Public Disorder

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I said earlier, this is only a week from the very starting event that triggered the process, so having a Home Affairs Committee inquiry to start with is right. The hon. Lady mentions the economic circumstances, but I checked this morning and in a three-mile radius from Tottenham more than 1,300 apprenticeships are available for young people. That is yet another example of attempts to try to link this to economic circumstances or to try to find some excuse for it, which is completely wrong.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

The film and print media have shown us footage and photographs of incidents such as people torching shops and they have interviewed looters and rioters. They would say that we have a right to information, but they should recognise that they also have a duty and responsibility, as members of society, not just spectators, to report what they see to the authorities. Can the Prime Minister confirm whether reporters have called the police at the time they saw these things happening, whether the media have handed over their film and recordings, and whether that evidence will be accepted in our courts of law?

[The Prime Minister]

I cannot give the hon. Lady that assurance. What I can say is that media organisations, like others, have responsibilities and should act on those responsibilities. That sort of evidence can be admissible in a court of law.

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The point that was made by a number of people, the Deputy Prime Minister included, was just to ask whether it was right to give a job to Andy Coulson, because clearly, I had made a decision. That man had resigned from the News of the World over the hacking scandal because it happened on his watch. He gave me an assurance—[Interruption.] Hold on; I will answer the question. He gave me an assurance that he did not know about the hacking scandal, and I took my decision. That is a judgment that I do not hide or run away from. I am totally accountable for it.

Some people—of whom the Deputy Prime Minister was one—questioned that judgment, which is why I have been so clear that that was my decision. I am responsible for it and people will hold me accountable for it. Today, I have been utterly frank about what it would be like with 20:20 hindsight or what it would be like with double vision, but I do not believe in politicians running away from the decisions that they have made. I do not do that.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

The Prime Minister will have had very little time to consider my question of last week about stopping the scandal of taxpayers having to fund pensions for police who turn out to have undertaken criminal activities. However, he has widened the scope of the inquiry to cover all forces. Given the financial pressures—a number of forces are having to ask people whether they would like to become voluntarily redundant —will he please ensure that no one found guilty of wrongdoing can keep any payout, bonus or windfall by retiring or taking voluntary redundancy?

[The Prime Minister]

What the hon. Lady says makes a lot of sense. She should make those representations to the Winsor review, and indeed to the judicial inquiry.

Election Petitions

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I rise to introduce this Adjournment debate on an issue that should be, and I think will be, of interest to all Members of the House—perhaps unexpectedly and by surprise in future years if the law is not changed. I declare not an interest, but a long-standing personal friendship with one of the individuals to whom I shall refer—Mr Phil Woolas, the former Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth, who is nowadays something of an expert on election petitions and their impact.

There has been a long history of election petitions over the past 400 years, but since 1604 there has not been much change in this respect in Parliament and therefore in this country. There has been a fundamental weakness in how the law has been consolidated in 1983 and since then. As is well recognised, the Electoral Commission has been privy to cross-party discussions—one could even call them negotiations—on such matters. In a helpful advice note, the commission said of the legal basis for challenging the result of an election:

“There was broad support for a review of the current legal basis for challenging the results of an election. The general”—

cross-party—

“consensus was that the process was antiquated, not user-friendly and that reform of the process was needed.”

Similarly, on the rather minor issue of the correction of procedural errors, it states:

“If the Returning Officer concludes that the wrong person was declared ‘duly’ elected because of a procedural mistake, he or she currently has no powers to correct the error beyond advising the affected candidate to lodge an election petition.”

That is clearly nonsense and an anomaly that needs to be rectified in law.

Petitions on minor but important issues that do not affect the result do not occur. In essence, those issues disappear. One cannot challenge a precise wrong within the process without a full election petition. We should have a system that allows candidates or third parties to point to errors that do not affect the outcome without involving the principle or requiring the potential expense of attempting to remove an elected Member. Any candidate or third party with a rational interest should have the power to point to something that has been done that is anomalous, wrong or mistaken, such as errors that are made in the process by a local authority or a returning officer. The inability to do so in the current system, other than by an exchange of correspondence, is a weakness that undermines our system of democracy.

