Posts Tagged ‘political reform’

Faint signs of democratic awakenings

I have written a number of posts on how whipped Canadian backbench MPs are when compared to their counterparts in other parliaments. In recent weeks, it would seem that some backbenchers have maybe had enough of this situation.

One MP raised a point of privilege to argue that prevented by his party whip from delivering a statement in the House during “Statements by Members”, a 15-min period each day during which backbenchers can deliver one-minute statements on matters of international, national or local concern. As per the Standing Orders, any MP can be recognized by the Speaker to speak during this time, but, in practice, the Speaker is guided by lists provided by the respective party whips. The Member, Mr. Warawa, appealed to the Speaker that in being removed from his side’s list last Thursday, his privileges as an MP were breached.

For a detailed overview of the situation, I will refer you to this guide prepared by Aaron Wherry of Macleans. Mr. Wherry’s guide includes a multitude of links to other posts he and others have written on the issue. A number of MPs spoke up in support of Mr. Warawa’s point of privilege, and the Speaker delivered his ruling on the matter last week, which you can read in full here. The Speaker did not find that there was a prima facie case of privilege but reminded backbenchers that the Speaker is guided by the lists, not bound to them, and if they want to speak, they need to “seek the floor”, which they are free to do at any time.

For people unfamiliar with the Canadian House of Commons, it is important to understand that the issue of lists of which MPs will speak is not limited to Members’ Statements. The party whips provide lists to the Speaker for Question Period, for debates on bills – in sort – for virtually every single item of business in the House. And it isn’t simply a matter of these lists largely determining which MPs will be able to speak in the House, if they are on the list, they are often also told exactly what they will say when they do get the floor. They are given scripted questions to ask during Question Period, which means that rather than question the government and hold it to account, questions from government backbenchers are used to attack and question opposition party policy, or to give the government an opportunity to promote a policy or initiative. And sometimes, the question will manage to do both:

Mr. John Carmichael (Don Valley West, CPC): Mr. Speaker, while the NDP members continue to bend and twist Canada’s rich military history to suit their far left leanings, our government is committed to commemorating Canadian veterans and their accomplishments.

In January our government proudly marked 2013 as the year of the Korean War veteran, and today the Minister of Veterans Affairs and the Minister of National Defence made yet another great announcement. Would the Minister of Veterans Affairs please update this House on how we are continuing to recognize Canada’s great accomplishments during the Korean War?

Hon. Steven Blaney (Minister of Veterans Affairs and Minister for La Francophonie, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the member for Don Valley West is right. They were young and reckless. Along with more than 15 countries with the United Nations 60 years ago, they fought in Korea for freedom, democracy, and the rule of law against communism. Today, the Minister of National Defence and I presented a certificate of recognition to our great Canadian Korean War veterans to show our deepest gratitude and recognition for their many sacrifices. I thank our Korean War veterans. Thank you very much.

The Speaker concluded his ruling thusly:

Even so, as Speaker I cannot exercise my discretion as to which Member to recognize during Statements by Members or at any other time of the sitting day if only one Member is rising to be recognized.
As previously mentioned, due to an over-reliance on lists, more often than should be the case, even those Members on the list do not always rise to be recognized.

Were the Chair to be faced with choices of which Member to recognize at any given time, then of course the Chair would exercise its discretion. But that has not happened thus far during Statements by Members, nor for that matter, during Question Period. Until it does, the Chair is not in a position to unilaterally announce or dictate a change in our practices. If Members want to be recognized, they will have to actively demonstrate that they wish to participate. They have to rise in their places and seek the floor.

In the meantime, I will continue to be guided by the lists that are provided to me and, when and if Members are competing for the floor, will exercise my authority to recognize Members, not in a cavalier or uninformed manner but, rather, in a balanced way that respects both the will of the House and the rights of individual Members.

While this should strike most as common sense – if a Member wants to be recognized by the Chair, he or she needs to stand in their place to indicate to the Speaker that they want to speak – what is surprising (also shocking and terribly saddening) is that some MPs apparently didn’t even know that they could do this. As Laura Ryckewaert writes in “Former House Speaker Fraser calls Scheer’s ruling ‘very important,’ but another expert expects MPs won’t do much with ruling” ($):

Mr. Scheer’s ruling isn’t groundbreaking, and he has instead highlighted a pre-existing right that was forgotten over time by MPs but Mr. Warawa and Mr. Chong said they hadn’t previously realized they had the right to stand to be recognized by the Speaker during statements or questions.

Another MP, Mr. Rathgeber, told reports that he planned to take advantage of this new-found right and added that “he thought there would be a ‘transition’ as “members will have to adjust to being able to speak without having been approved, being put on a list.”"

Many might wonder how this dire state of affairs came to be. Peter Loewen explains the situation quite well in this article from the Ottawa Citizen. Mr. Loewen writes that prior to 1970, party labels did not appear on ballots, only the names of the candidates running in each constituency. The candidates were representatives of a party, but the situation wasn’t regulated and at times, there could be two candidates claiming to represent the same party. Parliament decided that reform was required and the solution adopted “was to have party leaders sign off on candidacies, officially identifying their party’s candidates.”

This solution created a new problem – the party leaders realized that this gave them enormous power over their MPs:

Since party leaders sign off on candidates, they can also refuse candidates by declining to sign their nomination papers. There is no legal mechanism for locally-selected candidates to overcome this prerogative. Sitting MPs are subject to this signature at every election. As a consequence, MPs serve not only at the pleasure of their electorate but also of their leader.

That MPs work beneath the thumbs of their leaders would be less objectionable if they had some counterweight. In other Westminster-style democracies, the counterweight is obvious: party leaders serve at the pleasure of their caucus.

In Canada, we have delegated the right to remove leaders to party members, that small class of Canadians who pay a pittance each year to carry a party’s card. From time to time, a small minority of them will trek off to a convention centre or a hockey arena to decide whether to renew their leader’s mandate.

They are accountable to no one. It should be no surprise, then, that the leaders they affirm are equally free of accountability.

The neutering of our MPs as free-thinking, independent representatives begins with their nominations and it ends with their inability to keep their leaders in check. In the meantime, the media and the punditocracy do what they can to remind MPs of their diminished role.

Since the ruling, some MPs have tried to stand and catch the Speaker’s eye to be recognized. Some have succeeded, others haven’t. A former House of Commons committee clerk, Thomas Hall, is quoted in the Ryckewaert article as saying that he doesn’t expect this to last: “If the whip wants to, he can crack down on that, he still has the power to discipline Members who disobey him.” In the same article, Professor Lori Turnbull (political science, Dalhousie University) says some MPs would consider this new-found freedom “career suicide”:

If you’re an MP and if you’re thinking, ‘Okay, I want to be on that particular committee, or I want that particular diplomatic post when I retire, or I want to say on [current Prime Minister] Harper’s good side’ or whatever it is, then you’re not going to be the guy who stands up in the House with the explicit knowledge that the Prime Minister and the party whip think you should sit down and shut up.

