Growth Deals
Lord Beamish Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Greg Clark
I welcome my hon. Friend’s remarks. He demonstrates the fact that these growth deals apply not only to our industrial cities but to counties, such as his own, with a substantial rural population. We know that the road schemes and improvements to connections in those counties are particularly important. The devolution of funds, now and in the future, to the Gloucestershire local enterprise partnership will allow it to put forward—as it has done—the schemes that will make the biggest difference in its area, and I encourage my hon. Friend to work with his LEP to achieve precisely that.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Devolution of expenditure needs to be transparent and beyond reproach. In August, I raised with the Minister the role of the chair of the North East LEP, Paul Woolston, who had just been appointed to the chairmanship of Middleton Enterprises, a company owned by Jeremy Middleton, a Conservative party member and donor who is now also on the investment board of the LEP. The Minister promised me, outside the House, to look into that arrangement. Is he satisfied with it?
Greg Clark
I did indeed look into it. Paul Woolston is the chairman of the LEP, which has members from all the local authorities in the north-east. I think he is doing a very good job. I also raised this matter with my officials and I was assured that there were no questions at all to be addressed, but I will happily write to the hon. Gentleman about this.
Recall of MPs Bill
Lord Beamish Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Zac Goldsmith
I will in just a moment. The notice of intent to recall is the least formal part of this process and exists for only one reason: to ensure that where a recall petition happens, there is a genuine demand for it, and not only among a small handful of local cranks. The threshold is about right, but I have said to the Opposition and party colleagues that if they seek to raise it on Report, I would be happy to support it in the interests of achieving meaningful reform.
The third concern relates to the fear that Members would face endless recall attempts, amounting almost to a form of harassment, an issue raised several times in last week’s debate. I see no need for a limit, as the experience of recall around the world shows that its use is extremely rare and that it is used only in extreme circumstances. In 100 years of recall in the United States, where there are virtually no financial controls or controls on broadcasters and so on, it has happened only 20 times. There have been 40 recall referendums—
Zac Goldsmith
I will in a moment, when I have finished dealing with this point. However, as I have said to the Opposition and to my colleagues, for the sake of achieving meaningful reform I would not oppose sensible proposals to establish some reasonable limit.
Zac Goldsmith
When I have finished this point. Obviously, it would make no sense to limit the number of times a notice of intent to recall can be started because technically, that would enable one lonely crank in a constituency to exhaust those options for the rest of the constituents, with just a single signature. Logically, if there is to be a limit in this process, it would have to apply to the number of recall petitions themselves. I encourage the Government, the Opposition or any Member to bring forward a proposal on Report to set a limit on what would be possible.
Mr Kevan Jones
I also heard the figure of 40 being mentioned on the radio and in last week’s debate, but in the United States in 2011, there were 150 recall elections at various levels, with at least 30 in Michigan. Although the hon. Gentleman gives the impression that the method is not used in the United States, it is used extensively at all levels of government, and mainly by the Republican right to destabilise local Democrats.
Zac Goldsmith
I am afraid that I did not catch the data that the hon. Gentleman set out, so would he mind repeating those figures?
Mr Jones
In 2011, there were 150 recall elections in the United States—this is not just at state level, but at a local level—and there were 30 in Michigan alone. The hon. Gentleman makes a point about endless recalls but, in practice, people in the United States who are subject to recall do not contest the process, but resign.
Zac Goldsmith
The hon. Gentleman’s point relates to attempts at recall, not recall elections themselves.
Zac Goldsmith
Yes, it does. In California, which has had more recalls than any other US state, there has been one successful recall of a governor, when Gray Davis was replaced by Governor Schwarzenegger. From 2011 to 2013, nine of the 120 elected representatives faced recall, but not one of those processes was successful.
Zac Goldsmith
That is an interesting question. The structure of this place is such that those discussions could be quite difficult. The formal point at which we would be able to have them would be on Report. If my amendments are accepted, it would be for anyone in this House to table further amendments. If they want to do so with me and the Committee that I was part of, we can do that. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to get in touch with me—I am happy for him to do that—because this process should as open as possible. I will not dig my heels in on these matters, because they are not issues of principle but technical issues that can and should be addressed.
Mr Kevan Jones
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the threat of recall would have an effect on MPs? In the United States, a lot of people who face a recall just resign. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) contended that the support of 50% plus one of voters would be required for a successful recall, but that is not the case; it would only require 50% plus one of those taking part in the referendum.
Mr Heath
So many Members have now referred to me as a member of the Privy Council that I think I must have received that status by acclamation. Will someone please tell the Deputy Prime Minister that I obviously behave as though I were a member of that august club, although I am not?
I assure the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife that the arrangements would be identical to those that currently govern election courts and election petitions. However, if someone were clearly initiating vexatious proceedings, as is the case with the present election courts, the court could, if it wished, award costs against the petitioner, and might well do so if it felt that the process was being abused.
I hope that I have answered all the questions that have been asked. I am sorry to have spoken at such great length, Mr Amess, but I have done so mainly in response to interventions, which seems to be par for the course this evening. Let me end by saying that I think that my new clause is objective, and that it fulfils some of what Members on both sides of the Committee want to achieve. I do not claim that the drafting is perfect and cannot be improved, but I hope that the new clause will begin a process of discussion which may reach a conclusion allowing for many of the things that the hon. Member for Richmond Park and some of his supporters want to see achieved without opening the door to what some people equally adamantly do not want to see achieved, which is Members of Parliament being in constant fear of recall on the basis that they have voted to the displeasure of someone very rich in their constituency.
Mr Kevan Jones
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess.
I support recall, as outlined in the Bill, for serious misdemeanours. Those of us who were in the House at the time of the expenses scandal knew that things had to change, and, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), the proposal on which we are being called to vote today was in our manifesto.
I shall oppose the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), and, although I know it is a dangerous thing to do, I shall support those tabled by the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). This must be the first and only time I have agreed with him about anything. I also want to say something about the attempt by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) to find a middle way.
The Bill has been publicised as though it constituted a method of giving the electorate more of a say. It has been suggested that anyone who speaks against it does not trust the voters, and is somehow less of a politician because he or she is afraid to stand for election. It is a bit like being accused of being a witch. Well, each and every one of us has the guts to stand in every election, and to put our record before our voters. I have always said that the one thing that distinguishes all those who stand for election to Parliament or a local council, or for any other elected office, is that they have the courage of their convictions, the courage to stand before their peers and ask for their trust. We should recognise that, because it is an important principle.
I think that we may have given too much away to the unelected quango state and the like. We seem to have believed that if we fill organisations with independent people who have no political influence at all—I do not know whether they are born or develop—there will be better decisions. I am a great big believer in the importance of elected office. I think that it is something of which we should be proud, and for which we should argue forcefully as parliamentarians and other elected office holders.
The Bill is strange in that it has united UKIP with the far left in the belief that it somehow represents a radical way forward. I do not think that it does. I think that it is very dangerous. It does not empower voters, and it will undermine the democracy that we in this country take for granted.
The effects of the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Richmond Park would be very simple. The amendments remove the notion that someone must be recalled on grounds of imprisonment or suspension, and allows the recall of Members for any reason. I think that this the first time I have ever heard a Member present the argument that his proposals will never actually be used. The hon. Gentleman said that it would be very difficult, and that the barriers were very high. Why put such a proposal on the statute book? Is it conning the electorate to give them something that is so difficult to achieve? Is the hon. Gentleman being dishonest with the people who he suggests will be empowered ?
Zac Goldsmith
Let me put the record straight. That is not what I said at all. I have never described the hurdle as impossible. I have said that it is a difficult hurdle—a deliberately difficult hurdle—which is high enough to prevent vexatious abuse, but low enough to be surmounted. Amendment 1 is deliberately designed in that way. It is nonsense to pretend that we are creating an impossible hurdle: I never said anything of the sort.
Mr Jones
Let me tell the hon. Gentleman what he said a moment ago. I did take notes. He said that it would be very difficult, and that the barriers would be very high. During our debate on Tuesday, he said:
“I know…Members worry that recall might somehow turn us into delegates and no longer representatives…but that is not realistic. Voters care about a wide range of issues”.—[Official Report, 21 October 2014; Vol. 586, c. 796.]
The hon. Gentleman was suggesting that the process would be difficult for some reason, but it will not be difficult. He and those who are backing him are implying that people will not be “picked off” because of the way in which they vote, which is complete nonsense.
In a speech that he made the other day, my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) gave the very good example of his predecessor Lena Jeger, who had argued strongly for abortion reform although her constituency was largely Catholic. Given the thresholds in the Bill, I think that it would have been easy for her to be recalled. Let me give another example. I do not think that the hon. Member for Richmond Park was here when she was in the House, but there was a very courageous Labour Member of Parliament called Ann Cryer, who represented Keighley. In the face of a great many personal threats and a great deal of local hostility, she argued against forced marriages and highlighted the issue of birth defects in the Asian community. She was also one of the first people to talk about issues that have now gained popularity—trafficking and the abuse of white girls in Keighley. She was very unpopular in the constituency.
Is the hon. Gentleman trying to tell me that somehow the Asian community in that constituency, or at least part of it, could not have put Ann Cryer under pressure by means of recall? I do not think that that would have been the case. She would have come under huge pressure. She received death threats on occasion as a result of some of the things that she said, and many of the things that she said were proved to be correct. Courageous people such as Ann Cryer should be free to speak out although large sections of their constituencies consider what they are saying to be wrong, or disagree with them. I think, knowing Ann, that had this measure existed, she would have acted in the same way, but she would have come under a great deal of pressure to temper her views.
Mr David Davis
I do not remember Lena Jeger, but I think I am right in saying that in each of her successive elections her majority increased despite her stance on abortion. I believe that the same was true of Ann Cryer, whom I remember well—and the hon. Gentleman is right to say that she was courageous.
Mr Jones
I will come on to that in a minute, because we have to look at the process of what is before us. There is this idea that somehow a Member of Parliament is not going to be affected by recall, despite the pressure they are going to come under, and that they will keep speaking out. I do not think that is the case. We only have to look to the examples in the United States to realise that.
Geraint Davies
My hon. Friend will know that I was formerly the MP for the marginal seat of Croydon Central and that I lost it. At one point I stood up to defend the rights of my constituent Feroz Abbasi in Guantanamo Bay, saying he should face a proper trial and have proper treatment. There might have been further pressures on me other than the marginality of my seat in that regard, as I might have been facing the possibility of recall by a vociferous minority of UKIPians or others who might have asked why I was talking about what they might assume to be terrorists—as opposed to innocent constituents. If I had come under such pressure, I hope I would still have acted according to principle rather than popularity, but it is intrinsic in what is said in respect of the proposals of the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) that this corrupts those who want to stand for principle over popularity.
Chris Bryant
I just wonder whether we might bear in mind Sidney Silverman and David Steel, who both courageously advanced causes that were considered to be very unpopular at the time. They both represented marginal seats, and I would argue that they kept their seats because they were prepared to say uncomfortable things.
Mr Jones
No, as I want to make some progress first. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Richmond Park says “Absurd” from a sedentary position. He has had enough of a say, talking, I have to say, in some cases complete rubbish. He now has to sit there and listen to me.
In the debate on 21 October the hon. Gentleman, in trying to demonstrate that somehow his Bill would never be used, said:
“I know that other hon. Members worry that recall might somehow turn us into delegates and no longer representatives…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.”
I said from a sedentary position, “Gun control.” He then said,
“There are no examples of that.”—[Official Report, 21 October 2014; Vol. 586, c. 796.]
Well, I will turn to an example in a minute.
Caroline Lucas
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but the frustration many of us in the Chamber are feeling is that he says on the one hand that a vociferous minority can remove an MP via recall, whereas it is a four stage process that precisely requires a majority in order to remove someone, so that is clearly not the case.
