Recall of MPs Bill

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Huppert]

First, just because somebody can be recalled does not mean they would automatically be recalled. How to phrase that in the code would be an interesting question. Trying to have repeated recalls of those Members would be a somewhat futile and repetitive exercise, as it was with the case of Charles Bradlaugh, the Member for Northampton. He was elected three times as an atheist and refused to take a religious oath. The rules were eventually changed because it was made quite clear that his electorate wanted him. I think that, in the case of the Members the hon. Gentleman is referring to, there would have to be some sort of accommodation that there would not be recall elections for that process.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

rose—

[Dr Huppert]

That may be addressed by the proposals from the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), who I suspect is about to say that.

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[Mark Durkan]

What would be the hon. Gentleman’s guarantee that nobody’s constituents in Northern Ireland would be prone to engage in a futile or repetitive exercise?

[Dr Huppert]

I would certainly give no guarantee of that kind. It is important to say that the proposals we are making at the moment do not deal with this issue. I am suggesting that the code of conduct should be updated. I am very happy to have a discussion on the details of that, but it is not germane in detail to this amendment—they are separate processes.

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[Dr Huppert]

I think the right hon. Gentleman’s point is answered by amendment 8, which has a fuller definition of misconduct. I hope he will have a chance to take a look at that precise point.

Amendment 24 adds another recall trigger: if a Member has been convicted of an offence under the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009—providing false or misleading information for allowances claims—whether or not it has led to a prison sentence. The amendment was proposed in Committee by the Opposition and, given the particular sensitivities of the issue, we fully support the proposal. It is a good idea. Similarly, amendment 15 provides another trigger: if any Member is convicted of misconduct in public office, whether or not they are imprisoned—something that has never happened to a Member before, but which does happen on a semi-regular basis, sadly, to police officers in particular. It seems inconceivable that an MP convicted of such an offence could be immune from recall, so I hope the House will support that amendment too.

Amendment 14 tackles the time frame for suspensions from the House to count and ensures that only suspensions after the Committee on Standards has produced a report are involved, thus excluding those from the Speaker alone. Again, this was an idea proposed by the Opposition in Committee and it is sensible. The other amendments that my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) and I have supported deal with a range of technical details—not least the need to add words such as “third”, “fourth” and “fifth” to legislation that frequently enumerates conditions—as well as more substantial matters, such as historical offences, which I will leave to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife to explain.

Lastly, there are the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and the amendment to his new clause 4, from the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie). I have particular sympathy for the amendment to the new clause, which follows on from the work of Charles Bradlaugh to expand the oath to allow more Members to take it honestly. I am therefore supportive of the ideas of the amended new clause 4. However, I am concerned by the proposal in new clause 5, even though I recognise much of the wording has been taken from my new clauses. It is reasonable to ask a court to consider misconduct offences, but it is much harder to ask it to judge abstract conceptions such as leadership. Do we have any idea how a court could judge whether we in this House had displayed adequate leadership?

I look forward to hearing comments from across the House on the amendments, but I intend to test the will of the House on all amendments, in particular new clauses 2 and 6, as well as the consequential amendments, and, if they are not accepted, I shall support those proposed by the hon. Members for Dunfermline and West Fife and for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), rather than passing the buck to the other, unelected House.

[Mark Durkan]

The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) has already touched on new clauses 4 and 5, which stand in my name, and amendment (a) to new clause 4, which has not been selected, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie).

I should clarify that the purpose of new clause 4 is to answer a question that I and other hon. Members posed when we discussed the Bill in Committee and on Second Reading. There is no job description for MPs, so if we are creating the principle of recall—a principle I fully endorse: I believe recall should be possible at the initiative of constituents and the electorate—it is important to have a yardstick. If we are affirming that MPs have and owe that degree of accountability to their constituents, there should be a clear basis on which constituents can rightfully wrest the exercise of that right. We had all sorts of circular arguments about whether having an open petition system could lead to all sorts of specious and spurious grounds that were motivated by partisan or other interests. I believe it was important to create a basis on which MPs could subscribe to the possibility of recall by acknowledging from day one when they take their seats here that they are subject to that degree of accountability and owe service to their constituents. That is why I support the concept of MPs taking a new pledge.

It is rather strange that we are pursuing a Bill that is creating the idea that a strong rule of accountability is to be translated into a recall, yet whenever MPs come here to assume their seats, all they do is issue words in the form of an oath or an affirmation about allegiance to the Crown, which many of them do not actually believe. I am not sure that that does anything for the credibility or reputation of politics when the first thing that politicians do in taking their seats is to recite words that they might not believe. Those who believe in those words should absolutely be able to recite them, but it is important that, regardless of whether Members believe in the affirmation or the oath, we should utter a pledge in respect of our parliamentary standards.

Given that hon. Members proposed amendments in Committee that made reference to the MPs’ code of conduct and given the importance of expenses and other relevant issues that could motivate a recall, we need to recognise the significance of the seven standards of public life, which appeared in the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, for this Bill. Hence the pledge I propose in new clause 4 has MPs, on taking their seats, affirming that they will abide by the MPs’ code of conduct and honour the seven standards of public life as they are now. Those standards could, of course, be revised and extended in future. The new clause would leave the phrasing of the pledge open.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

I apologise for not being in my place at the start of the debate, but I am very interested in this Bill. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that there are five absentee Sinn Fein Members who are obviously not going to turn up and take any pledge in this House or assume their seat any time soon, if ever. What would be the sanction for such Sinn Fein MPs who refused to sign any pledge?

