon. Friend and other Members by saying that when the Bill was first mooted some years ago, it was a knee-jerk reaction to events that had spun out of control, as is so often the case in this place. We panicked—I was not here, but in saying “we”, I speak collectively of the political class—and rightly so. Some had been found with their fingers in the till. To the electorate, that was completely unacceptable, and rightly so. The political class panicked and the recall Bill was mooted.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If a Member is caught indulging in corrupt actions, I have no argument with their being deprived of their seat, ultimately. That is what happens at present. I am worried that people might be deprived of their seats because they express independent or difficult views. Therefore, before the Bill becomes law, we must amend it to ensure that the House of Commons cannot expel anybody for expressing an individual view that the House as a whole does not like.

[Richard Drax]

I concur entirely with my hon. Friend. As always, his words are wise and should be listened to by us all.

I am concerned by some of the comments that colleagues have made. Disparaging remarks have been made about MPs, the system, this place and our democracy itself. Members have said that we have somehow undermined democracy.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman has used the word “democracy” a few times. As I am sure he and everybody else knows, democracy comes from the Greek for the rule of the people. If we believe in democracy, what can be wrong with the recall Bill?

[Richard Drax]

If the hon. Gentleman will hold on for a few moments, I will hopefully answer his question.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend turn his attention to Members of Parliament who are voted for by the electorate for one political party, but who chose to defect mid-term? That happened in Shrewsbury when my predecessor defected from Labour to the Liberal Democrats. It caused a great many problems. Would he support some form of recall mechanism in those circumstances?

[Richard Drax]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend was here earlier, but I talked about honour, which is sadly lacking in some cases. My view is that if somebody changes party mid-term, the honourable thing to do is to submit himself or herself to the people, as the hon. Member for Clacton and his colleague have done. Legislation is a very dangerous tool to use. I have been here for a very short time—just four years—but I think that what the public want to see is some honour and principle back in this place. Those things are here. I am not saying that they are absent. They were a bit absent, but we have learned our lesson—I hope.

Legislation is such a heavy tool. When we introduce a piece of legislation, we seldom ask what the consequences will be. We do not ask, “What if?” If we raise a tax, we do not ask people what effect it will have on their business. Do we ever say that? I suspect that it happens occasionally, but not on the whole. I agree with what my hon. Friend says, but I do not think that we need legislation to achieve what he wants.

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who is not in his seat, said that the leviathan is groaning. I think he was referring to this place and the democratic system as a whole. My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said that there is a “chasm” between the electorate and this place, but I argue that that is not the case as far as conduct is concerned. Some Members have misbehaved, but they are in the minority. Where I believe my right hon. Friend is right, however, is that all too often politics and principle have been surrendered for a coalition—to name but one reason—or to “grab the centre ground”. How often do we hear that? People perhaps react to opinion polls, rather than following their gut instinct. I read a comment about Winston Churchill, and when he was shown an opinion poll all he growled was, “Every time I see one of those, I do the opposite.” He followed his gut.

I do not know what my colleagues hear on the doorstep, but I get, “Richard, we want you to follow your principles and what you believe in. That is what we want to hear.” The lack of blue water, red water, yellow water, or whatever water it is, has been diluted over the years—[Interruption.] Yes, perhaps that was an unfortunate phrase; I take the point of the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), but he understands what I mean. There is a lack of clarity and political principle, and in some cases when dealing with huge issues—not least immigration—there appears to the public to be a lack of political will, for all kinds of reasons. That is the view of the public out there, not that we are all tucking into our expenses, going on freebies and having endless affairs, or whatever it is alleged we are up to. If we took 650 people in any other walk of life, I would be interested in what we would find if we opened up that can in a big retailer, a bank, a hospital, or whatever. I guarantee that we are no different to the rest of the population.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I am a little confused. My hon. Friend keeps saying that there is a big chasm between us and the public, but is not the threat of recall one way of removing that? Recall would require Members of Parliament to be more honest and true to their opinions, and perhaps those of their electorate.

[Richard Drax]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention but—dare I say it—I think it is a little simplistic because so many other factors govern an MP’s life and the way he or she behaves. There is, for example, party loyalty, although many would call me a rebel so perhaps I am not a good example of that.

[Mr Charles Walker]

We in this place all search for a silver bullet and an easy solution to our problems. In 2009 it was the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority that would resolve all these problems. Has it? I do not think so. We must be realistic. Recall may have a place, but the idea that it will somehow restore faith in this place is pie in the sky.

[Richard Drax]

I agree entirely. What will restore faith in this place is us—the parties and individuals that make up this great place. It is our duty to do that, and I do not think we need a recall Bill to prove that point.

As I have said, the Bill, sadly, is a knee-jerk reaction. The hon. Member for Clacton asked why it has taken four and a half years to come to this place, and I wonder—no doubt I shall be shot down by the three party leaders and many of my colleagues—whether because it was a knee-jerk reaction, in time people have thought, “Is this actually a sensible Bill?” I think they have come to the conclusion that in the main it is not, although at the time it may have seemed attractive, and to a certain extent it may have appeased the electorate. Will it solve the problem? I do not believe it will.