Mr Jim Cunningham
The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) said earlier that the threshold would be so high it would be very difficult for vexatious claims to be made. Why does he not separate that in the Bill? Why does he not drop that—completely separate it—if he does not intend that?
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Like a lot of other things the hon. Gentleman says, he has not actually thought about that in practice. The problem I have with the word “vexatious” is that somebody such as Ann Cryer might come under such a recall Bill, given what she was arguing for, and it could be argued that the people arguing against her were not being vexatious but were arguing against a clear, important role that she was performing.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
The question of what these limits are is important. What does recall mean to a person of limited means when they are up against big money?
Mr Jones
Exactly, and I made that point last week. If I had the £250 million or £300 million the hon. Member for Richmond Park has, I would not have to worry. [Interruption.] Well, I am sorry, but it is a matter of fact. [Interruption.] Of family history, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) says. If someone has that amount of money, it influences the way in which they can conduct recall elections. If I had that amount of cash, I do not think I would be bothered even if I lost it.
Mr Jones
I am going to answer the hon. Lady’s point if she is patient.
On the hon. Lady’s point about the electorate, the hon. Member for Richmond Park said it is necessary to have 51% of the electorate. No, it is not. In Colorado the recall election had a turnout of 36%, and under what is being proposed by the hon. Gentleman and his supporters it is only necessary to have 51% of the turnout. A small number of people might turn out, and a huge swathe of people in a constituency who might have strong views on other issues but not the issue in question might not be mobilised and might not vote. So to the idea that somehow this would be democratic, I say there could be a situation where there was a 60%, 65% or 70% turnout at a general election, and then a much lower turnout for a recall election—as low as 10% if police and crime commissioner elections are anything to go by—could determine the future of that Member of Parliament. It would take a very strong individual then to stand up before the electorate after the damage done in that process, because we all know what would happen with that individual.
The idea that somehow large numbers of people would give power to the mass of people is therefore complete nonsense. In the United States this gives power to large numbers of small groups of well-organised individuals. People should google the Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council—which is actually the libertarian wing of the Tea party and is where this proposal is coming from. I think this is very dangerous for progressive politics both in the United States and this country.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
Is my hon. Friend aware that I received an e-mail a few days ago from the British equivalent of the Tea party: the front organisation of the right wing of the Conservative party, the TaxPayers Alliance, which is supporting these proposals?
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
My hon. Friend began by saying that he supports recall as set out in the Government’s Bill. However, surely it provides that, on the basis of either of the triggers, a petition of simply 10% of the electorate can take a Member out completely, regardless of what the other 90% say. How can we give any weight to his argument about democracy, given that he supports 10% being able to oust a Member straight away?
Mr Jones
I must say that I do have problems with that system, but I also know that under it, at least we are talking about someone who has been found guilty of some wrongdoing. If the amendment were accepted, as in the United States, a small number of well financed people would be able to go after certain individuals.
The hon. Member for Richmond Park referred to a figure of £35,000 for a recall election. The recent recall election in Wisconsin cost $35 million. The idea that several recall election referendums around the country could be done on the cheap is fanciful, to say the least.
Thomas Docherty
Has my hon. Friend read the Government’s impact assessment, which says that, even under their proposals, the likely cost of recall and by-election is £300,000-plus? Does he agree that it is slightly ironic that, under the amendment of the hon. Member for Richmond Park, the TaxPayers Alliance is proposing a free-for-all that could quickly rack up millions of pounds of spending?
Mr Jones
That is the flaw in the argument, and it is clear that the proposer of the amendment has not even thought about that cost element.
There is a cost involved in democracy, and I support paying that cost. However, we have general elections, at which people can indicate whom they want to represent them. I have no truck with the argument that the hon. Member for Richmond Park and his supporters are advancing that somehow the system is broken. Time and again, the phrase “Westminster establishment” is used. He may well be a member of an establishment; I am not, and nor are most Members of this House.
Mr Jones
In a minute. Most Members of Parliament do their best for their constituencies. The situation now is very different from the days when Members never lived in their constituencies or went anywhere near them. In the light of developments such as electronic media, MPs are more accountable to their constituents than ever. I want to knock on the head the idea that we come to Parliament, sit on these green Benches and never give a thought to the opinions of our constituents, and do not talk to them daily.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
My hon. Friend said that in his view, there is no such thing as a Westminster establishment. Does he agree with me that there is also no such thing as a Westminster class? Those of us who live in the real world know what class politics is really all about.
Mr Jones
I agree. I would not consider myself to be in the same class as the hon. Member for Richmond Park, for example. The fact is—[Interruption.] I am not antagonising my constituents, as the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) says from a sedentary position. Most Members of Parliament get elected to try to do the best for their constituencies, and it is insulting to say they do not. I may disagree politically with other Members of this House—of all shades—but the majority are in politics not only to do what they can to help their constituents, but to make the world a better place as they see it. The same was true of my time in local government; I think I met only one or two rogues—who were perhaps in politics for different reasons—when I was a councillor. It is a bit patronising for people to dismiss that point.
We must get back to recognising that standing for elected office is a noble thing that people should strive for, not just in this place but in councils and elsewhere. I respect anyone who has the guts to stand for election. Many commentators criticise what MPs do, but if they were asked if they would stand for election and be subject to such scrutiny not only at election time but throughout the life of a Parliament, not many would say yes. We must recognise the value of standing for elected office.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and the whole House will appreciate the compliment he has just paid to Members. However, if he is afraid that this extension of democracy will result in the supplanting of socialist Members with libertarian ones, why does he not just propose spending limits?
Mr Jones
The hon. Gentleman is talking complete nonsense. The idea that the Bill is an extension of democracy to the average elector is complete rubbish. It will limit what we in this House can do, and put control of the agenda in the hands of well financed individuals. Yes, I trust my electors: that is why I keep on standing for election and do monthly constituency surgeries to listen to what they have to say. That is why I attend public meetings and speak to my electors when I go to get the Sunday newspaper, for example. We need to dispel the nonsensical idea that Members of Parliament do not speak to their electorate; these days, very few would even get elected if they took that approach.
Geraint Davies
My hon. Friend may be interested to know that in my patch, Swansea, there was a bid by a big financial organisation to have motorbike riding on the beach. It was heralded in the press as a very popular idea, but I spoke out against it, saying that it would do enormous environmental damage, encourage hooliganism and so on. Let us say that the financial forces behind that proposition coalesced behind the popular view—those who wanted a motorbike riding free-for-all—and I was threatened with recall. That would be another example of how this proposal would intimidate democracy and those of us who stand up for principle over popularity.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
If the hon. Gentleman turned up a bit more, he would know that.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend makes a good point from a sedentary position.
There are occasions—I gave the example earlier of Ann Cryer—when Members take positions that are at odds with certain sections of their constituents, but that is the beauty of Parliament. It is about being able to argue not just on our constituents’ behalf, but for the progressive changes and legislation that, if we had recall, I doubt would have been delivered. That is why I find it very odd that people who are supposedly on the left support this type of recall—
Zac Goldsmith
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He said earlier that the Colorado state legislators were recalled over gun issues, arguing that the Koch brothers had put millions of dollars into that campaign. In fact, the spending by those calling for the recall was exceeded fourteenfold by those arguing against it. Yes, big money is involved, but I think the hon. Gentleman has got the maths wrong. That aside, our proposals would have very strong limits on funding and, as I and colleagues have said, we would welcome even further controls, so his arguments are just nonsense.
Mr Jones
The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He cannot argue for his proposal and then say, following my raising the issue the other day, that if someone else wants to bring in spending limits, they can. He should have thought this through. He knows exactly what he is doing: this proposal will give powerful individuals with deep pockets a big influence over how our democracy is conducted. I am sorry, but I do not agree with that. It is wrong. The supporters of this proposal are saying, “Are you afraid of your electors? Are you going to give ordinary electors a say?” That is not what the proposal will do. It will give well organised, well financed individuals a lot of say over who sits on these green Benches.
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) says that he is proposing strong financial controls, but his amendment 23 would provide only that Ministers should have the power to apply controls on spending to the notice of intent and recall referendum processes. He does not say what the controls or the financial limits might be. Indeed, the limit during the recall petition period for which the Bill provides is £10,000 per accredited campaigner, but there is no limit on the number of accredited campaigners.
Mr Jones
I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman raises that point because in the United States, to get round any spending limits, a plethora of organisations will be set up to force a recall, meaning that they can carry out vigorous and targeted campaigning. We should remember that such recall would not be like the general election, with 650 contests being fought, because resources could be concentrated on one single constituency, meaning that big money would influence the outcome.
Thomas Docherty
My hon. Friend is being most generous by giving way again as I know that he wants to get towards the end of his speech. On spending limits, is he aware that the Scottish National party ran a series of front organisations during the referendum in Scotland so that they could each spend to the £1.5 million limit? Does he agree that one of the great concerns about the proposal of the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) is that it could give rise to co-ordinated attack after attack from organisation after organisation?
Mr Jones
We all know that organisations get around election limits—we need only to look at the last election in Richmond Park and the activities of its MP—so it would be difficult to control the amount being spent. In the United States, seats are targeted well in advance so that once an election is lost, money goes in to undermine an individual.
Implementing the power to recall for any reason whatsoever would be not an advancement of democracy in this country; it would be a retrograde step. It is suggested that the power would be rarely used, but people would work out clear ways to use it and how to finance the process. I therefore ask the Committee to oppose the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Richmond Park.
The hon. Gentleman’s proposals would not give the ordinary elector any more power, but would benefit those who want to drive through a political agenda. There are those on the left of my party who think that the process would somehow empower individuals and represent a radical statement, but that is not the case. Under the proposals, progressive legislation would be killed in the House, as views that people passionately believed in and courageously set out—such views may later become the norm in the nation—would be killed not following proper debates and votes in the House, but because someone could finance a recall election that would either put such an individual under pressure to be quiet, or actually force them out.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Greg Clark)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess. The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) has given you some timekeeping assistance through his suggestions, and I shall try not to fall foul of that.
As the group includes many amendments and new clauses, I shall say something about the overall choice facing the Committee that is embodied by the measures, before giving the Government’s assessment of each, which I hope will help the Committee. If there is time, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), will make a speech at the end of the debate, so colleagues who speak after me will have an opportunity to hear a reaction to their remarks.
As I explained on Second Reading, the Bill has had a difficult history. Some people are against it—and indeed against anything that introduces a system for recalling MPs. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee concluded of the draft Bill:
“We do not believe that there is a gap in the House’s disciplinary procedures which needs to be filled by the introduction of recall.”
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) made a similar point. Others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), believe that we should adopt an entirely different model of recall: one that is not triggered by proven misconduct, but can instead be initiated by a petition of the electorate for any reason at any time.
That disagreement could lead one to suppose that the Government’s Bill is just another contribution to a debate without consensus, and that it has no greater or lesser significance than any other approach, but that would not be right. The Bill is fundamentally different from the approach of no recall, or that of recall for any reason at any time, although I hesitate to tease my hon. Friend by referring to that as the Martini recall—any time, any place, anywhere. The Bill as drafted implements completely and faithfully the promises that the main parties made in their manifestos at the general election. The Conservative manifesto promised that
“a Conservative government will introduce a power of ‘recall’ to allow electors to kick out MPs, a power that will be triggered by proven serious wrongdoing.”
The Labour manifesto said:
“MPs who are found responsible for financial misconduct will be subject to a right of recall if Parliament itself has failed to act against them.”
The Lib Dem manifesto said:
“We would introduce a recall system so that constituents could force a by-election for any MP found responsible for serious wrongdoing.”
The coalition agreement reflected those positions.
