My Lords, the percentage of people required to trigger the by-election is certainly a very serious matter. As the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, has said, the issue of recall will probably not be decided by the constituents themselves, although they are the ones who will sign the petition. It will be decided, first, in the Procedure Committee. Weaning the Procedure Committee away from a quasi-judicial function will be sorely tempting but we do not want that to happen. Secondly, not even they by themselves will decide which particular trigger will be invoked. The decision will largely be governed in the boardrooms which the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, probably attends quite frequently. The editors of the national press will latch on to this as a good idea, as something which the public have been anxious for.
The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, who is temporarily not in his place, seemed quite taken by the fact that I said that a recall petition would generate great excitement. I perhaps chose my words badly—I should perhaps have said great activity, rather than excitement. By and large the discussions in your Lordships’ House have been sober, serious, not entirely dispassionate but, in the tradition of your Lordships’ House, have looked at matters carefully and seriously. Alas, the real world outside is not like this place—it is going to be governed by people’s particular prejudices.
I do not want to rehearse the speech I am going to make later about the debate but in relation to the way in which MPs are perhaps no longer free from the scrutiny which they once were, I remember one Friday in the other place when we were discussing a repeal of the Steel abortion Bill. It was a very difficult subject. Whichever side of the argument one was on, it was controversial. In some constituencies it is hugely important.
I was in the Lobby with a colleague who was unhappy about voting against the amendments to the Steel Bill. He said that he believed that the amendments should not be passed and the Bill should be left more or less as it was, but he was concerned about what might happen back home. I said, “Well, don’t vote. Stay
out of the Lobby”. He said he would have to vote because it was the right thing to do. So we went through the Lobby and we voted. When we passed the Tellers, he almost turned to jelly. He said, “I’ve lost my seat. What am I going to do? It’s dreadful—I’ll be hounded out of the constituency”. I told him to nip into the other Lobby and cancel his vote out.
How did I know that that was possible? I knew because my then pair, the late Iain Sproat, had asked me if I would time-pair with him so he could take his wife out to dinner and I agreed. I was in the Library reading—a euphemism for having a snooze—and the Division Bell went off in the Library. My wife says that even now after I have been out of the Commons for 17 years, when the alarm clock goes off in the morning, I throw the blankets off, shout, “Division!” and start running down the stairs. I got up and automatically went through the Lobby and then realised on that occasion I was time-paired. All of us who are former Members of the House of Commons know perfectly well that the greatest sin one can commit in the House of Commons is to break a pair. I asked what I could do and they said, “Nip in and cancel it”. I was in mortal terror for two or three days that the local press would discover it and make a fool of me, but they did not notice. So I had good cause to tell this colleague to cancel his vote out and he did. That much I can vouch for. In those days, we were not under the same scrutiny.
What has been said—and I cannot vouch for this—is that if someone in favour of abortion wrote to that colleague and asked how he voted, he could send them the page of Hansard which showed that he voted the way that they wanted. If someone was against abortion, he could send them the other page of Hansard. It was a wonderful strategy, except that nowadays, within five minutes of a vote being declared in this place or in the House of Commons, it is published on the internet. That sort of strategy would not work now.
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Issues such as abortion are such that they cannot be left out. Although this Bill is simply described as a recall Bill and it has been emphasised time and again by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that it is a conditional recall Bill, the fact is that once it is triggered, it will no longer be a conditional recall. It will become a de facto total recall Bill. Nothing can stop other issues being brought in to the detriment of the Member of Parliament concerned. What is even worse, of course, is that unless the noble Lord’s amendment about counterpetitions is accepted, it will all be one way. There will be no possibility of a change of mind. For example, over the eight-week period in the Bill, people could sign a petition quite early on, then have further discussions with colleagues or parents and say, “I made a mistake. How can I retrieve it?”. They cannot.
The actual numbers are very important because the smaller the number, the greater the chance of error. People say that it is okay because the MP can stand at the by-election, but this is all compounded by the fact—and the various discussions have made it clear—that in the event of an MP losing a recall petition, the chances of him getting the party’s backing to stand in the by-election are very low indeed.
This is not just a Bill about recall petitioning—it is in effect about getting rid of an MP. It is very serious because no one could say that in their lifetime as an MP they had not upset somebody one way or another. The figure of 10% is far too low and it should be much higher. That gives us a better chance of getting a result. Without the changes to voting only one way, the dice are stacked against an MP who may have transgressed but not in a hugely serious way. I agree that someone who has committed very serious offences ought to be brought to book but we may be careful that the legislation is right so that it works. I support the amendment which increases the percentage.