Before I take another intervention, I want to go back to an issue raised by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg). He said that we as MPs know what our role is, but I do not know where the job description of a Member of Parliament is. I do not know what our terms of office are or what our pledge of office is. I hear people quoting Edmund Burke and see them pointing to “Erskine May” and a variety of other standards, but at no point do we have a pledge of service that clarifies the standards to which we pledge.
My belief is that there should be a pledge of service. I do not believe in the simple affirmation of the oath of allegiance being the only terms on which someone comes to this place to represent their constituents. If we had a different pledge of office—it could include a statement of allegiance for those who wanted it—to affirm and encapsulate the standards of public life and a commitment to proper parliamentary principles, it could provide the basis on which anyone would have to mount a recall challenge. That would give more protection to MPs and would prevent the fear of an “anything goes” situation, with people looking to do “gotcha” petitions against different MPs of different parties in different parts of the country.