As drafted, the Bill would cause a recall petition to be triggered if an MP was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of up to a year or a suspended sentence of any length—hon. Members will know that disqualification is already automatic following immediate imprisonment of more than a year—or, in other words, if serious wrongdoing was proved; or if an MP was suspended by the House for at least 21 sitting days, or 28 continuous days, which again would indicate proven serious wrongdoing. Members will of course consider carefully all the amendments that have been tabled, but it is only reasonable to observe that both other views, whatever their merits, do not implement the particular commitments that all parties made to the electorate at the previous election.
Greg Clark
I learnt to take a rational approach during my many happy years working with my right hon. Friend, so he will forgive me if I apply it here. I will move on to talk about the point he makes later. Suffice it to say that if the figure of 10% was reached, that would trigger a by-election in which the Member could of course stand. I know that he has personal experience of doing that. Indeed, I campaigned for his successful re-election.
Let me reflect on some of the concerns raised on Second Reading that are germane—you will be relieved to hear, Mr Amess—to the amendments before us. Members were concerned that a process that allowed recall for any reason could be put to vexatious use in a number of different respects. First, it could be used to hound someone out of office because of honestly held and sincerely expressed views. Secondly, it could be used to wage a war of attrition, with recall petition after recall petition being opened by just 5% of the electorate who have conceived a grievance against a sitting MP. Thirdly, it could be used for limitless expenditure on propaganda intended to destabilise an MP, by vested interests that the MP might be brave in confronting, well before any spending limits for an actual recall petition kicked in.
Mr Kevan Jones
We have heard the word “vexatious” used a lot in this debate, but people with strongly held views on abortion, for example, are not vexatious. I am not suggesting that the Minister is saying that, but I think that we need to differentiate between vexatious silliness and people having strongly held personal beliefs that might be at odds with certain groups within their constituencies.
Greg Clark
The right hon. Gentleman—everyone who has contributed today seems to be right hon. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Of course Parliament, and election to it, should be the subject of significant debate on issues of contention; that is the purpose of Parliament, and of standing for election. Therefore, it is not right to assume that any challenge to an MP would be, in and of itself, vexatious—quite the opposite—but at times it might be possible for people with less high-minded motives to take that approach.
Let me briefly address the principal amendments and new clauses in this group. Amendment 1 and new clause 1, tabled and spoken to by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park, would delete the two conduct-related triggers for the recall of an MP and replace them with a system of petition-based recall for any reason, to be initiated by 5% of the electorate signing a notice of intent to recall. That would trigger an official recall petition that, if signed by 20% of the electorate within eight weeks, would lead to a recall referendum. If the majority of those voting in that referendum voted for recall, the seat would be vacated and a by-election called. There is nothing to stop repeated, or even parallel, notice of recall petitions being lodged, all with attendant publicity and each requiring only 5% of the electorate to sign, meaning that an MP could suffer a prolonged bombardment of negative publicity in that way.
Greg Clark
I cannot answer that question. The scope of the Bill is set. We had not at that time had such a request and I cannot say whether one has been made since.
Mr Kevan Jones
The Minister has mentioned the European Parliament. Does he not think it ironic that MEPs can be convicted of fraud of their expenses and still remain Members of the European Parliament? From 2009 to 2014, I think that three UKIP Members fiddled their expenses but were not thrown out of the European Parliament.
Greg Clark
I repeat what I said on Second Reading: I think there is a strong case to extend these provisions to other elected bodies, but the Bill proposed by our manifestos and the coalition agreement related to this place.
Amendment 41, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), would not allow speeches, questions or voting to be reasons for recall. I completely sympathise with my hon. Friend’s intention. Having served under his chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee, I saw the ferocity of his interrogation of some witnesses, and were they misfortunate enough to be his constituents, that might well lead them to trigger a recall petition, which would be completely inappropriate.
I am afraid, however, that the amendment would have unforeseen consequences. Specifically, the suspension of a Member for tabling parliamentary questions in return for payment might be precisely the sort of misconduct for which this Bill is designed to trigger recall. Therefore, to exclude questions, speeches and so on would not serve the purpose that my hon. Friend and I would wish to see, but I understand and agree with the spirit behind his amendment. When we come to Report and as the Bill progresses, I will reflect seriously on the issue. If he will join me in a conversation about that, I will see what we can do at the next stage.
I hope I have given a reasonable assessment of the Government’s take on the amendments and that the Committee can continue its debate on that basis.
Geraint Davies
Yes, but my understanding is that 5% would be needed to start the process.
My issue is with recall being within the armoury of those who want to intimidate people for any reason. On the face of it, it might be for a policy reason, but I thought that we were supposed to be discussing behavioural issues in relation to conduct and doing the right thing. Obviously, if we break a law, we should not be above the law, but I might be an MP and support the wrong football team. People may laugh at this, but people might say, “We don’t want someone for Liverpool who supports West Ham”, and there might be enough of them to mount a challenge, which would be a massive distraction.
Mr Kevan Jones
Tempting as it is to get 11,000 people to turn up tomorrow in the constituency of the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), the important point is that—as in the case of Ann Cryer, which I raised earlier, or the very good example given by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick)—in a well-organised campaign with finance or perhaps a newspaper behind it, it would not actually be that difficult to get such numbers of people to turn up.
Geraint Davies
That is completely right. Even if it was not possible in many cases to muster such forces, it would obviously be possible in some. The question is whether that is right, and whether it would necessarily be a good reason for recall. Cases have been mentioned of having to confront in particular communities very difficult human rights issues that are difficult to talk about in the first place, but the threat of recall would hang over someone in a marginal seat that had certain movements or certain communities. One needs to be able to talk freely about such matters without intimidation.
Anne Marie Morris
Passing a recall Bill is one of the most important things that we can do to restore trust between Members of Parliament and their constituents. I wish that I had heard the word “trust” more in this debate. There is too much concern about the machinations of political parties trying to use the process in an abusive way. Although I understand that concern, surely the most important principle for an MP is that the relationship they have with their constituents must be based on trust.
That is why I supported the introduction of the Bill. It is also why I strongly support the amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith). I have worked with him on a number of the amendments. Accepting them is one of the only ways in which we can support the true meaning of democracy and ensure that our constituents have a genuine say. Although the Government Bill is well-meaning, to have a mechanism that can be triggered in such limited ways does not underscore the trust that must exist between MPs and their constituents. That trust is critical.
I hear the concerns about abuse. It is partly because of those concerns that I tabled new clause 2. I am pleased that there are 67 supporters of that proposition. The new clause intends to take on the challenge of how we should deal with the reason an MP should be subjected to recall. We have talked about the challenge of describing and defining wrongdoing. As has been said many times, it is virtually impossible to do so. The new clause would enable the public to put forward very clearly why a particular Member of Parliament should be subjected to recall.
There are three parts to new clause 2. First, there must be accountability in any system. That is why the reason for recall has to be put forward by a named individual. The name of the individual must be on the record and must be clear at every polling station at which the petition and, ultimately, the referendum are determined. The individual must be willing to put his name forward.
On Second Reading, it was suggested that an individual who was not the prime mover behind the recall petition might be used. I believe that the electorate are sensible enough to work out when something is a sham and when the person is just a place saver. I am therefore not convinced that that is a real risk.
Mr Kevan Jones
I am sorry, but having read the hon. Lady’s new clause, I do not think it would do anything of the sort. It would leave it wide open for the reason to be a matter of conscience on which the Member has spoken in the House or a matter of conduct in their family life that is nothing to do with this place. The reason could be anything. Only one elector would have to be identified. What about all the other electors? Would she insist that they have their names and addresses published as well?
Anne Marie Morris
The hon. Gentleman has not heard my comments on the second part of the new clause. I was talking about the named promoter and will get on to the reason and the right of reply for the Member of Parliament.
The hon. Gentleman’s question about the promoter has already been answered by a number of Members who support the amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park. The general view is that we do not publish how people vote in this country. That is not a matter of public record. Although I understand the concern and think that the idea is worth considering—
Anne Marie Morris
No, I will not give way. Although I understand the concern, I do not think that that will be an issue.
The second part of the new clause, on which the hon. Gentleman also commented, is the reason. He is right that any reason may be given, but he is wrong if he thinks that the electorate are sufficiently unintelligent and disengaged that they will not read the 200 words carefully to understand what it is about, particularly given the percentages that would be required. This is the opportunity for members of the public to clarify what the individual has done wrong.
One concern that the Minister raised was that the statement might be libellous. I explained that that would be no more of a risk in this document than in any other document that is put out in the same way.
Mr Kevan Jones
The hon. Lady has not answered my point at all. Like the other supporters of the amendments of the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), she says that any reason may be given for the recall of any Member of Parliament. Some well intentioned individuals might use the provisions, but some people would finance a campaign. In the example that was given by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick), I am sure that a newspaper would have backed a campaign to recall the former Member for Sunderland South. The same might have been true of the example that I gave of Ann Cryer in Keighley.
Anne Marie Morris
The hon. Gentleman is right and that is the way it should work. However, the mechanism that my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park and I are proposing is broader and provides some comfort to those who are concerned that the process will be subject to political game playing.
I have talked through the issues of the promoter, the reason and the opportunity for an MP to be given a right of reply, but I am sure that many amendments could be tabled to my hon. Friend’s proposals to address some of those issues. For example, we could require the statement of reasons to start with a certain sentence, which would mean that the statement had to be about something that we all feel is inappropriate behaviour from a Member of Parliament. There are things that could be done, but they depend on whether we think our starting point should be the Government’s narrow starting point, or a much broader starting point that would come from a position of trust.
Anne Marie Morris
No, I will not: read my lips.
You have been incredibly indulgent, Mr Hood, and I know that many other Members wish to speak in this debate. New clause 2 goes to a matter of trust and is sufficiently important for me to ask for it to have a separate vote when we decide on the amendments. On that note, I will conclude my comments.
John McDonnell
There may well be another referendum in due course. We might have to listen to the electorate on that and respect their views. If there is a continuous flow of recalls in an individual constituency, that might reflect that there is something seriously wrong within it. I believe the electorate are wiser than that. If a small group campaigned against an individual MP, the electorate would see through it. The electorate who vote in a recall are the same as those who will vote in a general election. I do not see that there would be a significant difference, apart from, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham has said, the focus of big money or a powerful magnate on a short campaign, which we need to address in the debate.
Mr Kevan Jones
I hear what my hon. Friend says, but he should look at what has happened in the United States. Big money gets behind the campaign. There is a recall when the big money does not like the result—the gun control lobby in Colorado is a good example. The turnout in the recall election can be quite small—I believe it was 36%. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) said that we would need 51%, but it will be 51% of a small amount of the electorate.
John McDonnell
I say again that my hon. Friend makes an extremely valid point on the influence of big money in recall elections, but I remind the House that, even after a recall, the individual has the right to stand at the general election, when the same electorate will vote. Therefore, if an individual is unfairly treated in a recall ballot in that way and unfortunately loses, they can stand at the general election, in which they will have the same standing as every other candidate who puts their name forward. There are protections, but he has a valid point that Front Benchers need to consider. How can an individual have the right to voice their views during a recall campaign in a balanced way, with an equivalence of resources and access to the media? That goes beyond new clause 2, tabled by the hon. Member for Newton Abbot, which I support. When the recall campaigns take off, they will be driven in some instances into the local media, and in some instances the national media.
It is a simple principle: trust the electorate and the people. The proposed system still has the hurdle of the House taking a decision on whether a recall process is set in motion. The proposal still involves the House narrowing the definition of the basis for recall. Our constituents might have a much wider view of misconduct and wrongdoing, and we must listen to them.
