The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are not delegates or ciphers; we are representatives. As Members have rightly said, we owe our constituents our judgment and our conscience and we are here to represent their interests, but we should not necessarily subordinate any of that to their opinions or, still less, to some calculation of what might be their opinions.
It is very difficult to know precisely what one’s constituents’ opinions are. For example, it was often asserted with great confidence that my constituents were against the legislation on same-sex marriage, but that was absolutely untrue. I knew that they were in favour of it. Even those who contacted me were generally in favour of it. I say this advisedly to Government Members, but some Members in the Chamber voted for it and felt that they were right to do so despite their constituents being against it. They could not have taken much comfort from the last Conservative manifesto, because the proposal was not in the manifesto as such, although it was referred to in other documents. Under the recall mechanism, in that sense they would be at risk. That brings us back to the argument made by proponents of the alternative recall mechanism, which is that it would never have come to that. In that case, we have to ask under what circumstances recall would get to such a point, and I mentioned some of those circumstances earlier.
To sum up, first, we are delivering on the promise we made; and, secondly, we are very clear that in past cases of wrongdoing Members—either somebody, a long time ago, who was given a prison sentence or, more commonly, a period of suspension from the House—would not necessarily, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) put it, have done the honourable thing and resigned. Recently, such Members have done so, but, frankly, they were not required to do so.
To return to an earlier point, regulatory processes in the House for managing the conduct of Members should show that we are willing, able and have mechanisms in place so that, as we promised, somebody who commits serious wrongdoing will be subject to a process that may lead to their recall and expulsion from the House at a by-election. We have seen possibilities for doing that in the past, and we would stick to such a system in future.
Over the past couple of years or so, Ministers have tried to make the Bill as robust as possible, and we have not stopped doing so. However, there is a big gap between where we are now and a recall mechanism that is completely different constitutionally, because it would allow the public the opportunity—on individual decision-making and policy issues—to reach in to the Chamber of the House of Commons in the middle of a Parliament, and pull out a Member on the grounds that they had done something the public did not like between one general election and the next. That would undermine the general election as the critical moment for accountability, and it would undermine Members if it was abused, as inevitably most mechanisms can be abused. Constitutionally, it would take us in the direction of participatory or direct democracy, which is not the direction in which we in this Parliament want to go.
Notwithstanding the fact that many Members will vote for the Bill on the grounds of wanting to change it, I and I hope others will vote for it, although it is
susceptible to amendment, because we in principle—the Second Reading is about the principle—support the Bill as it is.
5.18 pm