Still, perhaps the radical idea that MPs have the right to stand up of their own initiative and speak in the House might spark an interest in exploring other ways by which backbenchers might regain some power in the House. There is still a very long way to go before one can speak of real democratic reform, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

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On the West Lothian Question

Last month, Commission on the Consequences of Devolution for the House of Commons (the McKay Commission) released its report, which you can read here. The Commission had been appointed in January 2012 and was asked to consider:

how the House of Commons might deal with legislation which affects only part of the United Kingdom, following the devolution of certain legislative powers to the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the National Assembly of Wales.

In other words, the Commission was looking into the matter of the “West Lothian Question.” The Parliament.uk website explains the West Lothian Question this way:

Named after Tam Dalyell, MP for West Lothian, who raised the question of the participation of MPs in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the UK Parliament after devolution. In a debate on devolution to Scotland and Wales on 14 November 1977, Mr Dalyell said: For how long will English constituencies and English Honourable members tolerate at least 119 Honourable Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important, and probably often decisive, effect on British politics while they themselves have no say in the same matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

For Canadian readers, imagine a scenario where education policy isn’t a provincial responsibility in Canada, but under federal jurisdiction. It is the Government of Canada and the Parliament of Canada which decide all policy affecting every aspect of education across the country – from curriculum to tuition fees. Then, after years of negotiation, one province, say Quebec, is given full control over education matters in that province, while the other provinces still see Ottawa deciding education policy for them. Quebec MPs still get to vote on pieces of education legislation affecting the rest of the country, but that have no impact within the province of Quebec itself, but MPs from the rest of Canada, and the Government of Canada, have no say in any aspect of education policy within Quebec. What if the government one day decides to significantly increase tuition fees across the country – triples them, while in Quebec, the provincial government actually does away with tuition fees. The tuition fee policy is very controversial, and even a number of government backbenchers rebel against the policy (it’s a fantasy scenario – play along). The tuition fee increase passes, but only by a handful of votes. People soon realize that if the Quebec MPs hadn’t voted, the tuition fee increase would have been defeated and many start to question if MPs from Quebec should have a right to vote on policies that don’t affect their province at all, especially very controversial ones such as a massive tuition fee hike.

This is a highly generalized example of the West Lothian Question in the UK. There is a growing perception among MPs and voters that MPs from England proper should have a more decisive role in making laws for England in policy fields that have been devolved to the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies. As the McKay Commission explains in its report,

The West Lothian Question is a consequence of the introduction of “asymmetrical devolution arrangements that extend to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but not to England. The issues it raises are a constant presence in post-devolution UK politics as MPs from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales routinely vote on legislation that wholly or mainly affects England alone. But the political resonance of the West Lothian Question is at its greatest when it is possible for the majority opinion among MPs from Englan don a piece of England-specific legislation to be overruled by a majority of all UK MPs, including those from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

The Commission does point out that instances when a majority of MPs from England is overruled by the UK-wide majority are in actual fact extremely rare. They identify three such scenarios – two happened only rarely, and one never has. Since WWI, the party or coalition forming the UK Government has almost always had a majority in England, as well as in the UK as a whole. Only during two short-lived parliaments was this not the case. Another example would be situations where a government with a majority of MPs both from England and across the UK as a whole suffers a parliamentary rebellion among its England MPs (this does happen in the UK, unlike Canada). In such an event, a controversial piece of legislation may pass because of support from MPs outside of England. The Commission identified two examples of this which occurred under Labour – votes on the introduction of foundation hospitals in 2003 and the introduction of university top-up fees in England only in 2004. In these two cases, a good number of Labour MPs from England rebelled and voted against their government, but Labour MPs from Scotland and Wales ensured that the government maintained its majority. The last scenario in which the will of the majority in England could be overruled would be if a party had a clear majority in England, but not in the UK as a whole and forms a minority government. In that event, the opposition could frustrate the UK Government’s legislative intentions for England by mobilising the votes of MPs from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. However, this scenario has never occurred. (McKay Commission Report, pp. 12-13)

Because the above scenarios happen only very rarely, or not at all, the Commission approached the West Lothian Question in a broader sense: “that of non-English MPs voting on English laws, whatever the majority relationship in the House of Commons.” And because this is a wider set of concerns about the “balance and stability of teh UK’s territorial constitution”, it can be described as an “English Question”.

Essentially, because of devolution, more and more legislation before the UK Parliament applies to England only (or England and Wales). This reality will only increase over time. The continued devolution of powers to the other national assemblies – for example, a referendum held in March 2011 in Wales established full legislative powers for the Welsh National Assembly in 20 policy fields, and debates on further devolution are ongoing, while Scotland will have a referendum on independence in 2014. The problem, as identified by the McKay Commission, is that the House of Commons has not adapted to this reality:

The House of Commons does not differentiate its mode of operation for English as compared with UK-wide matters. It lacks a capacity to focus directly on England just at the point when more of its work deals with English matters. In the absence of change in the way the House of Commons works, the consequence – clearly unintended, but nonetheless important- may be to impede the voicing of any distinctively English concerns, or perceived concerns, that exist on wholly or mainly English matters.

Recommendations

The Commission made the following recommendations:

  • Adopt the following constitutional principle for England (and for England-and-Wales): Decisions taken in the Commons which have a separate and distinct effect for England (or England-and-Wales) should normally be taken only with the consent of a majority of MPs sitting for constituencies in England (or England-and-Wales).
  • That principle should be clearly set out in a resolution of the House of Commons, and House procedure should be changed to encourage MPs to follow this approach.
  • A range of procedural changes is suggested, all of which would allow the English voice to be heard. Some of them involve committees on bills, with majorities reflecting the party balance in England (or England-and-Wales).  Others take the form of motions on the floor of the House.  They are not a single package but a menu from which choices can be made to suit the circumstances of a particular bill.
  • A select committee on Devolution should be appointed, which would (among other things) assist the House to hold UK ministers to account for their responsibilities in connection with devolution and their relations with the devolved administrations.
  • No MPs would be prevented from voting on any bill, and the right of the House as a whole to make final decisions would be preserved. However, there would also be scope for additional roles for MPs from England (or England-and-Wales).

These are explained in more detail in the report itself, which you can consult via the link posted above.