This is not just about restoring confidence in Parliament. We went downhill in the expenses scandal—that disaster affected all MPs, no matter how honest they were, and those who drove us into the mire damaged us all. We are slowly building confidence. I agree with other hon. Members: people come into the House to do good. This was an honourable profession, and I believe it still is. For most of us, the proudest moment of our lives was when we were elected to represent our constituents. The recall discussions will give the message that we have listened and are willing to tackle the problem, no matter how hard it is.
Nadine Dorries
I am not going to give way at all.
Anyone would think that every one of my constituents loathed me, but they did not. In fact, hardly any of my constituents signed that petition.
Nadine Dorries
No. The hon. Gentleman has taken up enough time with interventions tonight.
My constituents did not sign that petition because they know the kind of MP that I am. I am not a party-political MP. When I am in my constituency I am not a Conservative MP—I represent everybody, regardless of what political party they vote for, and my constituents know that. They also know that I will go the extra mile. I do not do surgeries once a month—most times I do them every week. My constituents know that I will go the extra mile for them. They know that I do not get involved in grubby political games in Parliament. They know that I represent them. I put my constituency before my party, and I put my constituents before Westminster. I have always done that—
The Temporary Chair (Mr Jim Hood)
Order. The hon. Gentleman has had a lot to say tonight in interventions, and he should stay in order when the hon. Lady is on her feet.
Recall of MPs Bill
Lord Beamish Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Stephen Twigg
They are those who are representative of the full range of the public. Often people who are appointed to some of these committees will tend to be—how shall I put it?—the great and the good, who are not necessarily entirely representative of the full range of the public. That is what I understood by the phrase, “genuine members of the public”. Of course, there will be strong opinions on both sides of this debate, which is why the Committee stage will be so important.
Let me now address the amendments that the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) is likely to table. First, I welcome his contribution and that of all Members on the committee chaired by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). It is probably fair to say that the Government may not have put this Bill before the House had it not been for their hard work and persistence. The proposals of the hon. Member for Richmond Park manage to avoid some of the problems associated with the Government’s Bill. As he said in his intervention, there would be no issues about unfairly allowing a petition when an MP is imprisoned for protest; about having to debate the length of suspension from this place; or about the independence of any recall trigger mechanism. His likely amendments would allow for the trigger to be in the hands of the people, and there is a simplicity to that proposal that is, of course, attractive.
The hon. Gentleman’s proposals, however, run into trouble when we assess the potential effect on the constitutional role of Members of Parliament. If we accept that the job of an MP is to be a representative, not a delegate, that has consequences for where we stand in this debate. MPs on both sides of the House need to be able to sometimes make difficult decisions. Sometimes they have to fulfil roles in government and there is a risk that the hon. Gentleman’s likely amendments could challenge that.
For example, the hon. Gentleman’s model of recall—the pure model—has the potential to give enormous power to well-funded, wealthy groups and organisations that could run concerted campaigns to pressure MPs to act in a certain way.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a very good point. We need look no further than the United States, where the Koch brothers use their multibillion-dollar war chest for no other partisan reason than to get rid of individuals who do not agree with their warped sense of the world.
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.
Zac Goldsmith
I could not agree more. That is precisely why I believe that we need a proper recall system—not some shenanigans conveying the impression that they give people recall powers without actually giving them any power at all—that would give Members, such as my hon. Friend and many others, a permanent implied mandate. In a few moments, I will explain why recall will help to give dignity and to restore nobility to this place, but if he thinks that I have not addressed his concerns properly, I invite him to intervene again.
Recall would allow people in extreme circumstances—where a clear majority of them have lost confidence in their MP—to remove their MP between elections. It would give people a sense of ownership over their democracy, which would help in and of itself.
Recall is not a new or radical idea. It exists in various forms in about 30 countries on five continents, including Poland, Canada, Germany, Japan, India, South Korea, Costa Rica, Taiwan, Mexico, Argentina, Peru and Ecuador. It has existed in the US for more than 100 years, and in Switzerland for even longer. It is a good idea—it works—and it is great that the mainstream parties have finally accepted it.
Mr Kevan Jones
I am very interested in what the hon. Gentleman says about recall empowering voters. In practice, would it not do what it does in the United States, which is to empower wealthy individuals who are not happy with what their representative is doing to mobilise against them? It would empower wealthy individuals, such as the hon. Gentleman, to influence events in a way that my ordinary constituents and I cannot?
Zac Goldsmith
I will explain why such concerns are groundless during my speech, but I will make one point, partly in response to the Opposition spokesman. Concerns about expenditure during the recall process are a matter for regulations; the amendments that my colleagues and I seek to introduce would not tamper with the Government’s proposed regulations on expenses. That separate technical issue can be very easily addressed.
Zac Goldsmith
The hon. Gentleman takes a very dim view of his electorate if he thinks that that is so easy. Irrespective of that, the two-month petition stage before a referendum will be regulated, so his cost arguments simply do not apply.
Mr Jones
What happens in practice in the United States is that individuals who take against a policy or a state or national representative can use their tremendous wealth to use a campaign in the lead-up to the recall election to undermine such a representative. The idea that that is somehow empowering the voters is not the case. Recall empowers very wealthy individuals who could then—
Zac Goldsmith
To my knowledge, in the United States there are no limits on expenditure and on broadcasters; in this country, we have limits on both. Even during the 100 years of recall in that wild west environment of the United States, there have been only 20 successes out of 40 attempts. The hon. Gentleman’s arguments simply do not match the experience of recall anywhere in the world. They are complete nonsense.
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.
Zac Goldsmith
There are no examples of that. There are examples of attempted recall on the back of gun control, but not a successful one. It is probably true, however, that where recall is possible MPs will think twice about making undeliverable pledges, which is not a bad thing. It is also likely that where pledges have to be broken, MPs would feel obliged to engage extensively with constituents to explain why that was necessary, and that is also a good thing.
Hundreds of thousands of constituents around the country have been sent the same template letter from Liberal Democrat Members, and been told that this measure will cost too much. I saw one of those letters a couple of days ago. Constituents have been told:
“Just one real Recall petition per constituency per Parliament could cost the taxpayer £100 million.”
That figure is completely bonkers. It inflates the Government’s own impact assessment by 300%, and assumes that each Member of this place will face the full recall—not just the 5%—at least once in every Parliament. If 650 Members of this place face recall in one Parliament, the cost is the very least of our problems.
Of course there are arguments against recall, but at their core those are arguments against democracy itself and against all elections. If those arguments prevail, I believe that we will have lost a golden opportunity, not just for voters but for us as Members of this great place. Recall would empower people to hold their MPs to account, and that ubiquitous moan that we have all heard—“You’re all the same; there’s no point voting and nothing will ever change”—would no longer make any sense. The mere existence of recall would give each of us an added, implied continuous mandate, and embolden us as a Parliament. I do not say that it would fix our democracy, but it would be a very big start.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman might be on to something, but I think that it might have to be called a relative renaissance. Polls have shown that the Conservative party’s figures have not increased much, if at all, in Scotland, although they are above those of the Labour party. It is not really much of a renaissance at all. However, I do not want to be distracted by the political ill weather for Labour and the Conservatives north of the border, because that is not the matter before the House this afternoon.
I hope that there is much agreement on the idea of a recall Bill, but the disagreement lies in whether we should have an open recall Bill or the more prescribed recall Bill that the Government propose.
I want to say quite a bit about the Government’s attitude and approach to the Bill. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) was absolutely right to say that among the problems with the Government’s Bill are its reliance on the Standards and Privileges Committee and the justice of that Committee. The right hon. Gentleman told us that he had looked into that matter, and it did not surprise me that there was such a justice differential between those inside the gilded circle and those outwith it.
The proposal for a 10% threshold is dangerous. A safer mechanism for recall would involve a 5% threshold, followed by 20% and then a simple majority in a referendum. This process should be an extension of democracy and, if we get to that point, there should be a secret ballot—or an Australian ballot, as it was originally called. The prescribed route also carries the danger that it mentions trigger conditions, such as a jailing. Mentioning the conditions would make a recall more likely because it would light up the minds of those in journalistic circles, who would start to crank up the machinery that could lead to what history suggests might sometimes be the wrong steps being taken.
I am thinking in particular of Terry Fields, who was jailed for 60 days in 1991 and was probably released to a hero’s welcome, as indeed was Tommy Sheridan in Scotland, although he was not an elected politician when he was also jailed for non-payment of the poll tax. The hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) made an important point about the Cyprus situation in the 1950s. He suggested that Members should be given a degree of latitude and have the freedom to speak their minds, because sometimes an uncomfortable truth is a great servant to us all.
The open route would allow us more easily to ignore some of the many reasons that the establishment might see as triggers for a recall, and allow us to take a more open approach. As the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) said in an intervention on the opening speech, it should be no longer MPs who define their own behaviour, but society at large. The open method allows the recall mechanism to be a dynamic process that takes account of circumstances. Some might feel that lying to the country or to Parliament to take the nation to war might reasonably be open to recall but that would not be included in legislation by the Government.
The overarching point is that recall should be a sanction of last resort. It should not be used much, and hopefully it will not be used much—it should be little needed and little used—but it is a sanction that should be available. At the stage we are at now in our ever-evolving democratic countries—evolving due to social media, certainly—the proposals before us would provide another arm of participatory democracy.
Whoever instigates a recall and whatever mechanism triggers it, it should have a reasonable chance of success. I mentioned the example of Terry Fields. He would have been re-elected anyway, and to use the recall mechanism against an MP who is clearly going to come back with a thumping majority would be an abuse. It should have a real chance of succeeding in removing the MP. As has been said, perhaps an MP removal mechanism is what it is. Therefore, and perhaps with the fear of the vexatious recall in mind as well, we might consider requiring a bond or deposit—some sum so that those engaged in this have to put some money where their mouths are, as do those who engage in elections or by-elections, in order for them genuinely to demonstrate to the wider public that this is not a whim.
Mr Kevan Jones
I have some sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman says, but that would not stop a wealthy individual. It would not stop the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), for example, as he could obviously afford to lose his deposit, and in the United States it did not stop people such as the Koch brothers, who put £2 million into the Colorado recall of the state Senators who introduced gun control. I sympathise with what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I am not sure this would stop big business and big interests.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman might be correct in some of that, but we do live in an imperfect world. All I would say to him is that this removes many of the imperfections and is an improvement on the current situation.
Mr Stuart
I take that point on board. For the entire period during which I have been involved with the Conservative party, I have for ever been hearing how old, out of touch and ludicrously right wing many of its members are. It was said that they would never select anyone to stand for Parliament who did not accord with their views. It turns out that whatever their views—in times past, if they had very strong views on capital punishment, they may have said in advance that they would only choose a candidate who believed in capital punishment—they eventually selected someone completely different, because they respected that person and wanted to back them. I put it to the hon. Lady that I am not sure that the many people who have been mentioned today would be disowned by their constituents for taking brave and unpopular decisions. They are quite likely to be backed in their local area, but I recognise that we are taking a risk, which is why I suggested a sunset clause.
Mr Kevan Jones
That may possibly be the case. However, if a very well-financed individual or organisation campaigned against a Member on subjects such as those mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), the Member would have to go through the recall process. Even if the MP were re-elected, they would have had to spend all their time on that. I am sure a lot of people would be put off from raising principled issues that have changed life in this country for the better.
NATO Summit
Lord Beamish Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the NATO conference, but before I do so, I am sure the whole House will join me in paying tribute to Jim Dobbin, who died suddenly this weekend. Jim gave his life to public service. He worked hard for his constituents, he loved this House of Commons and he contributed hugely to all its work. With his expertise in microbiology, he also did outstanding work in this House championing vaccines for children in the developing world. Though we may not have agreed on everything, we did agree about the important contribution of faith in politics—although, unlike Jim, I have to say I am not expecting to get a knighthood from the Pope, which Jim received, and much deserved it was, too. He will be missed by us all, and our thoughts are with his family at this time.
