I totally understand the point made by the noble Lord but that does not mean, of course, that there could not be circumstances when the non-voting, lay members of that committee—one suggestion is that their number should increase, but that is a matter for the other place—should be the ones who take the decision and recommend it to the voting members. That is complicated and still raises important questions, to which I will return.
The Bill is intended to increase the public’s confidence in their ability to hold parliamentarians to account when they fall below the standard expected of us. Without some means being built in for some independent adjudication on those standards completely outside Parliament, the Bill will fail in that objective and will be criticised as such. My colleagues in the Commons, Julian Huppert and David Heath, attempted to deal
with this problem during the Commons stages. It was acknowledged that their proposals were not technically perfect—what early attempt at amendment ever is, in either House?—but that the principle behind their ideas had considerable merit, namely, that an election court with appropriate safeguards, or something like it, ought to be able to consider petitions directly from the public alleging misconduct or wrongdoing, and to hear evidence to the contrary from the MP concerned. Where real misconduct had taken place, the process would trigger a full recall petition. A by-election would follow if 10% of the MPs’ constituents signed up within the eight weeks, under the terms elsewhere of the Bill.
The principle behind this process will ensure both that no MP could be ejected simply for doing his or her job, or for exercising his or her judgment in the terms that the noble Baroness just said, but also that the Commons, through its internal committees, cannot be thought to be closing ranks to protect one of its own where serious wrongdoing really has taken place. I believe that there will be a serious case for carefully phrased amendments in that vein in Committee. We will seek support from all sides of the House in improving drafting to present a workable proposal to this House.
If anyone is in any doubt that we have a duty in your Lordships’ House to attempt this, they need only consider the words of those who took leading parts in the debates on the Bill in the other place. On the day of the Commons Report and Third Reading, the Minister in charge of the Bill, Greg Clark, said that,
“the Government were clear on Second Reading that we are open to ways to improve the Bill and we stand by that commitment”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/11/14; col. 681.]
That was on Report. Similarly, Stephen Twigg, Labour’s senior spokesman on these issues, said in Committee in the Commons:
“In principle, giving the power to the people to bring a case against their MP before the election court is a good idea. It treads the fine line between undermining an MP’s constitutional role and giving power to the people to hold their Member of Parliament to account for his or her conduct”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/14; col. 134.]
On Report, his colleague Thomas Docherty, from the Labour Front Bench, reaffirmed that the Opposition,
“support the principles behind the idea. We agree … on the idea of an independent mechanism when it can be demonstrated that wrongdoing has occurred”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/11/14; col. 672.]
I know that Mr Docherty would have preferred MPs not to vote on the proposals, leaving it entirely to your Lordships’ House. Nevertheless, he did presage the possibility that Labour Peers could,
“work with … Lib Dem colleagues to draft workable, robust and watertight proposals. We are clear that we are not giving up on the principle behind the new clause and amendment”—
on the third trigger—
“and we urge him to take the same approach”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/11/14; col. 675.]
We are very open to that offer. We have all been asked in this House to do this work. We should therefore, at the very least, give it our very best efforts. If we can
secure good, robust amendments in this place, it will then be for the Commons to take them or leave them. As the Minister put it at the end, the more fundamental point,
“is a matter for this House”—
that is, the Commons—
“and the other place, and any amendments”,
from us,
“would return to this House to be determined”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/11/14; col. 680.]
This is, of course, the Second Reading debate, so I do not intend to expand further on the details of the amendments that we will bring forward. The principle behind recall in the case of serious wrongdoing is relatively simple and clear, yet the practice of implementing that principle is neither simple nor clear. As ever in your Lordships’ House, we have work to do to bring the two together. I look forward to working with colleagues on all sides of the House to do just that.
12.13 pm