Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Thomas Docherty and John McDonnell

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess.

I will speak first about the clause as it stands. I will then explain the purposes of the Opposition amendments and set out our view of the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) and others. Finally, I will briefly address the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) and others. Later in the debate, when the arguments have been set out more fully, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) will make another contribution to sum up our position.

I want to place on the record Labour’s support for the principle of recall when an elected representative’s conduct falls well below the standards that Parliament and their constituents expect. That is why our manifesto in 2010 promised to introduce recall legislation and why we supported the Bill’s Second Reading last Tuesday. We made it clear during that debate that we would table amendments to strengthen the Bill. Before I turn to the amendments that we have tabled, as promised, I will talk briefly about the Standards Committee, which recommends the suspensions from the House that could trigger a recall.

The Opposition agree with those inside and outside Parliament who believe that we must reform the Standards Committee in order to build public trust. Although amendments on the Standards Committee were not within the scope of the Bill, I want to place on the record the Labour party’s support for a radical overhaul of the Committee. That would include the removal of the Government’s majority and an increase in the role and authority of its lay members. We propose that at least half the Committee should be lay members and that the Chair of the Committee should not be a Member of Parliament. I note that the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley), who was the Leader of the House for two years, has backed changes to the Standards Committee. If his comments are indicative of a wider view on the coalition Benches, let us move swiftly to build cross-party support for reform of the Standards Committee.

We tabled four of the amendments that are being considered today and I will set out how each of them would strengthen the Bill. Amendment 45 seeks to amend the threshold for recall that relates to suspensions from the House of Commons. The Government propose that MPs will have to be suspended for more than four sitting weeks or 28 calendar days for the threshold to be reached for recall petitions. According to the excellent research services of the House of Commons Library, it appears that that threshold would have been met on only two occasions over the past two decades, and that no one found guilty during the cash for questions scandal received a sufficiently long suspension to meet the Government’s proposed threshold.

Labour believes that that is not acceptable and therefore proposes the halving of the threshold figures. We are clear, however, that we should not lower the threshold to such a level as would merely allow vexatious and mischievous claims. In addition, we must recognise that parliamentary dissent is part of our democratic heritage, and a Member who is standing up sincerely for their beliefs should not find their right to protest compromised by unnecessary recall petitions. None of those who were suspended for protesting in the Chamber—unless they were serial repeat offenders—would be caught by our amendment. Therefore, we believe that it strikes the right balance of strengthening the right to recall without jeopardising parliamentary democracy.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

May I be absolutely clear on this? Is my hon. Friend saying that there could be a cumulative number of days and number of suspensions—I take this as a matter of personal interest?

[Thomas Docherty]

I am most grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. We are clear—I look to the Minister to clarify this when he responds—that it is a case of suspension, not a running total, although one hopes that we will not see my hon. Friend too near to the Dispatch Box and the mace in the near future.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Debate between Thomas Docherty and John McDonnell

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

That is an extremely valid point. In the real world of lobbying, I have experience of that constituency issue, with BAA employees employed virtually full-time—yes, with a range of experts—intensively lobbying relatively junior staff in the Department for Transport and the Treasury, building up a head of steam around a particular demand from BAA that eventually shapes the decision made by Ministers. My understanding of the debate so far is that such lobbying would not be covered by the Bill and BAA in its new form, as Heathrow airport, would not be caught by it.

Things have moved on. Governments are increasingly outsourcing the preparation of the material that will eventually enable Ministers to take decisions. That outsourcing relies upon the commissioning of external experts—not within Government, but often academics and others—and in addition to that, the setting up of various commissions. The Howard Davies commission is consulting various organisations on behalf of Government about the expansion of aviation in London and the south-east, especially the issues surrounding the expansion of Heathrow. My understanding of the Bill is that the lobbying of the external advisers and members of such commissions is also not caught by the legislation.

Members may have experienced that process, but let me explain. An intensive lobbying exercise is being undertaken by the aviation industry across the country. Businesses that own individual airports are intensively lobbying Howard Davies’s commission, and they are lobbying external experts commissioned to undertake pieces of work, because obviously they are looking to expand their particular airport. I do not believe, and I am happy if the Minister wants to advise me differently, that any of that lobbying will be caught by the Bill.

The plea from the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) and the hon. Members for Chatham and Aylesford, for St Albans and for Foyle—right across the piece—was that, if we are going to legislate, we must legislate in the real world, and we are not doing so. We are going through an exercise that people will think is a waste of time, and many will find it disingenuous. Some may think that, when we have ticked the box, we have sorted out lobbying, but the real-world lobbying will go on as before.

As the Prime Minister rightly said, lobbying is open to the potential for scandal. There have been scandals. What causes me anxiety is that I am prevented from protecting my constituents from a heavily resourced and effective internal lobbying machine within an organisation that could destroy parts of my community and the quality of life of hundreds of thousands of people in west London. The Bill does not meet the purpose. It does not rise to the challenge that the Prime Minister set us, which is to ensure that we have a transparent lobbying process. That transparency can, we hope, enable us to have some element of probity within the system of lobbying overall.

I take what my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda said. The criticism has come from all parts of the Committee. There must be some recognition from Government that these legislative proposals do not stack up. I know that by way of a taunt to the Leader of the House what happened in the case of the NHS legislation was mentioned earlier, but I think the idea of a short pause while we try to get some consensus discussions going is the most constructive way forward. In that way we can learn the lessons from the lobbying industry itself. Members of this House across the parties have had years of experience of lobbying, so we can get some decent legislation in place, otherwise we will bring ourselves into potential disrepute. Members of the public who expect us to represent and protect them will think we are not doing our jobs effectively.