We have also heard this morning that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expecting their second baby. I am sure the House will join me in congratulating them on behalf of the whole country on this fantastic news and wishing them well in the months ahead.
The NATO summit in Wales saw the successful coming together of this vital alliance. Everyone could see its unity, its resolve and its determination to meet and overcome all the threats to our security. I want to thank the local council in Newport, the Welsh Assembly, the First Minister, the Secretary of State, our armed services and police and all those who worked so hard to deliver a safe, secure and successful summit. It was, I think, the biggest gathering of world leaders that has ever taken place in our country. Most of all, I want to thank the Welsh people for their incredibly warm welcome. They did our United Kingdom proud.
The summit reached important conclusions on Ukraine, on defence spending and the reform of NATO, on countering Islamist extremism, on the future of Afghanistan and on supporting our military and their families. I want briefly to take each one in turn.
First, on Ukraine, we welcome the ceasefire that has been in place since Friday. At the NATO summit, I chaired a meeting with President Poroshenko and the leaders of France, Italy, Germany and America to agree that what was needed was the implementation of a proper peace plan that respected Ukraine’s territorial integrity. NATO sent a clear message to Russia that what President Putin was doing was illegal and indefensible. We stand firmly behind Ukraine’s right to make its own decisions and not to have them dictated by Russian soldiers trampling on Ukraine’s sovereign soil.
We will continue our efforts to support Ukraine, including by providing financial assistance to improve its command, control and communication capabilities. Today’s new sanctions from the European Union will further ramp up the economic cost to Russia. They will make it harder for its banks and its energy and defence companies to borrow money. They will widen the ban on selling so-called dual goods, such as machinery and computer equipment, which could be used for military as well as civilian purposes. They will also prohibit the provision of services for the exploration and production of shale, deepwater and Arctic oil.
Secondly, the summit reached an important agreement on defence spending. One of the problems with NATO is that only a small number of countries have achieved the commitment to spend 2% of their GDP on defence. As a result, the share of spending by the largest country, the United States of America, continues remorselessly upwards and now accounts for around 70% of the total. That is not sustainable. The summit addressed that by agreeing the responsibility of those countries that have not achieved 2%. The conclusions were very clear about that. Through the Wales pledge, every NATO member spending less than 2% has now agreed to halt any decline in defence spending, to aim to increase it in real terms as GDP grows and to move towards 2% within a decade.
There was also a second target—namely, that a fifth of all defence budgets should be dedicated to major new equipment, because what matters most is having military assets that we can actually deploy. Here in Britain, we have the second largest defence budget in NATO and the biggest in the European Union. We have taken long-term and often difficult decisions to put our defence budget on a sustainable footing, and the fruits of that are now coming through.
We are equipping all three of our services with the best and most modern military hardware that money can buy. This includes a £3.5 billion contract for Scout armoured vehicles, which I announced on Friday—the largest such order in over three decades. [Interruption.] It includes new fleets of joint strike fighter and Voyager refuelling aircraft; 22 new A400M transport aircraft; new Astute hunter-killer submarines; Type 45 destroyers and Type 26 frigates; and HMS Queen Elizabeth, our brand new aircraft carrier—
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman keeps saying “Labour”. He might remember that Labour left us a £38 billion defence black hole.
At NATO, I announced that our second new carrier—
The Prime Minister
It is all very well to order them, but they actually have to be paid for. In a nutshell, that is the difference between a socialist and a Conservative. They dream about having money; we actually raise it and spend it.
The hon. Gentleman will be very pleased to hear that I announced at the NATO summit that that our second new carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, will also be brought into service. This will ensure that we always have one carrier available 100% of the time. This investment in our national security, our prosperity and our place in the world will transform our ability to project power globally, whether independently or together with our allies.
Turning to the wider reform of NATO, after the end of the cold war, NATO stood down its highest readiness force. At this summit, we decided to reverse that decision and scale up our readiness to respond to any threat. At the same time, we agreed to do more to build the capacity of other nations outside NATO, to help them with their defence capabilities. A new multinational spearhead force will be formed, and it will be deployable anywhere in the world within two to five days. That is vital in underlining our article 5 obligations to collective defence, and the UK will support that by providing a battle group and a brigade headquarters. We will also contribute 3,500 personnel to exercises in eastern Europe between now and the end of 2015, as part of NATO’s efforts to ensure a persistent presence on our eastern flank.
On capacity building, NATO has a vital role in helping other countries with their capacity to defend themselves against all threats, including terrorist threats. When we consider how many of the threats that NATO countries, including the UK, now face from the middle east, north Africa and elsewhere, we see that this capacity building is becoming ever more important. It was a key priority for the UK at the summit that we made progress. NATO will now undertake capacity-building missions, beginning in Georgia and Jordan, with the offer of a training mission for Iraq as soon as the new Iraqi Government are in place.
Next, the alliance was clear about the scale of the threat from Islamist extremism, and we agreed that we must use all the instruments at our disposal—humanitarian, diplomatic and military—to squeeze this barbaric terrorist organisation out of existence. We should be clear about what needs to happen: we will continue to support the Kurds, including by providing them with arms and training their troops; we will work to support a new and representative Iraqi Government, which we hope to see in place later this week; and the fight against ISIL must be led by the Iraqis themselves, but we will continue to encourage countries in the region to support this effort and to engage allies across the world. We will proceed carefully and methodically, drawing together the partners we need, to implement a comprehensive plan. Earlier today, I spoke to Ban Ki-moon to seek support at the United Nations for a broad-based international effort to confront ISIL, and I will be working on building that international support when I attend the United Nations General Assembly later this month.
Turning to Afghanistan, we called on the two presidential candidates to work together to deliver a peaceful election outcome and a new Government as swiftly as possible. They made a statement during the conference that they would make those endeavours, and it is vital that that comes about. The summit paid tribute to the extraordinary sacrifice made by all our armed forces in driving al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan and training the Afghan security forces to take control of their security. We reaffirmed our long-term commitment to supporting a peaceful, prosperous and stable Afghanistan, including through our development conference in London in November.
Finally, as our troops return home from Afghanistan, it is right that we do all we can to support them and their families. In Britain, we have the military covenant—a pledge of commitment between the Government and our military—and we are the first British Government to write this covenant into the law of the land. We have made it ever more real by taking a series of measures, including doubling the operational allowance; introducing free higher and further education scholarships; investing £200 million in helping our service personnel to buy homes; increasing the rate of council tax relief; signing up every single local council in our country in support of the military; and giving unprecedented support to military charities.
At the summit, we took our military covenant internationally, with every NATO member signing up to a new armed forces declaration, setting out their commitment to support their military and enabling all of us to learn from each other about how we can best do that. We will continue to do everything possible to look after those who serve our country and whose sacrifices keep us safe. This, I believe, was a successful NATO conference. It proved that this organisation is as important to our future security as it has been to the past, and I commend this statement to the House.
Local Growth Deals
Lord Beamish Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Greg Clark
I commend my hon. Friend, who has been an absolutely indefatigable campaigner for Portsmouth. That resulted in the Portsmouth city deal, which, as she has rightly said, involved the release of Ministry of Defence land that was not being used to make it available for the marine engineering businesses whose future is very bright across the south coast, and particularly in Portsmouth.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
The devolution of finance must not only be seen to be accountable but actually be accountable. What discussions has the Minister’s Department had about the appointment of Paul Woolston, the chair of the North East LEP, who has now been appointed to Middleton Enterprises, a company run by Jeremy Middleton, a well-known Conservative who is also on the LEP investment board? We also learned last week that the chief executive is now working for a Middleton company. Have the Minister or his Department had any discussions about this?
Greg Clark
Of course, I meet the local enterprise partnerships—all of them—regularly to discuss the kinds of deals we are announcing. The hon. Gentleman will know that the local authority leaders work very closely together—in fact, his own local authority leader, Simon Henig, is the chair of the combined authority—and that they are democratically elected, and I know that they make sure that taxpayers’ money is wisely spent.
Justice and Security Bill [Lords]
Lord Beamish Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Sir Malcolm Rifkind
I have no idea whether it is the same one or not; that will be a matter for Lord Carlile to deal with. He has served this country extremely well in these sensitive areas, and the hon. Gentleman should take account of that.
The whole problem is that the critics of these measures fail to take into account two things. First, although there can of course be qualifications under PII, including redactions and witnesses giving their evidence behind a screen, the core of the secret material cannot be revealed to the plaintiff without it being revealed to the whole world. It is not just a question of the plaintiff hearing it. Those of us who are privileged to serve on the Intelligence and Security Committee have seen examples of the intelligence material that would have had to be revealed if certain cases had not been settled at huge cost to the taxpayer.
In response to a comment by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), I must point out that this is not just a question of the identity of an individual agent or officer being revealed. It goes far beyond that, because that person could be protected by a screen or by being given anonymity in court in some other way. It is also a question of evidence involving operating methods, for example. The material could reveal how the intelligence agencies quite lawfully obtain their evidence.
It is worth reminding those who are going to vote against the Government how thankful we are that there have been no further terrorist outrages in this country since the 7/7 bombings. In every year since then, major terrorist plots have been prevented by the work of the intelligence agencies, and much of that work relied on obtaining highly sensitive information, sometimes from individuals who were not intelligence officers but who came from the very organisations and communities in which the plots were being hatched. If the methods by which such information is obtained cannot be kept secret, no one should come to the House saying how much they regret some future terrorist incident if that incident has taken place because the agencies have been prevented from getting the support and co-operation that they need.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Sir Malcolm Rifkind
I want to make one other point, if I may.
The other element that critics of the Bill do not take into account is that much of the information we are talking about can relate to misunderstandings on the part of the terrorists or criminals, who sometimes do not realise when their conversations are being listened to or when their property has been entered under lawful warrants and information obtained. They do not realise how stupid some of the precautions are that they take to protect their evil plans. That kind of information cannot be released in court. The plaintiff might be an innocent person, but if the information is released in court, it becomes available to the whole world, including the terrorist organisations and criminals themselves.
Mr Brazier
This has been a high quality debate, starting with a typically rigorous speech by the Minister without Portfolio. It has been particularly noticeable that, while there have been strong speeches on both sides, all three Members who have had responsibility for this matter—the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), who made an outstanding contribution—took the view that we have to have this kind of legislation, and that the amendments would not be helpful. I want to put forward a couple of underlying reasons why I believe firmly that we need the Bill and that the amendments—some of them, anyway—would wreck it, and then delve a little into the historical background. I am concerned that the civil liberties lobby is just a little bit too free in its claims about British judicial traditions.
The one voice that does not seem to have been heard anywhere in the debate is that of the intelligence service. Baroness Manningham-Buller said:
“At the moment there is no justice at all in civil cases where individuals sue the Government for compensation, claiming, say, mistreatment or complicity in torture. Because the secret material held by the authorities cannot be used in court, the Government is forced to settle without a judge examining the merits of the claim. This is immensely damaging”—
immensely damaging—
“to the reputation of the Government and the intelligence and security agencies which cannot defend themselves; to the taxpayer who has increasingly to stump up millions in compensation; and perhaps most importantly of all to the claimants who, while they may receive large cash settlements, do not get their cases heard and judgment reached.”