It should be noted that there has been some criticism of the fact that while the West Lothian Question is very much a parliamentary issue affecting parliamentary procedure, the McKay Commission was set up by the government, by-passing parliament’s own select committees. See for example this post from the Constitution Unit:

Sadly, its newly-published report confirms this executive-centred approach to parliamentary reform.  The key section entitled ‘next steps’ (paras 248-9) contains phrases like “We envisage that the Government would first make an assessment of our proposals and put before the House..” and “When the House has expressed its views, we suggest that the Government should move for a select committee to advise the House on the details..”

…

Presumably Parliament is expected, as usual, to sit back quietly and wait for its executive masters to work out how it should operate.  The idea that one of the Commons’ select committees dealing with House matters (given the current Political & Constitutional Reform Committee’s inquiry into the ‘Wright Committee reforms’, we currently have 2 of them, ie it and Procedure Committee) should do a brisk inquiry into the subject of WLQ and the McKay Report, independently of Government’s own deliberations, is presumably far too revolutionary for the current House.  Ditto for some sort of initiative of this sort by the Speaker.

Or perhaps they will surprise us all?

The House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee did touch on the English Question in its recent report entitled “Do we need a constitutional convention for the UK?” In the section headed “The elephant in the room: England“, the committee discusses the English Question at some length, and concludes with the following recommendation:

76. We recommend that the “English Question” be addressed without delay. Of all the tectonic plates within the Union, it is England which most needs to be lubricated and adjusted to the new reality of an effective Union, within a key framework of national competences. The Government should now, with all urgency, create a forum, or pre-convention, for the people of England to discuss if, and how, they wish to follow in the footsteps of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and access substantial devolved powers, clearly defined in statute, for their local communities. The Government should consider whether such a forum might be conducted before a UK-wide constitutional convention and involve representatives from all parts of England.

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Proposal for elected Commons committee chairs

For the past three years now, this blog has explored some of the more interesting developments in parliamentary procedure in various jurisdictions (primarily the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand). Regular readers know that I am a big fan of many of the reforms introduced in the UK House of Commons in 2010, as per the recommendations of the Wright report.

One of those reforms involved select committee chairs being elected by the whole House, as I’ve blogged about in detail in other posts. For example, back in April 2011, I wrote one of my Fixing Ottawa posts, this one focused on Committees, wherein I explained in detail how UK select committee chairs and members are now elected. In another post written later that same year, I discussed the findings of the UK House of Commons Procedure committee’s report reviewing the elections held, for the first time, in most cases, to fill various positions in the House, including, of course, the election of committee chairs and members. If you read either or both of those posts, you will see that I am quite fond of this reform, and would very much like to see it adopted here in Canada.

Consequently, I was very pleased to read, via Kady O’Malley’s Inside Politics Blog, that a Conservative backbench MP, Brad Trost, will be putting forward a motion proposing something very similar to what the UK House of Commons – that is, have the House elect committee chairs via a preferential ballot.

As Kady O’Malley points out, if this motion passes, “it would be binding, as it would constitute an instruction to the House.”

If you are interested in parliamentary reform, I would strongly encourage you to contact your MP and ask them to support this motion. It has made a huge different in the UK with committees becoming far more independent, less partisan, and generally more effective.

Further reading

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Appointed political hacks

Recent controversies surrounding a handful of Canadian Senators have sparked an intense debate (at least among the chattering political classes) with many calling not simply for Senate reform, but for the Upper Chamber to be abolished. Those in favour of abolition view the Senate as a graveyard for appointed political hacks. I have written a good number of posts defending the Senate. I am not at all in favour of abolishing it, however, I do recognize that the appointment process is flawed. I will once again address some of the issues raised by critics of the Senate.

“Appointed political hacks”

One of the most common criticisms levelled at current day Senators is that they are simply “appointed political hacks”. The specific problems which have surfaced in recent days are due in large part to the appointment process.  Senators are appointed by the Governor General, on the advice of the Prime Minister. In reality, the Prime Minister chooses who he or she wants, and the Governor General simply formalises that choice. How does the PM choose a candidate for the Senate? No one really knows. They may well solicit recommendations from others, but whether or not there is any sort of vetting undertaken to ensure that at the very least, the prospective Senator meets the very minimum requirements outlined in the Constitution Act, 1867, is impossible to say. One of those requirements is that the Senator live in the province they are representing, and one of the Senators currently in the media spotlight is in trouble over the very fact that it appears he does not, in fact, live in the province he is supposed to be representing – yet he is claiming the housing allowance. This would have been a very easy thing to verify before appointing said Senator. Apparently, no one bothered.

Appointment in and of itself is not the problem. Many high-level positions in this country are filled via an appointment process, for example, judges. The problem with Senate appointments is, as stated above, that there is no, or very little, vetting of prospective candidates, the process is under the full control of the Prime Minister, and there is little specific criteria set out that a prospective Senator needs to meet. Consequently, critics are right on this point – those who get appointed are largely political hacks – party fundraisers, failed candidates who lost their seat in the last election, etc.

Section 23 of the Constitution Act, 1867, sets out the following qualifications for a Senator:

(1) He shall be of the full age of Thirty Years;

(2) He shall be either a natural-born Subject of the Queen, or a Subject of the Queen naturalized by an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, or of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or of the Legislature of One of the Provinces of Upper Canada, Lower Canada, Canada, Nova Scotia, or New Brunswick, before the Union, or of the Parliament of Canada after the Union;

(3) He shall be legally or equitably seised as of Freehold for his own Use and Benefit of Lands or Tenements held in Free and Common Socage, or seised or possessed for his own Use and Benefit of Lands or Tenements held in Franc-alleu or in Roture, within the Province for which he is appointed, of the Value of Four thousand Dollars, over and above all Rents, Dues, Debts, Charges, Mortgages, and Incumbrances due or payable out of or charged on or affecting the same;

(4) His Real and Personal Property shall be together worth Four thousand Dollars over and above his Debts and Liabilities;

(5) He shall be resident in the Province for which he is appointed;

(6) In the Case of Quebec he shall have his Real Property Qualification in the Electoral Division for which he is appointed, or shall be resident in that Division.

Reflective of the time, these requirements focused on property ownership and financial solvency. A Senator had to be at least 30 years old, a British citizen (since there was no Canadian citizenship at the time), own land worth at least $4000, not in debt, and be a resident of the province from which he (for there were no women Senators in 1867) was appointed.

As we can see today, even these minimal criteria haven’t been properly met by some recent appointees, which further supports the argument that very little vetting actually takes place.