I urge the Government to listen to their own Back Benchers as much as to those on the Opposition Benches who have no axe to grind. Let us see whether we can have some cross-party discussions over the next week or two. We should not allow the Bill to leave this House and expect the House of Lords to sort it out, as usual. That is a derogation of our duty. We must do the work here and send the best Bill we possibly can to the other place, because that is what we are paid for.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am grateful, Mr Caton, to catch your eye in this debate.

Many colleagues have commented on the drafting of the Bill. I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) about the merits of the private Member’s Bill. Last year I introduced a private Member’s Bill on this very subject, supported by our Front-Bench team. I was lucky to work with Simon Patrick and the formidable Kate Emms on the drafting of that Bill. May I helpfully suggest to the Deputy Leader of the House that the Clerks of the House might be well qualified to help the Government draft a more effective and fully baked Bill than the one before us?

I gently point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda that he mentioned my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) by name. I know that my hon. Friend is not a properly read parliamentarian, but I am fairly confident that according to “Erskine May” we are not allowed to mention the name of a right hon. Member, even in a quotation, but I am sure that he did not mean to do so. As he is a new boy in this place, we will let that one pass.

The Government have been caught by their own phenomenally tight definition. I shall speak mainly about Opposition amendment 18, which would remove paragraph 3(1)(a) and (b) of schedule 1, which is ambiguous and creates uncertainty. Sub-paragraph (1) creates a loophole which cripples the aims of the Bill. On Second Reading and in the debate today, I have been struck by the fact that the Government consistently believe that, if they say that a measure is not intended to have a particular effect, that somehow means that it will not have that effect.

The Government were correct one time. As the Deputy Leader of the House said earlier, the Government are not seeking to capture lobbyists—they are seeking to capture 1% of those who would otherwise be defined as lobbyists. Credit is due to the Government; that is the one element that is consistent with their intentions. Unfortunately, sub-paragraph (1) does not capture even that 1%. Sub-paragraph (1)(a) excludes

“a business which is mainly a non-lobbying business”,

and sub-paragraph (1)(b) excludes a business whose lobbying efforts are

“an insubstantial proportion of that business.”

That would mean, for example, that big tobacco firms did not have to declare their in-house lobbying activities, but a small firm of public affairs professionals or consultants campaigning on behalf of, say, Action on Smoking and Health, would have to do so. I will return to that point later. The term “non-lobbying business” is insubstantial and too vague and does not have any real meaning.

The Government’s attempt to try to correct this error, amendment 93, which says

“consists mainly of non-lobbying”,

does not improve matters in the slightest. Unfortunately, what the Government by their own definition mean by lobbying is purely that direct communication with Ministers of the Crown and permanent secretaries. I could understand if the Government were defining lobbying as being what we think of as lobbying. It is interesting the number of Members on both sides of the House who describe themselves as lobbyists. Unfortunately, I suspect that none of those so-called lobbyists are actually lobbyists under the Government’s own definition. They have defeated themselves by drawing their amendments so closely.

Animal Welfare (Exports)

Debate between Thomas Docherty and John McDonnell

Thursday 13th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I, too, apologise for arriving late to the debate. I do not have the same excuse as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) of being the sole representative of my party—although on some issues it feels like it—but I have been dealing with a serious matter in my constituency that may come to the surface in the next few weeks. I am sure that hon. Members will understand.

I thank the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) for securing this debate and for her consistency in raising this issue in recent months. Live exports have become a regular problem. We have had debates in the past, and bans have been introduced at individual ports, but the issue has recurred and there has been more than one incident similar to what happened with the Joline. Time and again I remember hearing reports in this House in which we felt that the appropriate regulatory system had been put in place, only to hear similar reports of problems with animal welfare within months. That is not incompetence; it is an almost blatant disregard of animal welfare by some of those involved in such transactions, and of the legality of some of the cases dealt with. None of the systems that we put in place seemed to have worked, and such cases returned time and again. I therefore came to the conclusion—after receiving briefing from the National Farmers Union as well as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals—that the system was not working and that a ban would be the appropriate approach.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) said, there are two issues. One is a matter of principle—do we support the export of live animals in this way?—and the other is about pragmatic practicality and regulation. Are the Government going to continue allowing live exports? I do not believe that European legislation should hold us back because, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion said, representations can be made and we can use other legislation to enforce the ban if necessary. However, if a ban is not introduced and we seek a pragmatic inspection regime—this is the point raised by the hon. Member for South Thanet—the work done by Thanet district council has been superb. It has set out a number of recommendations, working with the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency and delegating some of those functions to the RSPCA, to gain maximum confidence in the implementation and rigorous nature of those inspections. Those recommendations, if taken on board by the Government, would at least provide a practical way to address effectively some of the abuses of the past.

[Thomas Docherty]

My hon. Friend has been an absolute champion of agricultural workers during his time in Parliament—often, I dare say, a lone voice. Does he accept that a ban on live exports would be a huge hit to the agricultural industry and hurt the very workers he has worked so hard to champion?

[John McDonnell]

My hon. Friend always knows the point of vulnerability in a debate. I have never been convinced about the economic necessity of live exports, which is why the idea of an inquiry is important. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee is looking at a wide-ranging inquiry into the practical nature of how the industry operates.

As the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion said, we need to address the location of abattoirs and how they operate. By locating, promoting and developing local abattoirs we can overcome the problem of the lengthy journeys that animals take, and particularly any necessity to export live animals.