Recall of MPs Bill

Viscount Ullswater Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendment is grouped with Amendments 7, 8, 12 and 36. The amendment deletes the whole of subsection (4) because I wanted to delete the second recall condition. I drafted the amendment when I was feeling thoroughly scunnered—if noble Lords will excuse a Scots word—with the whole concept of the Bill, and thought that one of the ways to have a discussion about it was by proposing to remove one of the offending provisions, for reasons that were made clear during our discussions on Amendments 7 and 8. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours dealt with this issue so eloquently at Second Reading, in cols. 184 to 186 of the Hansard report. I want just to say how sorry I am that he is not able to be with us today; he has had a very serious operation and I am sure that the whole House will wish him a speedy and full recovery, and to be back with us.

I detected earlier that in spite of my delectable and mellifluous Scots tones, noble Lords might have heard quite enough of them, and that it might be more appropriate for me to conclude my speech now. The points that I might otherwise have raised could well be taken up by one of the other signatories to the amendments in this group—in other words, my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Viscount Ullswater) (Con)]

My Lords, I must advise your Lordships that if the amendment is agreed, I will not be able to call Amendment 6 because of pre-emption.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, after that introduction by my noble friend, I rise to speak to Amendment 7 in particular. As my noble friend said, my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours is very much behind my amendment and we all, as the Committee has made clear, regret very much that he cannot be here this evening. At Second Reading, his was probably the most powerful, and certainly the most impassioned, speech of the evening.

This amendment seeks to reverse an amendment that was moved by the Opposition in another place. I regret that very much, because I think that it is a big mistake. In many ways I should not really be talking; I should be saying that we should all take a few minutes to re-read the speech of my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. It encapsulated why the decision to move that amendment in another place was wrong. My noble friend has referred to cols. 184 and 185 of Hansard of 17 December.

The amendment in another place looked at the second group of trigger conditions—the second mechanism. Those were the days when a Member was suspended by the Standards Committee. The Government had proposed that the trigger should come into operation if a Member was suspended by the House, following a report from the Standards Committee, for 20 days.

The Opposition proposed 10 days and that amendment was carried, because of the atmosphere about which we were talking earlier, where no one in another place feels that they can stand up for reason, as they would be accused of having something to hide or wanting to let MPs get away with some form of bad behaviour. I regret that atmosphere. It is evident on all sides of the House and has not been helpful either to the reputation of the House or people’s willingness to look at politics in a reasonable way.

When I was shadow Leader of the Commons some time ago, I was a member of what was then the Standards and Privileges Committee. At the time, it was under the chairmanship of Lord Newton of Braintree, whom we all miss in this House. He was Leader of the Commons. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours was on it at the same time.

It was a significant time, because we had difficult cases to deal with. There were concerns even then about the activities of just a few Members of that House. Noble Lords will remember the cash for questions incident and other things. It was also the time when the committee, under Lord Nolan, was looking at new ways forward. People working on the committee spent a lot of time trying to be constructive. I have followed its workings ever since.

When I became Leader of the House in 1997, I did not take up the chairmanship of the committee, because we felt at that time that it should be chaired by a Back-Bench Member. That was an important vote of confidence in the House. I just wish that that confidence could be maintained in that way. Members of the committee were then—and indeed are now—serious about that kind of work. The chairman and all the members take it extremely seriously.

It is a quasi-judicial committee—or at least it is at the moment—and all members are genuine in the work that they try to carry out. They look at the issues and evidence carefully. They hear and question Members very directly about the issues. But, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said at Second Reading, the amendment passed in another place will change the role and nature of that committee. If we have a 10-day period as the trigger, it is inevitable that the committee will be more prone to being party-political. The key to its success over many years has been that its inquiries have not been along party lines. It is not divided in that way. Genuine, serious, senior members have looked at an issue, if not dispassionately—people get very annoyed when anybody does something wrong—then at the facts and making a proper determination. If we change the nature of the committee it will not do anybody any good.

My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours read out the list of those who are now members of the committee and the way in which they had voted on this amendment. It was clear that the current members are not happy with the amendment, because they realise the dangers. It is obvious. Member A has transgressed and is given a suspension of nine days, because either he or she is popular or their party has a majority on the committee. Then somebody else, Member B, comes along; because they are not popular or their party is in a minority on the committee, they get 11 days. If that happens, you are ending the career of that second person. Once people start talking about a recall position of any individual Member, those in their own party will find it very difficult to defend them or even explain the situation—so recall will not be productive in that way.

There will be a momentum that makes it inevitable. The use of social media and so on will increase the pressure all the time, which is very unwise. I have already expressed my reservations about the Bill. If we are to have it, let us have a Bill that at least has a chance of working and not one that will destroy some of the good workings of the House of Commons: namely, the Standards Committee as is.