The solution to the above isn’t abolishing the Senate, but reforming the appointment process. I have previously written about this, and while many ideas have been put forward, my preferred option remains that proposed by the late W.T. Stanbury and B.Thomas Hall in their paper “Reforming Canada’s Senate: a pragmatic approach“. Hall and Stanbury propose constraining the power of the PM by establishing an independent commission with legislated criteria for selecting appointees. This independent Senate Appointments Commission (SAC) would recommend candidates to the PM, who would then advise the Governor General to make the appointments.

The authors also propose criteria for nomination: “emphasize outstanding attainment in a profession or occupation, and/or a substantial record of interest in and contribution to public affairs” with the objective being to:

appoint men and women of real accomplishment seriously interested in effective public policy – rather than partisan advantage, although former partisans wouldn’t be excluded. We want Senators to reflect the diversity of Canada, and be able to provide a regional perspective where that can improve the quality of federal laws.

Hall and Stanbury posit in their paper that the creation of a SAC would not require any constitutional changes – it could be done by the federal government alone. I am not a constitutional expert, and so I will take them at their word on that. I’m certain some provinces would object, they usually do, but the authors state clearly that:

Our proposals are also not open to constitutional challenge by the provinces.

We believe democracy requires that a partisan body be subjected to periodical elections for it to be held accountable to citizens. We do not believe that a non-partisan body, whose members have been appointed for their knowledge, experience and devotion to the interest of all Canadians, need to be held accountable through elections. Instead, their work must be open and transparent and subjected to the criticism of the public and the public’s elected representatives.

“Elected political hacks?”

While some critics of the Senate aren’t calling for its abolition, they do want it to become more legitimate, e.g. they want elected Senators. As I’ve previously written in an earlier post on the Senate, I sometimes struggle to understand people’s fixation with democratising everything. I don’t think that elected necessarily equals better. We often lament the fact that we can’t attract really outstanding individuals to run for public office. There are a myriad of reasons why people might not be interested in subjecting themselves to the ups and downs of running for office, and I can certainly sympathise with them on that front. However, that doesn’t mean that these same people wouldn’t be interested in serving the country in a different way, and would welcome a Senate appointment. Still, it remains that many will not be satisfied with anything less than elected Senators. While electing Members of the Upper House might legitimize their existence for some, there is a real possibility that Senators would then go from being appointed political hacks to elected political hacks.

I say this because of the current status of the Canadian House of Commons. Concurrent with the debate on the Senate, there is a growing call for reform of the Canadian House of Commons, which many political observers (if not all of them by this point) consider to be highly dysfunctional. Various media and other sources have launched discussions on how to reform the House, and have identified some of the key problems. One of the biggest is that of the excessive control the party leader exerts over his or her MPs. By some accounts, the level of party discipline in Canada is the strictest in the world. Canadian MPs almost never vote against their party – even on items which shouldn’t be whipped votes (meaning there shouldn’t be a party line to vote against), such as Private Members’ bills and motions, as I explained in this post. Rebellion on larger issues, such as the budget? Forget it. While UK MPs regularly defy their party whips, this simply does not happen in Canada.

Part of the reason for this is that the party leader signs each candidate’s nomination form. Fall out of the leader’s good graces and that will be the end of your career as an MP. Of course, they could try running as independents, but independents very rarely get elected – and have virtually no power once in Parliament should they manage to get elected. If the party leader has that much control over MPs, surely the same process would be put in place for elected Senators. Meaning once elected, Senators would be as beholden to the party leader as MPs are. We’d end up with two Chambers of completely whipped automatons. I really fail to see how that would be an improvement over the current situation.

“Who needs it anyway?”

Which brings us back to the abolitionists’ position – just get rid of the Senate. It doesn’t do anything. Well, anyone who says that simply doesn’t pay any actual attention to the work that the Senate does. Because of the current level of dysfunction in the House of Commons, often the only real scrutiny any bill gets is in the Upper House. The Commons finds itself handstrung by time allocation measures or overwhelmed by massive omnibus bills – which are often also time allocated. The Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates concluded that the House is failing in its duty to properly oversee how the Government spends money.

Many on the pro-abolition side point to the provinces, which are all unicameral, and happily state that they function just fine without an upper chamber. Again, I can only assume that they don’t pay very close attention to what really goes on in most provincial legislatures. If they did, they probably wouldn’t make that assertion. Some smaller legislatures probably do function fine with only one chamber, but being in a position to very closely observe one of the larger provincial chambers, I can say that the problems common to the House of Commons are in some ways even more prevalent at the provincial level. An Upper Chamber might actually be a welcome addition for some provinces.

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The real problem is MP irrelevancy

Recently, Canada’s federal Official Opposition proposed measures for improving decorum in the House of Commons. These measures would require changes to the Standing Orders in order to increase the Speaker’s authority to discipline unruly MPs:

who use harassment, threats, personal attacks, or extreme misrepresentation of facts or position in the House, particularly regarding Statements by Members and Oral Questions, including:

i.  Revoking questions during Oral Questions from parties whose Members have been disruptive
ii. Issuing a warning to Members for a first offense
iii. Suspending Members from the service of the House for one sitting day for a second offense; five days for a third offense; and twenty days for a fourth offense
iv. Suspending Members’ sessional allowance for the duration of their suspension from the service of the House

Reaction has been varied. Sun Media’s David Akin pointed out that new rules aren’t required – if MPs want to stop this sort of behaviour, they can simply stop it. He also suggests that if the rules governing broadcasting of House proceedings were relaxed to allow reaction shots, that too might lead MPs to think twice about behaving boorishly:

The rules require that whenever the Speaker stands, the cameras may only show him. When he is not standing, the cameras may only show the MP who is speaking.

If TV networks – Sun News Network, CPAC, CTV, CBC, etc. – were able to control the cameras, we would certainly zoom in on sleeping MPs, on MPs giving others the finger, and so on.

Knowing that their hijinks would be beamed into the nation’s living rooms would surely be the best corrective.

I am not convinced that reaction shots would change much. The cameras in UK House of Commons do not stay focused on the Member who has the floor, and this does not stop other MPs from gesturing, making faces at, or heckling their counterparts on the opposite side. Akin is closer to the mark when he ends his column with:

But more unworkable and impossible-to-enforce rules?

Newsflash: They won’t work.

The problem isn’t really not enough rules, but that over the years (decades) the rules have been changed in ways that increasingly weaken the opposition and empower the government side – essentially rendering backbenchers – and the legislature – largely irrelevant. And I refer not only to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, but also Canada’s Elections Act, as Aaron Wherry of Macleans explains in this post. The real problem in the Canadian House of Commons is that backbenchers are not free to ask questions of interest to them, they are given scripted questions by their party Whips. Ditto for most of the highly partisan Members’ Statements – I am certain most MPs would prefer to use their Member’s Statement as intended – to speak of something of interest to them and their constituents. Instead, they are given prepared, highly partisan statements by their party leadership.

