Parliamentary Standards Bill

My noble friend Lord Goodhart and I tabled Amendment 75, not being quite aware at that stage whether the Leader of the House was to move the inclusion or exclusion of Clause 7. It is only right that we should look at this issue, even if only for complete clarity at this stage. I remind the Committee that this deals with the enforcement section of the Bill, Clause 7(11), which refers to a Member of the House being expelled. It is important for us to put down a marker on yet another issue about the great relationships of our parliamentary system. A good deal of the debate so far has been concerned with the relationship between the House of Commons and the new parliamentary standards authority. Amendment 75 is about reasserting the relationship between Parliament and the authority on the one hand and the public on the other. The amendment says in a new subsection following subsection 11: ""The expulsion of a member from the House of Commons in exercise of the powers of the House under subsection (6) shall not prevent the member from standing for re-election"." In parenthesis, perhaps I should say that I have subjected myself to the will of the electorate on rather a lot of occasions and have been successful on only six. I am sure that others in the Committee can beat that record. I have even been unsuccessful in a by-election, so I suppose I should declare that interest. It was the Beaconsfield by-election in 1982 when the Labour candidate was even less successful; a certain Mr Anthony Charles Lynton Blair. That is by the way. The point about this amendment is that surely we should re-establish the principle that the final judge should be the electorate. We should not forget that. Therefore, we believe that it is extremely important to realise that there will be a subjective judgment, whether by the committee or even by the whole House, on the advice of IPSA, to take away the livelihood of a Member of Parliament but, more importantly, potentially to take away from the electorate the right to decide who their representative is to be. That is a subjective judgment and all judgments are subjective. What if the electors in that constituency disagree? It may be very unlikely but it is possible. Surely we must ensure in the Bill that we do not prevent a popular but censured Member of Parliament from re-standing in any by-election. There has rightly been a great deal of discussion about parliamentary privilege but that is always subject to the will of the people in a parliamentary democracy, the right of the public, as is their privilege, to elect whomsoever they like to represent them in Parliament. I suppose our amendment is a probing amendment but it is important to re-establish the principle that in the end it is the electors who decide, not some scrutiny panel set up by the political parties which can turn into a kangaroo court or a star chamber. Neither of those gives us confidence in the way in which these things should be handled, particularly if they are peopled by the Whips, the hierarchy of the party, who may find some individual MPs rather less convenient than others. There are apparently some 30 Conservative seats now up for grabs and so rapid have been recent decisions and announcements of retirements that the selection rules have been suspended for the time being to allow other considerations to take their place. At the very least, it would be appropriate to ensure that, if this clause remains, we put something into the Bill to show that, in the end, it is not the decision of the party hierarchies which is critical but that of the electorate. It is particularly unfortunate that the impression has been given that well established parliamentarians, who, perhaps, have a reputation for independence—even unconventional and inconvenient independence—have been those who have been asked to go, while others who are more subservient remain. That is why it is important, if the clause remains, that we establish the final authority of the people, the electorate. It surely must be right that the opportunity to walk away is, yes, voluntary, but when people are forced to walk away—even with a golden handshake and a resettlement package at the end of the Parliament—that they do so in terms acceptable to the electorate.