My hon. Friend makes a good point. Like a lot of other things the hon. Gentleman says, he has not actually thought about that in practice. The problem I have with the word “vexatious” is that somebody such as Ann Cryer might come under such a recall Bill, given what she was arguing for, and it could be argued that the people arguing against her were not being vexatious but were arguing against a clear, important role that she was performing.
6.45 pm
It is said that somehow the use of this recall would be almost unique. The hon. Gentleman used examples from the United States, saying there had only been 40 such occasions. He is completely wrong. If we look at state level in the United States, in 2011 there were at least 150 recalls. Of these, 75 officials were recalled and nine officials resigned under recall. In the state of Michigan alone there were 30 recalls. So we have two things. First, there is the pressure of recall on individuals who then resign before they get to that process, which would happen under this proposal—I am not suggesting some people would not be tenacious, but some might fall by the wayside before that. The hon. Member for Richmond Park also says the electorate look at issues rather than just one issue. In the United States, we only need look at the example in Colorado in 2013 where two state Senators—John Morse and Angela Giron—both voted for tighter gun control. It was certainly not tight gun control as we would understand it in this country. They asked for two things: more ID checks on the purchase of firearms, and legislation to limit people to buying 15 rounds of ammunition. They were both recalled. The right-wing National Rifle Association along with the Koch brothers and their Tea party fanatics piled in something over half a million pounds for that recall election. The Senators lost it and they were then replaced by two very right-wing Republican state Senators.
I say to the idea that somehow this will be free from the influence of big money that it will not be. The hon. Gentleman has not even thought about limits in terms of what could be spent on the elections. If we look at what happens in the United States, we see that in some states as soon as someone loses an election, money goes in to destabilise certain state legislators. Before recall, big money is spent, so being able to control that would be very difficult.