We now get on to the much bigger issue of costs and surety. Given the nature of political argument and the often heated debates within election campaigns, it needs to be difficult for losing candidates to put in petitions that could be deemed frivolous. If it is too easy to put in an election petition and every candidate puts one in, perhaps because they have lost by a few votes and are looking for an excuse to overturn the result, it clearly does not suit Parliament and democracy. That must be balanced against the potential risks of costs should one put in a petition. It should not be only those with significant wealth, and who might be able to meet adverse costs, who should feel confident about putting in an election petition if there is a wrong that requires righting. There is an imbalance within the process that needs to be rebalanced. We must allow genuine petitions to go forward without encouraging reckless or frivolous petitions that are not genuine, and the ability to take forward a petition must not rely on finance.

The problem of costs was compounded recently by a case involving local election petitions in Slough. This is not a party political point, so I will not even mention the parties involved. The key issue is the principle. One of the major parties ended up with a councillor in prison. The other party, which brought the case, sought to have its costs awarded when it won the case. However, the party whose councillor was in prison dropped the candidate. It was up to the party that won in court potentially to bankrupt the individual. Clearly there needs to be a better system than that. I put it to the Minister that what is needed is a provision to allow election courts a wider remit in awarding costs and in deciding who should meet them. In particular, if a party defends the case, or aids and abets the defence, there should be the possibility of costs in part or whole being awarded against that party rather than necessarily against the individual. I do not think the continuation of the Slough example will serve any of the political parties in this country in future.

A case that, perhaps remarkably, has not been discussed in the House before is that of Mr Phil Woolas, who was a Member of the House and was elected at the last general election. I think it is reasonably fair to say that he was a widely respected Member on both sides of the House. Of course, he is no longer a Member, and indeed he cannot stand in any election for three years. I am not questioning the judgment that was made; I am questioning the process and its weaknesses and inflexibility. I think it will be helpful if I quote part of the conclusion of the judgment made by the two judges who sat on the election court. They stated:

“In our judgment to say that a person has sought the electoral support of persons who advocate extreme violence, in particular to his personal opponent, clearly attacks his personal character or conduct.

It suggests that he is willing to condone threats of violence in pursuit of personal advantage.

Having considered the evidence which was adduced in court we are sure that these statements were untrue. We are also sure that the respondent had no reasonable grounds for believing them to be true and did not believe them to be true.”

One of the anomalies in the current law is the question of what is “personal character and conduct”. The previous time there was an electoral petition on the matter was the North Louth case in 1911. However, unless the law is changed, there is a danger in the era of the modern media that because one such case has been taken, many such cases could be taken. From looking at the publicity and propaganda that there have been, I think it is factually accurate to say that there have been worse in recent elections from all three main parties than in the case of Mr Woolas, and the candidates in question have won. Indeed, there is a significant question of how we determine the facts of a case. Others have raised that matter, and it was part of the appeal that was attempted. However, before I come to it, there is a point that has never been raised that I will raise for the first time.

I am aware that the leaflets that caused offence were not written by Mr Woolas. He never made great play of the fact that he did not write them, but I put it to the House that less honourable politicians may well have used that as a basis of defence, although not necessarily successfully. They might have said that somebody else wrote the publicity. The question is where the sanctions should be applied. Should they be solely applied to the candidate?

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Mann]

No.

Clearly the candidate needs to take responsibility for their publicity, but the reason that question rings so true to me is that in 1997, I was sent by the Labour party to oversee the last five days of the campaign in Oldham East and Saddleworth of Mr Phil Woolas. I wrote the leaflets in the last five days, and Mr Woolas, as a good candidate, was not consulted on them at any stage.

In the parlance of the Labour party agents—it is no different among the other major parties—candidates have been known for decades as “LNs”—legal necessities. My leaflets were beyond reproach, but if they had not been, who would have been responsible? Would it have been the writer of the leaflets, the legal agent appointed by the candidate, or the candidate? It seems to me that some flexibility of sanctions is needed in the law, to take that question into account. The matter could be further complicated, of course, if leaflets were put out jointly with local election candidates, potentially involving two agents and different candidates.

