Recall of MPs Bill

The hon. Gentleman is right about that. We all have experience of petitions where we look down the names and find people who are perhaps not resident in our constituencies, because they happen to be otherwise employed in a theme park in Orlando or as President of the United States; there are all sorts of reasons why they are not legitimate electors of our constituencies, but nevertheless the names have been appended. I believe the Minister’s answer to that is simply, “We have introduced an offence of providing a false signature in the Bill.” That is not a sufficient deterrent, as we know because we have seen the evidence for that many times. So we need some sort of checking procedure to make sure that when Mr Michael Mouse signs a petition it is the Mr Michael Mouse who is a resident of Railway cuttings, Cheam or a relevant address rather than a Mr Michael Mouse who may be a figment of someone’s imagination.