Political Parties and Elections Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to all Members of your Lordships’ House who have contributed to this thoughtful, if brief, debate. I hope that it will be listened to with care at the other end of the building. In response to some of the points that have been raised, I should say that there are quite well established rules in statute for the handling of referendums. That meets the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. I accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that it could affect the judgment of the new parliamentary standards authority if it knew that, at the end of this careful process, the result could be a by-election, but we will have to be confident that this new machinery will stand above the party battles and will be truly independent and approach these issues with due integrity, or there is no point in having it; we might as well keep the present rules. That is the critical issue that other Members may not have appreciated. This is part of a new regime that we know will come. The Prime Minister has said that it will come; indeed, he has raised the issue of recall in this context, and the other parties have agreed. For that reason, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is not right that there could be a vendetta—I think that that was the word that he used—because the process will be outwith party discussions and away from all policy issues. It will have nothing to do with partisanship. Incidentally, the noble Lord kindly expressed interest in where my noble friend Lord Rennard was. I am afraid that he is ill today. He will be here on Wednesday for another day of Report, but I promise to tell him of the considerable concern that was expressed by the noble Lord. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, is absolutely right that clearly we will have to develop a very good process—a due process—that will have to be a long way away from the present processes, which rely on Chief Whips and special groups in parties. Even small groups of people at constituency level decide the fate of a Member of Parliament. That is utterly wrong. We should have a due process and proper triggers, so the noble Lord is right. If this amendment is passed, the process that I am suggesting will be looked at carefully by Electoral Commission. I do not think that it would endanger the independence of Members of Parliament who may take a view that their constituents think of as controversial. In this process, the controversial views will not be in question; the question will be whether, on the clear evidence put before an independent investigation, the Member has broken the rules of their House. Therefore, the recall mechanism, with which the noble Lord, Lord Bates, expressed some tentative agreement, must be something that both Houses of Parliament should look at carefully. In the past few weeks, politicians have constantly said to the public, "Yes, we understand your anger. Yes, we understand you want to have a bigger role in deciding what should happen". If, now, at this first opportunity, the parties say, "Oh well, of course, we don’t want you to have any role at all; we want to leave it to the parties and those people within Parliament or in the local party structure to make all these decisions", there will be real disappointment. The Prime Minister—the Minister just now repeated it—said: ""There is no more pressing task".—[Official Report, Commons, 10/6/09; col. 795.]" Your Lordships’ House has an opportunity to take up that challenge from the Prime Minister and we should take it. It is true that we do not have the whole system in place, but very soon we will have a new system in place. Your Lordships’ House would be right to put a marker down that we think that, ultimately, the public anger to which the noble Lord, Lord Bates, referred is very important. The Prime Minister, the leader of the Conservative Party and the leader of my party picked that up and see that it is essential to find a mechanism to which that public anger can be constructively deployed. Look at the contrast between the sort of procedure that I am discussing and the present knee-jerk reactions. Within a few days, a few people in a constituency can give a thumbs-down to an individual constituency Member. That is surely wrong. This measure would be much better. I believe that we should recognise that the public feel that their influence—their power—over their representatives, especially in those 500-plus safe seats in the House of Commons, has diminished and is diminishing and that this should be reversed. I wish therefore to test the opinion of the House. Division on Amendment 2 Contents 49; Not-Contents 148. Amendment 2 disagreed.