Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Thomas Docherty and James Paice

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Thomas Docherty]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. The hon. Member for Richmond Park has been struggling for four years to come up with a workable definition. The reality is that a failure to do so does not give us a pass to proceed without a definition. We are deeply concerned that these provisions would be open to vexatious challenges.

[Sir James Paice]

I am following what the hon. Gentleman is saying very carefully. He is right that nobody has managed to define wrongdoing. Does he not accept, however, that the two different amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and I have in their own way sought not to define wrongdoing but to exclude certain issues relating to freedom of expression, which we will come on to later? Rather than defining wrongdoing, we could make exceptions to what is clearly not wrongdoing.

[Thomas Docherty]

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby will touch on that point and on points made by the right hon. Member for Somerton and Frome and others.