I have a further concern. A friend of mine, former SAS officer Colonel Richard Williams, who has allowed me to quote his name in the press, has recently been attacked in one of our newspapers with allegations of brutality. The allegations are lies from beginning to end. Bizarrely, they start with the claim that he is being investigated for wrongdoing in Iraq. As he has never been investigated in any shape or form, that is a lie before we even get into the specific allegations. But let us suppose just for a moment that somebody was to turn those allegations into a court case. The circumstances of the operation concerned in the allegations involve some extremely secret material—where the tip-offs came from, modus operandi and so on. Now, it is quite possible that this man, who has been decorated for gallantry and leadership twice and badly wounded—indeed, he had another operation for his wounds only last year—could find himself facing a court case while being extremely reluctant to use certain material in his own defence, because no procedure is available under which he could do so without the risk of breaching secrecy.
Mr Kevan Jones
Does the hon. Gentleman also agree that this concerns not just the sources of intelligence, but the operating systems of troops on the ground? If anything got into the public domain—for example, about operations in Iraq by special forces—it would limit future operations, if those tactics became known to our opponents.
Mr Brazier
Of course, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I used the phrase “modus operandi”. This brave officer led our special forces operation for so long in Iraq and did so well at a time when, frankly, other parts of our military operation were failing—the verdict of history is that sadly they did largely fail. The hon. Gentleman is right that this is not only about sources, but about modus operandi, but there is now a further wrinkle. Because the Government have committed to much more of what is generally called “upstream intervention”—putting small numbers of people into areas where they are not in charge or running the show, but simply mentoring, the dodgiest end of which will inevitably go to special forces—this is not only about our modus operandi, but about whether our relationships with host countries, which in almost every case will, I believe, do better in a range of different ways with advice from our special forces, will be possible at all.
I shall move on to the second part of my comments. In Committee, I listened again and again to hon. Gentlemen talking about ancient British traditions of justice. I have listened again and have been reading some of the contributions from the human rights lobby. Although they are perfectly entitled to their points of view and I am willing to listen to them with respect, they cannot claim that the current position of the civil rights lobby, which is reflected in some of these amendments, is in any way rooted in the traditions of British justice.
Let me quote what Lord Denning said in a deportation case some 40 years ago. He was speaking on the Hosenball case, which involved the deportation of, ironically, an American journalist. The case was decided unanimously in favour of the Home Secretary, but nevertheless Lord Denning felt that he ought to put some extra remarks on the record, just to remind people where the balance of British justice lay:
“But this is no ordinary case. It is a case in which national security is involved, and our history shows that, when the state itself is endangered, our cherished freedoms may have to take second place. Even natural justice itself may suffer a set-back. Time after time Parliament has so enacted and the courts have loyally followed.”
Time is brief and others are waiting to speak, so I will not go back to the earlier Liversidge v. Anderson case during the second world war, where by a 4:1 majority the locking up of everybody who happened to be German, with no procedure at all, was upheld. Suffice it to say, however, that this was the continuous view of the courts all the way through until the Belmarsh case. I will give one further quote. Ironically, I would like to quote Lord Hoffmann, one of the judges who found against the Government in the Belmarsh case, on the rather narrow grounds rooted in the then brand-new human rights provisions. In 2001, he commented in a lengthy judgment in the Rehman case:
“I shall deal first with the separation of powers… What is meant by ‘national security’ is a question of construction and therefore a question of law within the jurisdiction of the Commission, subject to appeal. But there is no difficulty about what ‘national security’ means. It is the security of the United Kingdom and its people. On the other hand, the question of whether something is ‘in the interests’ of national security is not a question of law. It is a matter of judgment and policy. Under the constitution of the United Kingdom and most other countries, decisions as to whether something is or is not in the interests of national security are not a matter for judicial decision. They are entrusted to the executive.”
The concessions that the Government have already made, even without going down the route of amendment 30, go much further than any court would have required 10 or more years ago. Whatever the claims of the human rights lobby, the British judicial system always used to understand the vital demands of our national security, and I urge the Government not to give any further ground.
Electoral Registration
Lord Beamish Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
The Lords has quite rightly rejected this Government’s attempt to gerrymander the new boundaries in their favour. Does my hon. Friend agree that they should concentrate on getting electoral registration up, so that when we redraw the boundaries, it will be done on the basis of the most accurate figures possible?
Paul Blomfield
I very much agree with that point, which I will move on to. The relationship between the boundary review and the number of people registered to vote—the basis on which we calculate boundaries—is an important issue. As it stands, the boundary review would exacerbate the problem, not simply because of under-registration, but because of the point in the electoral cycle at which that review would be conducted, with the next one being in December 2015.
I worry that individual registration threatens to make the situation worse, which is why I have argued that we should base our boundaries on adult population, not numbers of registered voters. Whether or not we go down that route, there is a need massively to improve voter registration, because if we do not, we risk creating a US-style democracy, with huge under-registration that excludes the disadvantaged and disengaged and focuses elections on the needs of the more privileged, so poisoning our politics.
I am sure that many measures will be proposed by my hon. Friends, but I want to concentrate on young people. From my election campaign, I can think of many examples of speaking to young people on the doorstep. At the outset of the conversation, it was clear that they had no intention of voting and that they would never have been on the electoral roll had it not been for their parents, but in many cases—the marked register confirms this—after that conversation and having engaged with the issues, they voted. That vote would otherwise have been denied them. The Government need to focus specifically on imaginative ways to ensure the effective registration of young people—working with schools, using social media and considering other ways to address that group.
I want to talk particularly about students. Not all students are young, but the vast majority are, and given the impact of Government policy on mature student entry, an even greater proportion of students will be young people in future. Many of them are worryingly disillusioned with democratic politics. The Liberal Democrats’ broken pledge on tuition fees—this is not a party point, but none of them is here to listen; it is of some concern that that great reforming party has chosen not to engage in the debate or to show any interest in enhancing electoral registration—has not simply damaged their party; it has damaged trust in politics for a whole generation of young people.
Both Sheffield’s great universities are in my constituency, with 32,000 of their students living there. They live there for at least 31 weeks a year, and many of them for 52 weeks; it is their main place of residence. They contribute to the economy and life of the city, and they have a right to have their voice heard in elections. At the university of Sheffield, there is currently block registration of all eligible students in university accommodation, but that is threatened by the legislation on individual voter registration. I assume that the Government do not think that our universities are guilty of electoral fraud, so I question the need to rule out block registration.
Even if that argument is not accepted, there is a need to mitigate that policy’s impact. The former finance officer of Sheffield university students union made the point about the difficulties of individual voter registration for students very forcefully. He said:
“When students first arrive at University and live in halls, amongst all the other things going on, registering to vote often isn’t a priority and it is comforting to know that it’s often done automatically. If this is changed then it would become another form to fill in during the whirlwind first few weeks away from home and some students, particularly those not engaged in democracy will not be registered.”
Mental Health (Discrimination) (No. 2) Bill
Lord Beamish Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 1, page 1, line 9, leave out from beginning to ‘, for’ in line 10 and insert—
‘(1) In section 1 of the Juries Act 1974 (qualification for jury service)—
(a) in subsection (1), omit paragraph (c) (but not the “and” after it),
(b) omit subsection (2), and
(c) in subsection (3), for “Part 2 of the Schedule” substitute “Schedule 1”.
(2) In Schedule 1 to that Act (the title to which becomes “Persons Disqualified for Jury Service”, with the title to Part 1 becoming “Persons subject to the Mental Health Act 1983 or Mental Capacity Act 2005” and the title to Part 2 becoming “Other Persons Disqualified for Jury Service”)’.
My amendment would make a minor technical change to the amendments the Bill makes to the Juries Act 1974. It would remove the term “mentally disordered persons” from section 1 of the Act and tidy up the cross-referencing between section 1 and the list of those disqualified for jury service in schedule 1. The amendment is supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell).
Specifically, the references to “Mentally disordered persons” in section 1 of the 1974 Act will be removed and further provisions made in section 1 consequential to that. That will leave the section so worded as to provide that those persons listed in schedule 1 to the 1974 Act will be disqualified from jury service. The title of schedule 1 to that Act will be amended to read “Persons Disqualified for Jury Service”. The headings to parts I and II of schedule 1 are amended accordingly, from “Mentally disordered persons” to “Persons subject to the Mental Health Act 1983 or Mental Capacity Act 2005” and from “Persons disqualified” to “Other persons disqualified for jury service” respectively. The substantive change that the Bill makes to the 1974 Act, which is to remove the disqualification on service as a juror from those who voluntarily receive treatment in the community for a mental health disorder, remains the same.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I support the amendment. It will not change the Bill’s original wording to a great extent, but the language implications are very important. We must ensure that we deal with people who suffer from mental illness without the stigma of titles, so this small amendment is important. Clause 2 is also very important. Since we started discussing the Bill, I have received numerous e-mails and correspondence about it. A solicitor wrote to me to say that although she practises in court every day, she cannot be a juror because she is currently undergoing treatment for a mental health condition. The amendment would make a small change to the language, but I think it is important for the wider debate and for the wider implications of the Bill to ensure that we end discrimination against people who suffer from mental illness.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I support the amendment and welcome the contribution from the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). I want to raise a point that I do not think is covered by the Bill but which is associated with the thought: whether someone who has or has had a mental health condition and who feels that they would not be capable of serving as a juror at a particular time can say so and whether that would be accepted by the court. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) might not be able to answer straight away, but I would be grateful if the Minister could let me know later, perhaps in writing.
Mr Kevan Jones
I congratulate the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) not only on selecting this subject for his private Member’s Bill but on eloquently arguing its case throughout its parliamentary stages. He can rightly congratulate himself—of course, he will feel in need of some congratulations in Croydon after yesterday’s by-election result—on arguing so strongly for it. As a member of the small club of individuals who have got a private Member’s Bill passed by the House—I hope to welcome him to it—I know about the hard work that has to go into steering a Bill through this House. He was right to thank the staff, who I think will not be encouraging him to put in for the ballot in future given the amount of work that they have done.
The Bill should be supported because it gets rid of anachronistic legislative provisions. The provision on the disqualification of Members of Parliament has changed very little since 1886. The only thing that has changed is the description of who has to draw up the report for you, Mr Speaker. Possibly some of the language has been modified over the years, but in effect the same provision still applies.
Another issue is jury service. The existing provisions stigmatise those who are receiving treatment for mental illness by saying that they can practise as a solicitor or a barrister but cannot serve on a jury. That makes no sense at all. The important provision about company directorships has not received a great deal of coverage during the passage of the Bill, but it will make a difference to company directors who suffer from mental illness.
As the hon. Gentleman said, the Bill is important not only for those provisions but for the broader message that it sends out about the view of this House and of society about mental illness. I, too, pay tribute to the organisations that he mentioned, which have campaigned and worked very hard not only on making sure that there is support for the Bill but on helping to ensure that the stigma around mental health is eradicated. Will the Bill in itself do that? No, it will not—I do not think that for one minute—but I hope that it will show, as the hon. Gentleman said, that this House is determined to ensure that mental health stigma becomes a thing of the past.
It will take time to change people’s attitudes, but the debate in this House on 14 June and the passage of the Bill show that mental illness is on the political radar and will not go away. I encourage the House to continue the debate because our recent debates show that this is an issue that we should talk about. Mental illness is often not prioritised in terms of resources or in the workplace because it is not talked about. Let us hope that we will continue to talk openly about mental illness, not as something that is an impediment to people making a full contribution to public life or to their own personal life and development, but as something that, with effective treatment and support, allows individuals to make a proper and rightful contribution to society.
I thank the hon. Member for Croydon Central again for bringing the Bill forward and congratulate him on the way in which he has done so.
Mr Kevan Jones
I agree with that point, but there is no difference between that example and a Member who has a stroke and goes into a long-term vegetative state. There is no provision to remove such a Member. The Bill is just saying that mental illness should be on a par with other medical conditions.
Philip Davies
I agree with that point. I am merely using this opportunity to ensure that people know exactly what the Bill would do and to check whether there are potential anomalies. I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point that the same situation applies to people with other conditions and that there should perhaps be no difference between them.