What would be needed, more than new penalties the Speaker could impose on disruptive Members, would be rule changes to strengthen the Opposition, and to ease the control party leaders have over their MPs. A lot, maybe most, of the heckling and boorishness occurs because MPs other than those on the front bench are frustrated.

While the clip from the UK’s Prime Minister’s Questions in the above link might not show it, overall, the UK House of Commons is far more respectful and decorous than its Canadian counterpart. And the  main reason for that, I believe, is because backbenchers in the UK have far more freedom than do their Canadian counterparts. Part of that is due to sheer numbers – there are 650 MPs in the UK House of Commons – the Conservative party alone has almost as many MPs as does the entire Canadian House of Commons – and so it is simply impossible for the whips to exert the same level of control over backbenchers that Canadian party whips do. As well, MPs have more control over their party leader. For example, in the UK Conservative Party, a vote of confidence in the party leader can be triggered by 15% of the party’s MPs. This means that if 46 sitting Conservative MPs write letters indicating they are unhappy with Prime Minister David Cameron as their party leader, a confidence vote is held. If Cameron were to lose that vote, he would have to resign as party leader. He would not be permitted to run again for the post of party leader either. The Liberal Democrats require that a majority of sitting MPs pass a motion of no confidence in the leader to trigger a leadership contest, but the defeated leader is allowed to stand again. Labour has no such non-confidence provisions.

The UK House of Commons has also embarked on a series of reforms in recent years which have served to strengthen the House vis à vis the executive. I have blogged extensively about many of these (see, for example, my “Fixing Ottawa” series, first post here). Governing parties in the UK do not expect that bills that they put forward will go through un-amended – or that they will even pass, which is not the case here in Canada. Because the opposition parties in the UK know that they will most likely be able to amend any government bill, there is less need to resort to tactics to try to stymie Government business in the House.

I know some will argue that if a party “wins” an election, then it has a mandate to govern and to get its legislation through the House. This argument would have more weight if our electoral system actually reflected how people voted. I don’t know how anyone can argue that a party elected to majority government with less than 40% of the popular vote (and often dismal voter turnout) has a real “mandate” to push through any piece of legislation virtually unopposed. And no piece of legislation is ever perfect – amendments should be welcomed, not defeated at every turn.

The problems in the Canadian House of Commons are mostly due to the excessive control parties have over their Members, and to years of changes to the Standing Orders which have only served to strengthen the Executive at the expense of the legislature. Fining an MP for being disruptive during Question Period won’t change anything. The problems go much deeper than that.

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Coalition government is not a marriage

On 7 January 2012, Conservative Party leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat Party leader Nick Clegg held a joint press conference, which you can watch here, to promote the Coalition government’s Mid-Term Review. That review lists what the government says it has achieved in meeting its coalition agreement and outlines further reforms to come. Both Cameron and Clegg stressed that the coalition would last the full five-year term.

One of the stranger questions asked during the press conference was if the coalition was like a marriage. Indeed, when Cameron and Clegg held their first press conference together back in 2010 to launch the coalition, some of the press coverage read as if it should have been on the Society pages rather than in the Politics section (see for example, this piece, or this one). Cameron answered that question thusly:

“To me it’s not a marriage, it’s a Ronseal deal, it does what it says on the tin – we said we would come together, we said we would form a government, we said we would tackle these problems, we said we would get on with it in a mature and sensible way, and that is exactly what we’ve done.”

This prompted the BBC’s political editor to write a column entitled: Coalition: Official – it’s not a marriage. The column starts:

It’s not a marriage. It never was. They were never in love so they are not renewing their vows.

That, in summary, is the reaction inside Downing Street to how the media, including me, have spoken about today’s joint news conference to be held at Downing Street by David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

Robinson goes on to explain:

The reason this debate about terminology is revealing is that both sides of this coalition have concluded that all this talk of marriage is toxic as it invites hacks like me to conclude that the Tory and Lib Dem partners are still “in love” – something which infuriates many of their natural supporters – or preparing to “divorce” in the run-up to the next election.

The Cameron/Clegg talk of their strengthened “shared purpose” was, of course, always going to make it hard to resist the temptation to ask whether both men are protesting too much. I doubt that many hacks today will resist.

It’s not surprising that the UK media haven’t known exactly how to cover the coalition – it is a rarity in First-Past-the-Post jurisdictions such as the UK. Indeed, the UK media, almost from day one, has regularly speculated not on if the coalition would collapse – that seemed to be a given, but when this would occur. At times it seemed that every single policy was “the one that will tear the coalition apart”, bring about the aforementioned “divorce”.  What the press have failed to understand is that, in the words of the Constitution Unit’s Robert Hazell, is that the UK has a coalition government, but not a coalition Parliament.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have not merged their two parties, therefore it is not surprising – or at least, should not be surprising – that the backbenches of each party often disagree. Such disagreement in the House does not mean that the coalition itself is coming apart at the seams. Indeed, even the parliamentary splits aren’t always divisions between the Lib Dems and the Tories, but divisions within the Conservative Party itself, as this other analysis from the Constitution Unit explains. A coalition is not merger of two parties; it is an attempt by two parties to find common ground in order to govern jointly.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was questioned by the House of Lords Constitution Committee on 9 January 2012 and addressed many of the issues surrounding the workings of the coalition, in particular how it impacts the doctrine of collective ministerial responsibility. It’s an interesting discussion and I recommend watching it.

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Procedure Committee Review of the Backbench Business Committee

Back in March, I wrote about a motion adopted by the UK House of Commons which changed how members of the Backbench Business Committee (BBCom) are elected:

The current members of the Backbench Business Committee were elected by the entire membership of the House of Commons. Members of most of the other Select Committees were elected only by their own caucuses, meaning Labour MPs serving on a committee were elected only by Labour MPs, Conservative members of committees elected only by their fellow Conservative MPs, and the same for the Liberal Democrats (there are no members of smaller parties on any committees).

Backbenchers argued strenuously that the BBBCom was different, and that it was right that its members be elected by the entire House. Changing that so that the elections were controlled by the parties risked making the BBBCom more partisan.

What also upset many at the time that the motion was debated and voted on was that the Procedure Committee had only just undertook a review into the operation of backbench business, and many felt the Government should have waited for that report to be presented to the House before moving forward with any changes to the Committee.