It seems to me that there is a fundamental weakness in the law. In essence, the question available to the election court, as demonstrated in the case of Mr Woolas, is yes or no, guilty or not guilty. If guilty, the sanction must be the ultimate one of striking out. No other option was available in Mr Woolas’s case. There was no option of looking to see whether the leaflets influenced the campaign. Therefore, a leaflet that is written but never distributed—a copy could be obtained—could be used to overturn an election result.

There is a second principle: there is no right of appeal—the press coverage at the time of Mr Woolas’s case perhaps confused that. The Fiona Jones case in 1999 was a criminal prosecution. Because of that, she successfully appealed and was reinstated as a Member of Parliament. In the civil case against Mr Woolas, no appeal was possible, as was recognised when he attempted a judicial review, and therefore it was not possible to look at the statements of fact as determined by the election court judges. Natural justice in any other place dictates that there should be an appeal. A murderer of the worst kind has a right of appeal, and yet a parliamentarian who has lost his seat because of an election court ruling—as others could—does not. That anomaly needs to be changed. It was changed in relation to criminal cases because of the Fiona Jones case, but it was left out of the 1983 consolidation Act.

It is essential that the Government move quickly to change that before lots of similar cases are brought to attempt to change results. I put it to the House that in the internet era, there is a greater possibility of more cases being brought, because there are more outlets for things being stated as part of a campaign. The candidate— rightly and honourably—must accept ownership of those things, but he might not have direct control of them during the campaign. I put it to the Minister that we are all at risk.

My final point to the Minister is a separate one that relates to my election. I estimate that a wealthy benefactor in the other place, Lord Ashcroft, put in £250,000 to try to win my seat in the election, and he did so quite legally. Many photographs of the then Leader of the Opposition, the now Prime Minister, were sent by direct mail. One household received 29 direct mails, and mine received six. It was a waste of money—it may have increased my vote—but there is an unfairness in the system. If I had £250,000 to spend, I think I could increase my majority.

That also needs to be looked at. A review of fairness, honesty and integrity in elections is imperative—a review that does not excuse certain behaviour or give candidates of any party anywhere to run; and that allows honourable, fair and just campaigns and outcomes; but that leaves fair, just and reasonable remedies for those who wish to challenge them. The internet, e-mail, texting and Twitter age dictates that the Government must introduce legislation to change the foundation of electoral law in the UK, which is described by Roger Morris and David Monks, in “Running Elections 2003”, as

“Victorian in construction and tone”.

We need to modernise, and for all our sakes, we need to do so quickly.

Phone Hacking

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me deal specifically with the issue of John Yates, because this is important. He does an extremely important job for the country in terms of counter-terrorism policing. I have watched him and the job that he does at close hand. We have to have a situation where the police are operationally independent, and if we put our trust in Paul Stephenson to run his team, we must allow him to do that. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to think about this: it would be quite dangerous, would it not, if politicians were able to point at individual police officers, particularly those who were leading investigations into other politicians? So there are some dangers here. I think that John Yates is doing a good job on counter-terrorism. Clearly, as he said himself, he has some questions to answer about what went wrong with the initial investigation, and I hope that he will welcome this inquiry, which will get to the bottom of what went wrong.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

In the light of and under the pressure of this inquiry it seems possible that serving police officers will go off on sick leave because of stress. Will the Prime Minister guarantee that in no circumstances will the taxpayer be asked to fund any pension of any police officer, either serving or now retired, who is found to be corrupt, as that would be the final insult?

[The Prime Minister]

I will have to look at the point that the hon. Lady makes. It sounds perfectly sensible but we have to obey the rules of the pension schemes and all the rest of it. However, people should not be rewarded in the way that she says.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

I am most grateful, Mr Evans, for the opportunity to reply to the debate.

I regret that I feel compelled to press this matter to a vote, but I feel that the Minister’s response has been wholly unconvincing. We are faced with adamant and clear advice from the Clerk of the House that the Minister has chosen to dismiss as irrelevant. Let me remind the Committee what the Clerk said:

“The provisions of this subsection make the Speaker’s consideration of confidence motions and the House’s practices justiciable questions for determination by the ordinary courts.”