Another anomaly that may arise is that somebody could stand for Parliament and continue as a Member of Parliament who may not be eligible to vote because of the existing regulations on voting. As this is a Third Reading debate, I must talk only about what is in the Bill, rather than what should be in the Bill, but I hope that you will allow me to say in passing, Mr Speaker, that perhaps the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central in this field is not yet done. Although I support the Bill, it might create anomalies that we have to come back to on another occasion. I therefore hope that this is a work in progress.
I am not sure whether the provisions on juries deal with somebody who has just been released from being sectioned or who ought to have been sectioned but has not been because nobody knows about their condition. Perhaps the Bill might have been better if it had included an additional time period for such people. I am not sure whether the lack of such a period will cause a problem. The point has been well made throughout the debate that mental illness is not necessarily permanent or constant, but safeguards need to be in place to limit the exposure of those with recent conditions and those who have perhaps not been identified.
The proposals on company directors cover the model articles of association for normal companies and right-to-manage companies. Unless I have missed something, which is not impossible, there is nothing in the Bill to prevent a company from using the old provisions in its articles of association if it chooses to deviate from the model articles of association. Will companies that are already in existence be affected by the Bill? If so, and if it has an immediate effect, what will happen if a company has already invoked this particular part of their articles of association from the model version and is in the middle of proceedings? If the Bill affects only new companies, does that mean that the 2.5 million companies that are already registered with Companies House will not be covered? It is important that we deal with the model articles of association because they are the default position, but have we missed something with regard to individual articles of association? What happens if a company has only one director and they have the most serious long-term mental health condition?
I support my hon. Friend—the whole House should support and congratulate him—but there are anomalies in the Bill, and the Bill might create even more. I hope the House can tackle those in future to ensure that we do what my hon. Friend and other hon. Members intend, which is to give the best possible opportunities to people with mental health problems, who for far too long have been unfairly discriminated against under the law.
Gavin Barwell
With the leave of the House, I would like to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and to make one final point. I have a very high regard for my hon. Friend. As he said, we do not agree on every issue, but he is an excellent Member of this House. He made two points and I thought it was worth making one further point in response. He asked about the value of repealing legislation if it has never been used. There is a danger with the law as it currently stands of an hon. Member with a health condition being reluctant to seek medical treatment because of the consequences—the risk of losing their job.
The Speaker’s Conference recommended that a Select Committee might look at how the wider issue of the lack of constituents’ representation if their MP has a serious mental or physical health condition is addressed beyond the informal arrangements to which the Minister referred.
Mr Kevan Jones
That is a problem because, as the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith) said, I think most parties will put informal arrangements in place, as they do for MPs who suffer from long-term physical conditions, or those who take holidays on reality TV shows in Australia.
Mental Health (Discrimination) (No. 2) Bill
Lord Beamish Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker). I shall start by declaring two interests. First, I am the president of the Chester-le-Street branch of Mind in my constituency. Secondly, I have suffered in the past from depression and still occasionally have what I call my “black dog” days, although I now know how to deal with them, thanks to the help that I have received over the years.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) on introducing the Bill. I also congratulate—as did the hon. Member for Broxbourne—Lord Stevenson of Coddenham on his tireless work in this area. I look forward to the hon. Member for Croydon Central joining an exclusive club, of which I am a member, when the Bill becomes an Act. It is difficult for a Back-Bench Member to get a Bill enacted into law, and they need to do a great deal of work, not only on the Bill’s preparation but on ensuring that they are on top of all the issues. Back Benchers do not have an army of civil servants to help them. When I introduced my Bill, which became the Christmas Day (Trading) Act 2004, I would certainly have struggled without the help of my dedicated researcher.
Like the hon. Member for Broxbourne, I have had a very positive experience since I spoke on 14 June about my mental illness. I have received thousands of e-mails, letters and other communications from people I know and from complete strangers from all walks of life. I have found it quite a humbling experience. Actually, I suspected all along that I might get such a response.
In the lead-up to today’s debate, I have also received a lot of supportive letters and e-mails. I have also been urging other people to support this worthwhile Bill. Earlier in the week, however, I received a communication from—I shall try to use my language carefully—an ill-informed individual who asked, “Why does this matter? Aren’t you just trying to make an exception for MPs? Why should they be different?” As the hon. Member for Croydon Central and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) have already pointed out, this is not just about Members of Parliament. This is about trying to lift the stigma that, unfortunately, even in 2012, still attaches to mental health, and about helping people to come forward to get the support that they need.
When I was thinking about what I was going to say today, I decided to look back at the history of the legislation on this issue. The thing that saddened me is that it has not changed a great deal in 126 years. The use of language might be different but what the legislation actually does has not changed since 1886. Earlier, in July 1849, the then Member for Thirsk, John Bell, was considered, in the language of the day, to be a lunatic. The House of Commons set up a body entitled the Commission of Lunacy, which concluded that he was, in its word, a “lunatic”. He was telling his constituents and friends that he was a bird, and that he could fly faster than a bird because he oiled his wings. The commission found him to be a lunatic, but could do nothing about it. Sadly, he died in 1851.
The Lunacy (Vacating of Seats) Act 1886 has already been mentioned. The very good House of Commons Library found me a copy of it, so that I could see how the law differed from the present legislation. Apart from the use of language, nothing very much has changed. If someone becomes aware of a Member of Parliament being of unsound mind, they are still required to report it to the Speaker. That is a legal obligation under the 1886 Act, whose provisions require magistrates or other persons in whose care the Member might be placed, including those in charge of lunatic asylums or other areas where a lunatic might reside, to certify the committal or detention of the Member to the Speaker.
There is some great language in the 1886 Act. In those days, the Speaker had to submit a certificate
“if the place of such reception, committal, or detention is in England, to the Commissioners in Lunacy in England; if such place is in Scotland, to the Board of Commissioners in Lunacy in Scotland; and if such place is in Ireland, to the Inspectors of Lunatic Asylums in Ireland.”
A report had to be drawn up on the condition of the Member of Parliament in question. If necessary, after six months another report had to be drawn up. If the individual was found, in the language of the day, still to be a lunatic, the Speaker would then make the seat vacant and issue a warrant for a by-election. There was no right of appeal.
I then looked at the Mental Health Act 1959, hoping that attitudes might have become a bit more progressive and that things might have changed. The basis of process was exactly the same, however. The only things that had changed were the language and the people who needed to commission the report. In the 1959 Act, the Member was to be visited and examined
“where the member is to be visited in England and Wales or in Northern Ireland, by the President of the Royal College of Physicians of London”—
and
“in Scotland, by the President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and the President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, acting jointly”.
So nothing had changed apart from the people who needed to draw up the reports. There was still no right of appeal against their decisions, and the Member could still be disqualified if they were found still to be of unsound mind after six months.
I felt sure that the situation would have radically changed by 1983, but the Mental Health Act of that year retains the basis of the 1886 legislation. The procedure still involves the need to report Members who are considered to be of unsound mind, as well as the production of a report, and a further report after six months. The only change is that, under section 141(3):
“The registered medical practitioners…shall be appointed by the President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and shall be practitioners appearing to the President to have special experience in the diagnosis or treatment of mental disorders.”
We therefore still have on the statute book a law that dates back to 1886. The only change since that time relates to the people who draw up the reports for the Speaker on whether they consider the Member to be suffering from a mental disorder. There is still no right of appeal, although there would be in most tribunals. It is therefore important that this Bill should be passed through Parliament, and I welcome the support for it from the Government and those on the Opposition Front Bench.
The 1983 Act has never been used in relation to a Member of Parliament, but section 141 is still on the statute book. Other countries around the world, including former eastern bloc countries, use mental health to silence opposition. Sadly, in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union, that is still happening today. We have a piece of legislation on our statute book that could be used for that purpose and, if we are to set an example to the rest of the world, it is right that we should pass this Bill.
John Bell died before any legislation was introduced, and he therefore could not be disqualified. The 1886 Act has been used for this purpose only once. Charles Leach was elected to represent Colne Valley in West Yorkshire in 1910, and disqualified in 1916. Interestingly, in the 1910 election, he defeated Victor Grayson. Anyone who knows the history of that period will know that Victor Grayson disappeared, and some might argue that he was another individual who suffered from some type of mental illness.
From what I have read about this former Member for Colne Valley, he was a quite independent minded and progressive individual. He started as a member of the Independent Labour party, but his mental health deteriorated—obviously during a period in which the Liberals were in office—in 1910, and he then stood for Colne Valley. He was also a Methodist preacher and he was appointed as a chaplain to the armed forces. During the first world war, he had to visit in London hospitals those who had been injured on the western front. His mental health clearly deteriorated over time. He was not, of course, sectioned in those days, but he was a committed to what was the aptly named Northumberland house, which was a private lunatic asylum in north London, under the powers of the 1886 Act. Sadly, he died in 1919, aged 72. Some people say that if the legislation has been used only once, what is its purpose?
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
Speaking as the Member now representing Colne Valley, I want to praise my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell). I also want to praise the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), too, for giving way and for the way in which both he and my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) have spoken so honestly about their own mental health issues. Today is the first day I have ever attended debates on private Members’ Bills; I have been inspired to do so on this important issue. Someone very close to me is tackling mental health issues, so it is an emotional day for me as well. Because the hon. Member for North Durham mentioned Colne Valley, I thought I would stand up to praise him and others who have talked so passionately and emotionally about this important issue.
Mr Jones
I am very grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I would like to give a plug for my right hon. Friend Lord Clark of Windermere, who is another former Member for Colne Valley. If anyone wants to read a good book on Victor Grayson, I would recommend Lord Clark’s book—a very interesting read.
As to the need for changing the legislation if it has been used only once, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South said, it is necessary because it stigmatises people suffering with their mental health. There is no such provision for people with physical disabilities. It is possible for an MP to have a stroke or to be in a coma, yet there is no mechanism for removing such an MP from this House. Some Members may recall the vote of confidence in 1979. If the stories that go around are to be believed, some individuals who voted in it were brought into Palace Yard when they were allegedly not compos mentis—and died shortly afterwards. Their alleged condition was no hindrance to them voting.
Is this important for MPs? Yes, it is. Over the last few months, I have received e-mails from young people. One moving one was from a Cambridge graduate who was going through a difficult depression. She said that she had always wanted to enter politics and be a local councillor—I have to say that I questioned her mental health because she was a Conservative—and that what the hon. Member for Broxbourne and I had said had given her some hope that people could still enter public life without any stigma over their mental health. What we are doing under current legislation is writing off an entire group of people who can make perfectly valid contributions to society in whatever role they play.
Another e-mail I received was from a lawyer. She said that she had suffered from depression in the past and was still on medication, yet she practised every week in courts in Leeds. As she said, under the present legislation, she can practise law, but she cannot be a juror. That makes complete nonsense of the law. As we see from examples like this, it is important to raise the wider issue of how we de-stigmatise mental health.
This is the second occasion in only a matter of months on which we have debated mental health in this Chamber. That is important because, as others have said, we are seen to be in touch with what is going on in the wider community. Since I spoke on 14 June—this applies to the hon. Member for Broxbourne, too—I have been surprised by the number of people I meet who say, on the quiet, that they or people close to them have suffered from mental illness. I said it on 14 June and I will say it again—there are no barriers to mental health issues; mental illness can affect anyone.
Following the debate on 14 June, three individuals—I will not mention them by name—contacted me, and reinforced the point about there being no barriers. The first was a senior chief executive of a large council in the north, who I have known for many years. She is a very strong individual, probably the last person anyone would think had suffered from mental illness. Perhaps the most remarkable was a retired general with whom I worked when I was the Minister for veterans in the Ministry of Defence. Again, he is the last person anyone would think had suffered from depression, but he had and, as he said, he still does in his retirement. Most of his peers would have been quite surprised if they knew this. The third individual is a very good friend of mine who is a senior executive in a well-known plc at board level. No one passing him on the street, watching him speak on television or reflecting on his competent manner in running his large international business would think that he had suffered from severe depression. Those examples show that there are no barriers to mental health problems; they can affect everyone.
