I will make some progress, because many Members wish to speak.
I will turn briefly to the conduct of petitions once they are triggered by the provisions of the Bill. The Government’s priority has been to develop voting procedures that fit with what the public rightly expect from any official democratic election in this country. Safeguards must be in place to ensure that voting is robust, fair and open. I will not set out this process in detail here, but I look forward to debates in Committee on the clauses and schedules. Under the Bill’s proposals, 10% of eligible constituents would need to sign the petition for it to be successful. If at the end of the eight-week recall period the 10% threshold had been met, the MP would vacate his or her seat and a by-election would be held. There would be no legal barrier to the unseated individual standing in the by-election.
As I have described, we have made changes to the Bill as a result of pre-legislative scrutiny. I appreciate that there will be—there have been already—strong views on these proposals, and I welcome the House’s serious consideration and discussion of them. I remind the House that the transition to representative democracy did not take place in a single step, and nor will the progress we make towards more direct democracy—something I have always believed in. With the benefit of hindsight we can see that our predecessors were sometimes excessively cautious, not least in extending the franchise to women. Nevertheless, our country has gained more than it has lost from the British preference for evolutionary over revolutionary change. I believe that the Bill strikes the right balance between holding Members of Parliament to account while ensuring that they can do their job without facing frivolous or politically motivated petitions. We want a recall process that is fair, open and robust, and I commend the Bill to the House.
1.29 pm