[Mark Durkan]

I take the hon. Lady’s point, but if she looks at the new clause, she will see that an MP subscribing to the pledge may do so

“(a) in writing; or (b) in person at the same time as taking the Oath required by the Parliamentary Oaths Act 1866.”

So anybody elected to this House on the basis of serving their constituents in the way that Sinn Fein Members pledge they will serve their constituents could not take their seats or sign on to take their seats. Sinn Fein Members could fulfil the requirement by signing the pledge “in writing”. That is entirely feasible, so my new clause would not create any barrier or impediment for Sinn Fein Members—or, indeed, for any other Member elected on the basis that they will not take up their seats in this House, but will use their seats in whichever way they won their mandate for.

[Lady Hermon]

I am most grateful to the hon. Member for allowing me to intervene a second time. I understood that there were the alternatives of saying the words of the pledge when Members take up their seats here or of making the pledge in writing. My question, however, was what the sanction is for MPs, including Sinn Fein Members, who do not take the pledge either in writing or orally.

[Mark Durkan]

I have not gone as far as that; it could mean a further sanction that if people do not take the pledge, they will be deemed not to have taken up their seats. That could be one way of doing it. We could say that expenses and other things would be paid only in circumstances where the MP has signed the pledge.

The standards required by the pledge would include due observance of all rules and principles involving such matters as expenses which relate to the code of conduct or to the “standards of public life”. All the requirements are parliamentary standards. It is possible that a Member’s status in respect of allowances and facilities would kick in only when the pledge was signed, but that is a detail.

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I agree that it would be better for the decision to be made by the electorate—by the court—but is not the problem with the pledge being determined by the court that the pledge is fundamentally political rather than legal?

[Mark Durkan]

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point, but it can be legal up to a point; there could be some matters on which a clear-cut judgment could be made. I have chosen to offer the route through the court simply because it seemed to me that there was a will or a mood in Committee saying, “Well, if we’re going to allow any element of public petition to recall, then going to an election court could be the way that could be done.” I have simply taken that point and offered this new clause to try to test Members on whether they will follow through on the logic of the argument they made in Committee.

I do not commend the model in new clause 5 above all others. I still prefer the open rolling petition around a clear issue, but, again, I think that the open rolling petition should be on the basis of a pledge. I think the pledge as the basis for those petitions would create a much clearer standard for the public. It would also create a clearer standard for MPs, who would know, if they had committed to the pledge, whether they had abided by the code of conduct and could show whether they had upheld the standards of public life. That should not be too much to ask. MPs should not feel, “Oh, it’s hard to prove that we have upheld the standards of public life or lived up to the code of conduct.” It would send a very dangerous signal if Members felt that a pledge about the MPs code of conduct and the standards of public life would be difficult to uphold or could be abused in some untoward way. Then we would be seen to be trying to find ourselves some highly privileged protection where we decide that we always know best, even about the worst that we have done.

That is the simple point of new clause 5, which I do not intend to press to a Division. Its purpose is to ensure that if we are to improve the Bill, we take into account the absence from the Bill of a clear tool available to the public. Also, we need to make good the serious omission that we have all acknowledged—in circumstances where there is no serious job description for MPs, where is the bottom line? The new clause offers a bottom line.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

It is worth taking stock of where we are. The Government’s Bill still has no friends in its current form. It still proposes a system of recall that is possible only in the narrowest of circumstances and, in most cases, still only by permission of MPs. It will do nothing to empower voters. For that reason it has been savagely criticised by every pressure group campaigning for improved democracy—everyone from 38 Degrees and Unlock Democracy all the way to the TaxPayers Alliance. It has been trashed by everyone from the Morning Star to The Daily Telegraph, which described it a few weeks ago as an “insult to voters”.

As a consequence, the Prime Minister felt obliged to describe the Bill as “the minimum acceptable”. Labour’s shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), said that

“the Bill needs to be strengthened considerably from its current state in order for it to have meaning.”

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I appreciate the aims of the hon. Member for Foyle. He recognises that it is necessary to refer to a set of rules or principles if a court is to judge whether a breach has occurred. The question that he has raised is whether the House’s code of conduct should be policed both here and in the courts. The fact that he will not press his new clauses to a vote means that it is not necessary to come to a definitive view on that.

[Mark Durkan]

My preference is for the code to be policed by the public, using the mechanism of accountability in a proper, open recall system. That is what I want to see, alongside a newly framed pledge.

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Gentleman made that point clear in his speech.

The amendments and new clauses tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge are a modified version of those tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) in Committee. The intentions of involving the public and taking the responsibility for judging other MPs’ behaviour away from MPs attracted support in Committee. The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife expressed disappointment that those intentions had not been reflected in a Government amendment, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge in his blog. However, these issues are not easily captured in legislation in a way that avoids the pitfalls that have been mentioned in this debate. It is not for the want of trying, if I may put it in that way. It is for the House to take a view on the proposal if it is pressed to a vote.