There is some logic to the Government Bill. Apparently, there are no rules and regulations if we get a custodial sentence under 12 months. If we do receive a custodial sentence—there have been various examples of that—it means there are big questions to be asked, and in a sense the Bill covers that. The right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras said he was concerned about the figure of 10%, and asked about the other 90%. Again, I entirely concur with that point.

I also agree with every word the right hon. Gentleman said about the amendments proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park. I have a lot of respect for my hon. Friend, but I do not agree with any of his amendments for all the reasons I have set out. I shall not repeat them, but I would like to point out what the letter we all received from Cabinet Office Ministers, dated 20 October 2014, says in explaining the intention of the Bill:

“In formulating their proposals the Government has examined international models which allow elected representatives to be recalled on any grounds. The recall model proposed in the Government’s Bill fits with and goes further than Parliamentary democracies similar to ours—Australia, New Zealand and Canada do not have recall in their main legislatures.”

I do not like comparisons with other countries. They are always dangerous. One of the many reasons why the eurozone is such a complete flop is that all the countries are so different and cannot be put in the same straitjacket. The same principle applies here.

I shall move on briefly to another point that counters the Bill. We are all elected by our local associations. Each party has its own system. Were I to commit an offence that constituted serious misconduct, I have no doubt—I am sure colleagues on both sides of the House would have no doubt—that I would be summoned to the local association office to explain myself. That is the local face of our party. The local associations select us and they have the power to deselect us. In that conversation, if my chairman was to say to me, “Richard, up with you we shall not put any longer”, I hope that, if my action had been so heinous, I would have already resigned. However, if I had not resigned I would be pushed. If the chairman did not do the job then, along with the party hierarchy, the party should be prepared to say to the sitting MP, “Up with this we will not put.”

That leads to a question. Let us say the polls are against the party and the sitting MP and suddenly there is a potential by-election. Every instinct in the parliamentary party would say, “For heaven’s sake, a by-election is the last thing we need in that seat.” But this is where honour, responsibility and all the things we must show to the public that we have come in; and I believe that we do have those things. The party hierarchy should say, “Tough. We may lose this seat, but the sitting MP has committed such a heinous crime that we have to get rid of him or her and have a by-election.” Those are the sort of people who should be making these decisions. They should not be made by legislation.

[Mr MacNeil]

If we think back to the expenses scandal, is the hon. Gentleman saying that nothing dishonourable happened among any Member still in this House?

[Richard Drax]

I am not quite sure I got that, because I am so staggered by the question. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could rephrase it, because it did not make sense.

[Mr MacNeil]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that during the expenses scandal nothing dishonourable happened—he has said so much about honour—among any Member who was subsequently re-elected?

[Richard Drax]

I am not sure I have ever said that. In fact, I have said the opposite. If people have behaved—let us take the expenses scandal—in a dishonourable way, they should go, yes.

[Mr MacNeil]

Have they all gone?

[Richard Drax]

Ah. That is another question. I am not going to look back with hindsight. I was not even here. We are where we are, and I do not believe that a recall Bill would have made any difference in this instance. The expenses scandal has unfortunately caused all of us in this place to look backwards. The point has been made to me on many occasions, in spite of the fact that I was not here. Even now, the shadow of that appalling time hangs over this place. We have to shake it off and put it behind us. People have paid and some have gone to jail. We should move on in a way that allows us, as the responsible adults and grown-up politicians we are all meant to be, to please the electorate in the way they want to be pleased: by behaving in an honourable fashion.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

It is as well to remember that the expenses scandal in the 2005-10 Parliament was the result not merely of individual foibles but of a collective, institutional failure to embrace openness and transparency —under the previous Government but with the collusion of other parties; it was not solely the result of the malfeasance of individual Members.

[Richard Drax]

I take my hon. Friend’s point entirely; he is absolutely right.

I was not here, but I have heard from those who were that the expenses scandal was sparked not least by a lack of clarity about what could be claimed. Nowadays, there are MPs appearing in the newspapers for buying staplers and other perfectly legitimate things for the office, so it has gone from one extreme to the other. We all know if we have behaved dishonourably or done something wrong, and if it is so heinous, we should leave our job; of that I have absolutely no doubt.

I ask the Government to think carefully about the Bill. If it becomes law, I fear there will be a gathering momentum, as is often the case with such legislation, to add on bits. Indeed, amendments are already being discussed. I have listened all afternoon—it is important to hear people’s views—and people are already keen to add on bits. The hon. Member for Clacton, who is no longer in his place, was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham) about an incinerator plant that 65,000 of his constituents were against; my hon. Friend said that had he voted for the plant, it might have sparked a recall. I think the hon. Gentleman was rather amazed that the point was raised.

To conclude, we are here to represent our constituents for a period of five years—not that I agree with fixed-term Parliaments; incidentally, if I may get in some free advertising, there is a debate about that on Thursday. On the matter in hand, however, will the Government please think carefully about this Bill? It should be a matter of honour, honour, honour, not legislation, legislation, legislation.