That report was published on 22 November 2012. Overall, the report notes that there is widespread satisfaction with the work and functioning of the BBCom, and concludes that while there is “no need for major substantial change to the practices or procedures which have developed around backbench business and the work of the Committee, a number of proposals could improve and refine the framework within which it operates.” (link)

The report does address the matter of the election of members to the Committee and the changes to that process brought forward and adopted in March. I found that section to be particularly interesting. The Backbench Business Committee is one of the many reforms proposed by the the Wright Committee in its report, Rebuilding the House. The Wright Committee explicitly recommended that the BBCom:

should be comprised of between seven and nine members elected by secret ballot of the House as a whole, with safeguards to ensure a due reflection of party proportionality in the House as a whole. (p. 8 – italics added)

In October 2011, the Procedure Committee released a report reviewing the process of electing the Speaker, committee chairs and members, which had been tried for the first time at the start of the new Parliament following the May 2010 election. The Government responded to that report and in its response stated:

It would be appropriate for the House to address the anomaly whereby members of the Backbench Business Committee other than the Chair (unlike those of other select committees) are elected by the House as a whole rather than by Members of the political party to which they belong. (p. 10)

In this report, the Procedure Committee rightly notes that the earlier report “had noted no such anomaly, nor had the Government sought to draw our attention to it in the course of our inquiry.”

In oral evidence to the Committee, Tony Wright did not agree with the Leader’s use of the term “anomaly” to describe the system of whole House elections for membership of the Backbench Business Committee. He said:

Whatever else it was, it wasn’t an anomaly. It was there by design. The intention was that there should be a collective House mechanism: something that wasn’t the usual kind of party business that dominates most of what goes on here.

He went on to describe the changes brought forward by the Government as “a retrograde step.” Dr Meg Russell, who was specialist adviser to the Wright Committee, described the changes as “very much contrary to the spirit of what the Wright Committee proposed.” (pp. 8-9)

The committee was “disappointed” that the Government had proceeded to change how BBCom members are elected without waiting for the Procedure Committee to conclude its review and remains unconvinced by the arguments put forward by the Government justifying the need for the change:

We are not persuaded that it was necessary to change the method of electing members of the Backbench Business Committee. In our report on 2010 elections to positions in the House, we noted that we had “received no adverse comments on the arrangements for the elections to the Backbench Business Committee”.  Apart from the comments from the Leader and the Shadow Leader, nor did we receive any such comments in this inquiry. Backbenchers who submitted evidence to this inquiry were content with the method of election as originally proposed by Wright and as enshrined in the relevant Standing Order when the Backbench Business Committee was established. Nevertheless, the House made its decision in March this year and we do not consider it appropriate to recommend further changes so soon afterwards. We will return to these matters in a future inquiry. (p. 9)

One of the interesting (to me) recommendations in the report concerns select committee statements. The BBCom had begun the practice of scheduling short debates on select committee reports. While in many parliaments, debate on committee reports is fairly straightforward, in the UK House of Commons, it is a rather cumbersome process: “the Chair of the Committee in question must move a motion that the House takes note of the report, and Members who wish to ask questions must make interventions.”(p. 21) The matter was studied by the Liaison Committee:

In its report on select committee powers, resources and effectiveness, that Committee proposes that a statement on a select committee report should be able to be made “within a reasonable period of the publication of the report: say, within 10 sitting days”. It further proposes that it should be for the Speaker (in consultation with the Chair of the Liaison Committee), rather than the Backbench Business Committee, to decide whether a select committee report is sufficiently topical and significant to merit a statement on the floor of the House on any sitting day. (p. 22)

The Procedure Committee endorses this proposal adding the suggestion that such statements could also be taken in Westminster Hall.

Another interesting recommendation is the proposal to limit how much speaking time can be taken up by the frontbenches during BBCom debates. There aren’t proscribed time limits on speeches in the UK House of Commons as there are in the Canadian House of Commons, for example, but the Speaker can impose time limits when there is a lot of interest among MPs in participating in a particular debate. However, the Speaker’s ability to limit frontbench speaking time is circumscribed by the Standing Orders:

Under Standing Order No. 47, he may do so in respect of both backbench speeches (under paragraph (2)) and frontbench speeches (paragraphs (3) and (4)). The limit in respect of frontbench speeches is, however, subject to paragraph (5)(b), which requires the Speaker to add to the twenty minutes (or ten, in the case of a topical debate) to which frontbench speeches may be limited up to a further fifteen minutes for interventions. The power to impose a time limit on frontbench speeches is thus not used, because a limit of thirty-five minutes would not be worth imposing. Jane Ellison described the lack of any effective power to limit frontbench speeches as “a pressing problem”, saying that “to see backbenchers in a backbench debate being reduced to a four-minute time limit almost immediately when you have had two 25-minute Front-Bench speeches is not the right way round.” (p. 27)

The report recommends amending SO 47 to allow the Speaker greater discretion in applying limits to frontbench speeches.

Other recommendations found in the report include increasing the number of days available to Backbench business from the current 27 to 35; that the Government allow the Backbench Business Committee a legitimate expectation of a backbench business slot, in the Chamber or in Westminster Hall, in every sitting week, with exceptions at certain times of the parliamentary year (for example, the debate on the Queen’s Speech and the Budget); that the Committee be given the power to table business motions to regulate the time for which it is responsible; and finally, that responsibility for scheduling one of the four 90-minute adjournment debates that occur each week in Westminster Hall be transferred from the Speaker to the Backbench Business Committee, on a one-year trial basis.

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The length of two swords

Recently, the brilliant UK actor Philip Glenister (Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, State of Play, Mad Dogs, Hidden, etc.) was interviewed on the Andrew Marr show in connection with his latest role, that of Chief Government Whip in the play “This House“, which is set in 1974, when Labour had a shaky minority government.The discussion turned to the innately adversarial nature of politics in the UK House of Commons, with Marr noting that the play was in some ways an attack on the British parliamentary tradition, that of two sides against each other, and that underneath, there was a dream of a better way of doing things, a call for politics to be more consensual. Glenister noted that UK was “one of the few democracies, just by the layout of our parliament… it’s in a rectangular shape as opposed to in the round. It’s only one of two in the world.”

If Glenister is correct, and there are only two democracies in the world with rectangular Chambers which force government and opposition to face off against each other on opposing sides, then the Canada is the other one. The Canadian House of Commons, the Senate and most of the Canadian provincial and territorial legislatures are also rectangular, the exceptions being the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut and the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories.

What is being implied here is that layout of the Chamber, government on one side, opposition parties on the other, makes our politics more adversarial because it imposes an “Us vs Them” feel from the outset. This is the same argument put forward by architects in this very interesting article, “The Shape of Debate to Come“.