The hon. Member for Croydon Central paid tribute to Rethink Mental Illness and the Time for Change campaign, which is making a real difference. The Royal College of Psychiatrists should also be mentioned as well as Mind, which has done much in recent work to raise awareness. The clear message that needs to go out is that this is something we need to talk about. It is no good thinking that these issues affect only a small percentage of the population; it affects many.
I welcome the well-known individuals who have spoken out about their own mental health. Alastair Campbell has been instrumental in the Time for Change campaign, along with Ruby Wax and Stephen Fry. It is important that they have spoken out; they are successful people, perhaps even role models, when it comes to talking about this issue. I congratulate Channel 4 on its season a few weeks ago, when an entire week featured programmes about mental health and people who suffered from mental illness. It showed again the variety of individuals who can suffer from it.
Another clear message I want to send out today is that mental illness is no barrier to making a productive contribution to life—whether it be in public life, family life or in the local community. The more we talk about the issue, the better. It will take time to erase the stigma that is still there around mental illness, but I think we are making great strides and that this Bill is an important step forward.
In closing, I say again that we should talk about this issue more—in this place and elsewhere. I am not going to say to individuals in this Chamber, or anywhere else, who have suffered from mental illness that they should speak about it if they do not feel comfortable doing so, as it is an entirely personal decision. I am not pointing fingers and saying that people should do this. I leave affected individuals out there today with this thought—one with which I know the hon. Member for Broxbourne agrees. Since I spoke out—it was not an easy thing to do; but, in hindsight, the right thing to do—I have been overwhelmed by the support I have received not just from colleagues throughout the House but from people elsewhere. To any people sitting at home watching today’s debate who are suffering from the loneliness, agonies and dark places to which depression takes them, I say that they are likely to be surprised at the response they would get—from colleagues, families and friends—if they opened up about their problems. I understand that this is difficult to do when people are in the depths of depression, which is a very private thing. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South said, people often feel ashamed, but they should not be afraid and they should talk about it. If they opened up, I think they would be very surprised at the support they receive from a lot of people.
Mr Kevan Jones
I welcome the hon. Lady to her position. I, too, welcome the report by the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison). Will the hon. Lady also recognise the work that I and my predecessors as Minister for veterans did in the last Labour Government to advance the cause of veterans’ mental health?
Miss Smith
The hon. Gentleman is correct and I certainly recognise that work. Today is a day for recognising the work of successive Governments in many spheres of policy and human sympathy.
Turning back to today’s debate, tackling stigma and discrimination is at the heart of the Government’s mental health strategy. I join all Members here today, who have said many times that it cannot be right in the 21st century for somebody to be automatically expelled from this place because they have had a mental health illness. That sends out entirely the wrong message: that if one has mental health problems, one’s contribution is not welcome in public life. That has applied not only to the House of Commons, but to juries and directorships. In February last year, the Government announced that section 141 of the Mental Health Act 1983 would be repealed when a suitable legislative vehicle became available. This Bill is that vehicle, and we are glad to see that issue linked to similar amendments on company directors and jurors.
This issue goes well beyond the business of government and opposition. Shifting public attitudes and behaviour requires a major and substantial social movement. The Government are doing their bit within that. February last year saw the publication of the Government’s strategy on mental health entitled, “No health without mental health”. The strategy recognised that mental health is central to our quality of life and to our economic success, individually and collectively. It is interdependent with the success that any Government might hope for in improving training, education and employment, and in tackling the persistent problems that scar our society, from homelessness through to violence, substance abuse and other forms of crime.
The title of the strategy, “No health without mental health”, captures our ambition to mainstream mental health in this country. That concept has been referred to many times today. The Government expect parity of esteem between physical and mental health services. I know, from the comments of the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, that the Opposition also want that.
Miss Smith
My hon. Friend is, once more, absolutely correct. In this arena, as in so many others, it is vital for the Government to work with the private sector, the voluntary sector and anybody in any capacity to achieve our aims. We are talking about broad-scale cultural change. We need the private sector, whether in a macho or non-macho environment, to stand up and say that it cares about mental health and wants people to be well supported. I want that to happen in all walks of life.
Mr Kevan Jones
I note what the Minister says about mental health being at the heart of Government policy. I know that she is new in her post, but I ask her to have urgent discussions with her colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions about the tests by Atos that many of our constituents are facing. People who are affected by mental health issues, in particular, are having a very difficult time and there are some grave injustices that need to be put right.
Miss Smith
I recognise the subject that the hon. Gentleman raises, which he also mentioned earlier. I do not think that today is the right time for me to go into that matter in detail; the cross-party consensus might be affected if I did. We do need to get that process right, as we need to get right many processes of administration and welfare, in its broadest sense, across government. I am sure that my colleagues at the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Health will have heard his plea. As a member of the Government, I certainly want us to get that process right, and I will work with colleagues to achieve that.
To build on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne, we need to work with partners on the mental health strategy. It is not possible for the Government to say, “It shall be so.” We need to ensure that the right outcomes are delivered locally and are driven by good evidence. We must cast the net wide to do that. The challenges are enormous and extremely difficult. That can be seen, on an individual level, when we have conversations on this matter in our constituency surgeries. However, the rewards of getting this right are vast. That is part of the point of today’s debate.
It is often quoted that at least one in four of us will experience mental health problems at some point in our life. What is less often quoted is that about half of people with a lifetime mental health problem experience their first symptoms by the age of 14. That is a startling statistic among the sea of statistics in this debate. By promoting good mental health across society and by intervening early, particularly in the crucial childhood and teenage years, we can help to prevent mental illness from developing and mitigate its effects when it does. Only a sustained approach across the course of life will equip us to meet the enormous social, economic and environmental challenges, and to deliver the benefits to the people who need them, which is why we are here today.
When mental health services work well, they work well with the public sector, the private sector and the voluntary sector, and they help people to overcome disadvantage and to fulfil their potential. Any action on mental health, from a Government or otherwise, is not only a mental health strategy but a social justice strategy. I know that that is what all of us here today stand for.
Miss Smith
My hon. Friend’s attitude to the Whips Office is well documented and understood in the House. I pay tribute to him for his independence of spirit and his tenacity in pursuing not only mental health issues but a range of others, and for turning his face against the establishment whenever possible. If I may be so cheeky, I endorse his request for that particular member of the Whips Office to be on the Committee. It may be well without my powers to do so—I am sure that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, or powers greater than any of us, will advise me about that shortly. My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) has campaigned tirelessly on the matter and deserves recognition for doing so.
Mr Kevan Jones
May I also request that when the Bill goes into Committee, we have a Health Minister dealing with it?
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
I would like to say a few words to sum up the debate. First, I welcome to the Chamber my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who is a good friend. When he arrived, he told me that he had been following proceedings closely, and I asked whether he had also been following them with approval. As he correctly pointed out, if it had been with disapproval, he would have been here talking for two and a half hours.
I thank all hon. Members who have spoken, including the hon. Members for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) and for North Durham (Mr Jones), and my hon. Friends the Members for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) and for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) made an encouragingly brief speech, at least from my point of view. If my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip has been following proceedings—I am sure the duty Whip will have noted this—he will be aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North cannot find his way into the Chamber without his contact lenses. I thank the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) and my hon. Friends the Members for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) and for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) for their contributions. All the speeches were excellent, and I believe that today’s debate has shown the House at its best.
Due to the changes in the rules and proceedings of the House, not only have I listened to the speeches, but I have followed the reaction to our debate on social media. What has happened in the Chamber means a lot to a great many people and I may well get in touch with hon. Members who have spoken to ask whether they would like to serve on the Committee.
I thank the two Front-Bench speakers, and in particular I echo the point raised by the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) about dementia. I lost my father to Alzheimer’s disease, and although Governments of both colours have made real strides in recent years, we still need to do a lot more to tackle that issue. My hon. Friend the Minister is new to her brief, but she showed a good grasp of all the issues the debate covers. To reassure the hon. Member for North Durham, it was good to see a Health Minister and a Justice Minister on the Front Bench earlier in the debate.
Mr Kevan Jones
My only concern is that the Cabinet Office Minister said that the Bill has the full support of the Deputy Prime Minister, and his recent track record of getting legislation through is not very good.
Gavin Barwell
The hon. Gentleman tempts me into the debate on House of Lords reform, on which not necessarily all my colleagues agree with my views, but I will not return to it.
I should like to emphasise a few points from the debate. First, there is a consensus in the House that changing the law in and of itself does not change society overnight, but it does send a clear signal. Such changes have happened in my adult lifetime. When I was a child, an Asian family tried to buy a house in our road—they would have been the first Asian family to do so. Disgustingly, some of the people on our road tried to persuade the family who were considering selling the house not to sell to an Asian family. When that barrier was broken and that first Asian family moved into the road, people found that they were normal, decent people, and the problem went away overnight. Attitudes on race have changed a great deal, although not enough.
I also recall with great shame my teenage attitudes on sexuality—attitudes of which I am not proud. Attitudes in society to sexuality have also changed a great deal, and we need to change attitudes to mental health. When I was growing up, my perception was that mental health problems affected very few people. As I said, two of my close personal friends over the past 20 years have been affected by mental health conditions. I now see how many people are affected by it, because that includes their friends and family. It is not a case of people either having a mental condition or being perfectly healthy; there is a continuum.
Secondly, the hon. Member for North Durham paid tribute to a number of public figures who have been open about their conditions. He mentioned Alastair Campbell, the former Prime Minister’s press secretary, who has spoken out repeatedly—he is very brave to have done so given the high profile role he had. I should like to mention a sporting figure, Marcus Trescothick, who has shown incredible courage. I have read his autobiography, which is an extremely moving account of his experiences. We have debates on mental health in the House, but it also means a great deal when those who have a high profile in other spheres of public life take the decision to talk openly and honestly about their experiences.
Thirdly, as the hon. Gentleman said, people need to tell those close to them about their condition, but the reaction they get might not be what they expect. I have been on a variety of TV and radio shows to talk about and promote the Bill. I will never forget a phone-in on Iain Dale’s show on London’s Biggest Conversation. A number of calls we took were from people suffering from profound depression and other mental health conditions. One caller could not believe that any of the people in his life would want anything more to do with him if he explained to them how he was feeling. My message, as the friend of two people who have mental health conditions, was that friends will want to know and to provide care and support. If they do not want to do so, they are not proper friends. I therefore conclude, as the hon. Gentleman did, by saying that people who are suffering should know that those who care enough will want to know and to provide help and support.
I thank all hon. Members who have spoken in the debate and those who have listened to our proceedings. I very much hope the House gives the Bill a Second Reading.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Beamish Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I said, the latest figures taken last year by the Defence Analytical Services Agency indicate a sharp increase to 75% of service personnel now registered to vote. That is up from 69% in 2009 and 60% in 2005.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I am pleased that the Deputy Prime Minister recognises the efforts made by the previous Government to encourage servicemen and women to register to vote. What he should be looking at, however, is whether those people could vote by internet. Most have access to it—at Camp Bastion and other bases around the world—so this would increase participation.
The Deputy Prime Minister
It is always worth looking to see whether we could use or deploy e-voting. As the hon. Gentleman probably knows, it poses some serious security issues. It has been looked at in the past and we will continue to look at it. The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but most people who have looked at internet voting feel that there is a real issue about whether it can be done in a secure and safe way. As I say, we will continue to look at it.