That includes

“what constitutes a confidence motion, the selection of amendments to such Motions and the consequences of their being carried”.

He goes on to say:

“As these would become justiciable questions, the courts could be drawn into matters of acute political controversy.”

The Minister has not responded with anything substantive to defeat that advice.

Moreover, the Minister has rested his justification for the Bill on the assertion that it would not be possible to write these provisions into the Standing Orders, which would be automatically immune. Let me read from the Clerk’s memorandum again. He said that

“a Standing Order regulating the matters in the Bill could provide for its staying in effect unless repealed by a specified majority”,

meaning that it could be entrenched,

“for example by…equal to or greater than two thirds of the number of seats in the House. Not only is the principle of specifying majorities already written into the Standing Orders of the House, but in the past the House has also required a relative majority for reaching decision.”

My hon. Friend the Minister also dismissed the comments that I read from Mr Robert Rogers, the Clerk Assistant and Director General, who made it clear that we can not only write into our Standing Orders provisions requiring super-majorities, but entrench a—[Interruption.] I am rather distressed that the Minister is not even listening to what I am saying. We can entrench a Standing Order with its own super-majority so that it could be removed only by a super-majority, if that is what the House chose to do. The whole basis of the Government’s advice remains contested by the Clerks. The basis of the Bill—that this has to be done through statute—also remains contested by the Clerks.

I doubt that we will win the vote in the Committee this afternoon, but the Minister has failed to give a full response or to acknowledge any of the points that have been made. His subsection refers to a Speaker’s “certificate under this section”, which is very unspecific. At least the amendment states

“Any certificate of the Speaker of the House of Commons given under this section shall be conclusive for all purposes”.

That word “any” and the reference to the Speaker make it clear that whatever the Speaker issues is uncontested, rather than leave it open to the courts to determine whether the certificate presented by the Speaker complies with the legislation. I am afraid that the Minister has not satisfied me and I do not think that he has satisfied a great many of my colleagues on the Government Benches or in the official Opposition. I want to press the amendment to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

The Committee proceeded to a Division.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

On a point of order, Mr Evans. At lunchtime today I was sitting in the Terrace cafeteria and, for the second time in a fortnight, I was unable to hear the Division bells at all. There was nothing to indicate that a vote was taking place. Can you facilitate Members’ ability to vote if they are sitting in that area, perhaps by asking the Badge Messengers to inform them that a vote is taking place while the problem is sorted out?

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Thank you for that point of order. I must say that I have taken a number of points of order in a similar vein since taking the Chair on 8 June, and this is clearly worrying for Members as well as irritating for the Chair. I will instruct that the matter be fully investigated, not just in the area that the hon. Lady has spoken about, but throughout the parliamentary estate. Clearly, it could affect the outcome of a vote. In the short term, I ask that, every time there is a Division today, a messenger goes particularly to that part of the House to ensure that Members are made aware that a Division is taking place.

Individual Electoral Registration

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I take exception to the hon. Gentleman’s use of the word “fiddling”. The boundary review proposed in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill will be carried out on exactly the same basis as previous reviews, using the same electoral register and based on the same data. I acknowledge that there are people who are eligible to vote who have not chosen to register, and that is why we have put in place measures to deal with that. My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) has made some helpful suggestions about what we could do this year, and we plan to fix this. When the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) raised this matter on Second Reading, I responded by saying that we would put in place measures to tackle under-registration, and I hope that he will be happy with what we have announced today.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

At the moment, we send national insurance numbers to young people who are approaching their 16th birthday, yet, on the declaration form that goes to the local authority, only those who are 17 and older are identified. How can we ensure that we pick up those who are 16 and over and put them into the registration process in anticipation? Would it be possible to promote this through the schools system? The other thing I would like to ask is about the arrangements that are going to be made to check up on those living abroad. What will happen? Is there any capacity to—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I gently explain to the hon. Lady that on these occasions Members should ask a single, short supplementary question? She has had a good run, but we will leave it there for today.