However, it is debatable to what extent the shape of the chamber might influence how adversarial or consensual debate will be. As Professor White notes in the above article, countries which end up with a more consensual approach to politics also tend to use some form of proportional representation rather than First-Past-the-Post:

But, in an email, he said there was “pretty much zero” chance of more co-operative behaviour in Canadian legislatures. And he put the differences in approach in legislatures such as Wales and Scotland more down to mixed electoral systems, not just first-past-the-post.

He said: ”Unquestionably the opposing rows of benches in standard Westminster parliaments reinforces the adversarial nature of the place; for my students I liken it to opposing armies or sports teams squaring off. At the same time, I see seating arrangements as very much secondary to underlying political culture and prevailing political norms.

“The Manitoba [legislature], which is semi-circular, has exceedingly nasty, adversarial partisan politics, and the US Congress these days is hardly a paragon of non-partisanship.”

Because PR makes it very difficult for any one party to form a majority government on its own, this means that coalition government tends to be the norm in countries which use some form of PR, and that reality alone will require parties to work harder to find some sort of consensus. As Prof. White points out, despite sitting in the round, politics in both Manitoba and the US Congress are very partisan and adversarial, and both jurisdictions use FPTP. The Australian House of Representatives is horseshoe-shaped, and politics Down Under is every bit as partisan as it is up here, particularly in the current minority parliament. Australia uses the Alternative Vote to elect its MPs, a voting system which requires voters to rank the candidates on the ballot in order of preference, and to win the seat, a candidate must gain over 50% of the vote, either outright, or through transferred preferences. AV, like FPTP, is not at all proportional, which may explain why political debate in the House of Representatives is partisan and adversarial.

This summer, it was reported that the UK Parliament could be closed for five years for extensive refurbishment, with MPs and Lords “convened in a replica chamber or a conference centre for the duration of the repair work, which could start in 2015.” This immediately alarmed some. The Spectator’s Fraser Nelson raised the threat of some advocating that a new, refurbished chamber would be “a chance to move the MPs to a lifeless, European style semi-circular chamber that supposedly encourages them to co-operate.” Fraser comments on how deathly boring debate is in the Scottish Parliament, which is circular. He does not mention that Scottish Members of Parliament (MSPs) are elected using Mixed-Member Proportional representation (MMP).

But is the electoral system alone enough to determine how consensual or adversarial politics will be in a given jurisdiction? Thomas Carl Lundberg, in his paper “Politics is Still an Adversarial Business: Minority Government and Mixed-Member Proportional Representation in Scotland and New Zealand“, concluded that while both nations introduced MMP in part to bring about a “new politics”, in the end, “the impact of institutional engineering upon the behaviour of politicians has been limited.” New Zealand adopted MMP in 1996, Scotland in 1999. New Zealand has seen the formation of mostly minority governments under MMP (albeit minority coalition government rather than single-party minority government) supported by other smaller parties through confidence and supply agreements, while Scotland has experienced two terms of majority coalition government, one term of single-party  minority government, and most recently, to the surprise of most, a single-party majority government.

The reasons why MMP has had limited success in curbing adversarial politics in Scotland and New Zealand, according to Lundberg are varied. Long before New Zealand adopted MMP, it had a very strong two-party system (Labour on the left and the National Party on the right) and a long history of single-party majority government. With the introduction of MMP in 1996, that didn’t really change. Politics remained quite adversarial between Labour and the National Party, but both of the main parties learned to work with the much smaller parties in order to form governments.

Scotland on the surface may appear more consensual, but there are other tensions at work. Scotland has a true multiparty system, that is one in which “there are three to five relevant parties which are not separated (polarised) by a large or intense ideological distance” (which isn’t the case in New Zealand). Rather, Scotland’s party system “is characterised by two significant cleavages” – class divisions and “the process of building the UK (with England at the centre dominating the periphery composed of Scotland, Wales and Ireland) in the latter.” The two largest parties in Scotland are Labour and the Scottish National Party – both are centre-left, and they have a long, adversarial relationship dating back before devolution, or to quote the former leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats: “there is a level of visceral hatred between the Nationalists and Labour to this day. So, it just transferred from London to Edinburgh … we just so massively underestimated how important it is for people to have good, personal relationships across all parties.”

Simply put, how adversarial or consensual politics might be in a given democracy will depend on many factors. While the shape of the debating chamber and the voting system used to elect members undoubtedly play a part, changing one or both will not necessarily bring about more polite politics.

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Why Maher is wrong on Senate Reform

A recent column by Postmedia’s Stephen Maher argues that recent scandals involving senators might spur forward attempts to reform the Upper Chamber. Unfortunately, the arguments he makes rather miss the point.

Maher acknowledges that the Senate does good and important work, and that their committee work in particular is often better than the work of the House of Commons’ committees. He then goes on to say that this doesn’t change the fact that the Senate is an anachronism, unrepresentative and lacks legitimacy “to fulfill their proper functions, as a check on the government of the day” because they are appointed.

The Senate and senators do not lack legitimacy because they are appointed – their legitimacy stems from the Constitution. Judges are also appointed and act as checks on the government of the day, and no one questions their legitimacy. One might prefer that senators (and perhaps even judges) be elected, but that won’t make them more legitimate. It is the Constitution that establishes the legitimacy of the Upper House.

Maher points out that there are no NDP or Bloc Quebecois senators, and therefore that isn’t democratic. True – but that reality is largely because both the NDP and BQ would like to see the Senate abolished and have no interest in having senators appointed from their ranks. Because they oppose the very existence of the Senate, one would have to ask if they’d even bother running candidates if we ever moved to an elected Senate. If the NDP opted to not run candidates in Senate elections because it would rather see the Upper House abolished, wouldn’t that make an elected Senate equally undemocratic?

Maher then writes:

Electing senators to a single nine-year term — as the government has proposed — would give them democratic legitimacy and some degree of independence from the party machine.

I have written previously about my objections to limiting senators (and in the UK, Lords) to serving a single term in office if elected. This may perhaps make them more “legitimate” in the eyes of some, but it certainly does not make them more accountable, which is a big part of democratic legitimacy. It is one thing to elect someone to office, but without the possibility of judging how that person performed by having the opportunity to either re-elect them or kick them out, how is that any better than having them appointed? I think Maher confuses the concepts of “accountability” and “legitimacy” – as I’ve stated at the outset, the Senate’s legitimacy stems from the Constitution. Electing senators doesn’t make them more legitimate. It could, however, make them more accountable – but only if they are allowed to seek re-election. Limiting them to a single term in office fails on that front.

