UK Parliament / Open data

Recall of MPs Bill

Proceeding contribution from Bishop of Chester (Bishops (affiliation)) in the House of Lords on Tuesday, 10 February 2015. It occurred during Debate on bills on Recall of MPs Bill.

My Lords, I will speak briefly on this. I think that it is a mistake to play off these conditions against each other, as if you were to ditch one and get a quid pro quo strength in another. In principle, one should take and look at each condition on its own merit and principle. I do not want to refer to the second condition, as I do not quite understand the dynamics of what happens in the other place; other Members will understand.

The first recall condition needs to have about it a certain level of trigger. Simply to be convicted of any offence and then potentially to find this juggernaut or sledgehammer process kicking in seems wrong. As we all know, when these processes begin, the issues to which they are supposed to refer are not those on which they are fought. At the moment in our political system you need to get only 10% of the electors to agree to recall the MP and have a by-election. It would be easy for people to use a minor indiscretion that leads to a criminal conviction to generate this rather costly and unfortunate process. I believe in the Bill in principle, but there should be a healthy trigger. As set out, the trigger requiring that a conviction leads to a sentence of imprisonment, which I assume also includes a suspended sentence, seems about right.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
759 c1135 
Session
2014-15
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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