Localism Bill (ways and means)

We have so little time that I am going to cut straight to the chase; I hope not to take more than a minute or two. I speak in favour of new clause 10, which I tabled and which is supported by Members from both sides of the House. It concerns the recall of councillors. I view this as a simple, obvious, ““no brainer”” idea, which I hope will be met with a nod of approval by both Front-Bench teams. I will briefly make the case for it. As Members know, the Government are planning to introduce a recall mechanism for parliamentarians, whereby Members face being removed from office if their constituents so choose. The plans, in my view, do not go nearly far enough. MPs will be subject to recall only if a Committee decides that they have committed an act of serious wrongdoing. Recall is supposed to be about empowering people, not parliamentary Committees, so I shall seek to amend that provision when I have a chance. In the meantime, I was pleased that the Secretary of State promised to consider introducing into this Bill a recall mechanism for councillors. That has not happened, so I have done it for him. I am fortunate in that my constituency is served by some excellent councillors, but we all know that there are some councillors who do very little for their constituents, so there should surely be a mechanism whereby residents can hold councillors to account during the four years in between elections in the same way as employees are in every other field of human endeavour. It cannot be right to ask Members to vote for measures that will introduce recall for parliamentarians, but not for councillors in local government, which is just as important. My new clause would allow for"““25% or more of the… voters in the constituency of an elected local government member””" to petition for and trigger a recall election. I think that that strikes the right balance between preventing vexatious recall attempts and empowering local people to hold their elected councillors to account. The new clause would greatly empower local people and would keep councillors on their toes, and I hope that it can be put to the vote so that the House can support it.