I also don’t understand how Maher can think that elected senators would somehow be more independent of the party machine. They would be running as representatives of a given political party. They, like MPs, would depend on the party for their nomination. They would be, if anything, more beholden to toeing the party line.

Maher then suggests that:

And the prospect of elections might prevent embarrassments, in part because only professional politicians would get elected.

Conservative Patrick Brazeau, who called a reporter a bitch on Twitter, would never get elected.

Neither would Liberal Rod Zimmer, and his odd marriage would have remained a private matter.

Again, these arguments are somewhat baffling. Is Maher suggesting that no embarrassing MP has ever been elected? I certainly can think of a few. And do we really need more professional politicians? Maher suggests that Senator Brazeau would never get elected – I think there are very good chances that Senator Brazeau would indeed do quite well at the polls. He’s young, attractive, and the party could always stick him in a very safe riding, which would guarantee his election. Maher then uses the example of Senator Zimmer and his much younger wife, suggesting that voters would never elect a man married to a much younger woman. My reply to that is: Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

All of the problems Maher mentions could be eliminated simply by changing how senators are appointed. The logical solution is simply to remove the power to appoint senators from the hands of the Prime Minister and turn that over to an independent Selection Commission. Criteria could be drawn up as to what background and characteristics senators should have. Anyone could submit names of persons they would like to nominate as a potential senator. This would have the added benefit of ensuring that people from specific professional backgrounds which are currently under-represented in the House of Commons – such as experts in certain fields such as finance, all things digital, medicine, etc., were appointed.

A Senate filled with persons appointed by an independent commission would also avoid the other problem Maher identifies – that of the regional imbalance. Maher is right to note that this would be far more problematic if we moved to electing Senators. He is also right to point out that it would be virtually impossible to get the Constitutional change necessary to remedy that imbalance. In short, we are pretty much stuck with that regional representation, which only strengthens the argument for the creation of an independent selection committee to deal with appointments to the Senate.

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Committee rejects MP Recall proposals

An important item of note concerning political and constitutional reform occurred this week in the United Kingdom.

This was the release of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee’s report on the Government’s draft bill on Recall of MPs. Regular readers of this blog know that I am not a fan of recall – I think it is yet another measure designed to save voters from themselves – but even so, I had issues with the proposals the Government had put forward, and the Committee has largely agreed with me, essentially recommending that the Government simply drop plans for MP recall.

The Committee’s report comes in at an impressive 148 pages, but most of that is written evidence and other documentation received by the committee. As I had noted in my own critique of the Government’s draft proposals, the Committee noted that what the Government was proposing would do little to build public confidence in the political system. Indeed, because voters would not be able to initiate recall proceedings themselves, it might actually further undermine public confidence. There wasn’t really anything the committee liked about the Government’s proposals. The committee’s main concerns with the Government’s proposals are as follows:

  • With regards to for the purposes of the first  trigger of a custodial sentence of 12 months or less, the Government change its decision not to take account of the motivation of the MP in committing the offence.  One  possibility would be to enable the House itself to decide whether there should be an exemption from a recall petition in a particular instance because of the political nature of the crime.   The committee was particularly concerned with cases wherein an MP or group of MPs might be convicted for civil disobedience, for example.
  • With regards to a petition triggered by a resolution of the House of Commons, this too was problematic because the Government did not want to define what would constitute a “serious wrongdoing”. If these were limited to breaches of the Code of Conduct for MPs, this might not take into account actions or behaviour that the public would consider serious wrongdoings and worth of recall.
  • If a recall petition were launched, the Government proposes that it be in one central location for signing. The committee believes this too restrictive and would be a deterrent for voters in large constituencies, particularly rural ones. The Government should replace the requirement for a single designated location for signing the petition with arequirement for at least two and no more than four designated locations, and even send out signing sheets to those who are registered for postal voting.
  • The Committee also had reservations about the 10% threshold for a successful petition and recommended that if the Government takes  the steps the Committee recommended to make signing the petition easier—having several designated locations and those who have an extant postal vote automatically being sent a  postal signature sheet—it should raise thethreshold from 10% to at least 20%, which would represent a significant level of dissatisfaction with the sitting MP.

While these are just some of the concerns the Committee has with the mechanics of the recall procedure as proposed, perhaps most damning was their verdict on the Government’s justification for recall (p. 26):

76. The Government has not made  the case for introducing recall.  We have not seen enough evidence to support the suggestion that it will increase public confidence in politics, and fear that the restricted form of recall proposed could even reduce confidence by creating expectations that are not fulfilled.  The aftermath of the expenses scandal has shown that MPs can be, and are, removed by current processes as quickly as they would be by recall.

The Committee noted that the majority of witnesses who gave evidence rejected the Government’s proposals. Witnesses fell into one of two camps: those who favoured total recall, and those who felt recall wasn’t at all necessary. Concerning the arguments in favour of total recall, the Committee noted some important concerns, such as MPs who have dual roles: local MP and cabinet minister.  With recall, there might be “a danger that Ministers might be less willing to make decisions in the long-term national interest if they feared that they could face a recall petition because their decision would be unpopular in the short term or unpopular locally.” (p. 27) Also, recall could be used against the person, when it was really the party and its policies that had upset voters:

There is not a single, clear job description for an MP and everyone will have their own idea about what behaviour constitutes being a “good MP”.  To an extent, individual MPs must decide for themselves what their job entails.  If their constituents disagree, they have an opportunity to vote for someone else at the next general election.  Differences of opinion about what constitutes the proper role of an MP should not be allowed to trigger recall petitions.

84. We believe that a system of full recall may deter MPs from taking decisions that are unpopular locally or unpopular in the short-term, but  which are in the long-term national interest.  It may also discourage them from taking on powerful interests, or expressing controversial or unusual opinions.  The Government argues that a recall mechanism should not leave MPs vulnerable to attack from those who simply disagree with them.  We agree.  For these reasons, we cannot support a system of full recall. (p. 28)

Ultimately, the Committee agreed with those who don’t think recall is necessary:

89. We do not believe that there is a gap in the House’s disciplinary procedures which needs to be filled by the introduction of  recall.  The House already has the power to expel Members who are guilty of serious wrongdoing.  This should be regarded as an active option; rather than a theoretical possibility.  We note that expulsion would not prevent the person concerned standing in the resulting by-election.   We recommend that the Government abandon  its plans to introduce a power of recall and use the parliamentary time this would free up to better effect. (p. 29)

I must say that I agree with the Committee’s recommendation that recall be abandoned. However, I urge you to read their report for yourself and come to your own conclusions.

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