Recall of MPs Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Huppert]

As ever, the hon. Gentleman makes a very interesting point, but the new clause does not suggest changes to the code of conduct or making it subject to court proceedings, so his point does not apply to this new clause.

I think that new clause 2 has been substantially improved to address the criticisms levelled in Committee —we can have the discussion about the code of conduct at another appropriate time. Furthermore, as I said earlier, it is not a unique proposal. The state of Minnesota has a similar scheme under which 25 petitioners submit a proposed recall petition stating the grounds for the recall, whether it be malfeasance, non-feasance or serious crime; and a public hearing is held by a judge within 21 days who then reports to the Supreme Court on the test of

“whether the persons proposing the petition have shown by a preponderance of the evidence that the factual allegations supporting the petition are true; and…if so, whether the persons proposing the petition have shown that the facts found to be true are sufficient grounds for issuing a recall petition.”

This then leads to the recall petition, in which case the system requires the signatures of voters equalling 25% of the most recent turnout, which is roughly the same as the 15% we are proposing. This system exists, therefore, and it seems to work, as shown by its operation since it was introduced in 1996.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

How does the hon. Gentleman answer the criticism that the whole point of recall is to give power to the people but that his system gives power to judges?

[Dr Huppert]

It still starts with 500 people and ends with 15% of the public making the decision. We have to strike a balance—we discussed this in Committee, and I do not want to give a blow-by-blow account of that very long debate—over whether there should be any constraints at all and whether there can be any trivial or vexatious cases. That is the difference.

In Minnesota, several cases have been deemed to be unreasonable. The two most recent cases involved State Representatives Ward and Radinovich, both of whom supported same-sex marriage against the wishes of their constituents, and in both cases, the court concluded that it did not constitute malfeasance, saying:

“Constituent disagreement with how their elected representative exercised discretion, through public statements made or votes taken, does not equate to malfeasance by the representative.”

That is surely a principle the House would want to stick to.

In 2001, the state attorney-general did not take steps to ensure that a ban on sodomy was not struck down—again there were complaints, but the court did not conclude that he had failed to do his job; and in 1999, Governor Jesse Ventura was accused of having done well out of his book by virtue of being governor, but again the court felt the accusation was unsubstantiated and struck it out.