argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Recall of MPs Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-02
Topic: Government Operations
Winifred Ann Taylor (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I would like to add just a few words because this is an extremely important issue. I am very grateful that my noble friend has raised it again. The remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, show how complex the issue is, and yet it is treated as very simple. His comments about the withdrawal of the Whip and the inability of someone subsequently to stand in a by-election have not been discussed and fully thought through. I think that that shows how hastily this legislation has been pushed through despite the fact that people have been talking about it for many years. However, I support the suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Hughes. In all the times that we have discussed this matter in the House, the Minister has never said why the Government have changed their mind and why they are sticking now to 10 days when they thought that 20 days was appropriate. Like my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, I have served on the Privileges Committee in another place. I can vouch, as he does, for the fact that the discussions on that committee—in my day it was under the chairmanship of the late Lord Newton—were never political. Discussions never led to a schism in the committee along political lines. I think that there is a very real danger that that is what will happen if we do not seek some changes even at this late stage.
Recall of MPs Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-02
Topic: Government Operations
Alan Thomas Howarth (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours for persisting with this theme, and for bringing this issue back once again at Third Reading however forlorn the prospect of acceptance of his compromise amendment may seem to be—and it is. As other noble Lords have said, the issue that it deals with is one of very great importance for the House of Commons. I believe, in any case, that by introducing these provisions for the recall process, the House of Commons has demonstrated a catastrophic lack of self-confidence. Specifically, the means of policing its own affairs that the House of Commons has traditionally used is the operation of the Standards Committee. Through the provisions in the Bill, and particularly through the amendment brought in by the Labour Party to reduce the period of suspension from 20 days to 10 days, which would trigger the recall process, the effect will be greatly to reduce the practical capacity of the Standards Committee to perform its proper function If the House of Commons is to rehabilitate itself in the public esteem, it must be seen to be able to take responsibility, and to provide effective means to take responsibility, for matters of internal discipline and for disciplining Members of Parliament who transgress or commit serious wrongdoing. In so reducing the realistic scope for disciplinary sanctions that the Standards Committee can recommend to the full House, the House of Commons has portrayed a lack of self-confidence and done itself a deep disservice So I add to the plea from my noble friend Lord Hughes of Woodside that the Front Bench will accept the amendment simply to allow Members of the House of Commons to think again about this. Very few of them participated. Very few of them voted in the debates. Many of them did not realise the import of what was approved by the House. They ought to have that opportunity to think again, in their interests and in the interests of parliamentary democracy. I think that we in your Lordships’ House are fully entitled to offer our advice to them on this matter. As another House of Parliament, and as citizens, we have an interest in the integrity, good name and good functioning of the House of Commons.
Recall of MPs Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-02
Topic: Law and Crime
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): Some of them have admitted that they do not like the Bill—we have just heard that it is fundamentally wrong. There is another view, of course: that the status of Parliament depends not simply on the good behaviour of its Members but on the ability of constituents, where there has been serious misdemeanour, to hold their Members to account. That is the thrust and drive of the Bill, and it is for that reason that my party has supported the idea that, where someone has been found—differently from the case in front of us now—guilty and sentenced to imprisonment, or it is found by their peers in the other place that they should be suspended for a time from the House, they should not automatically be able to continue in the job of representing their constituents.
Recall of MPs Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-02
Topic: Government Operations
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): My point is that it was debated there and the case was made for why it should change. The point I am trying to make is that the proposal for 20 days, 10 days, 15 days, five days or 30 days is a matter of judgment. There is no right or wrong answer. It is a judgment on what is the appropriate connection between a decision in the other place and its Standards Committee and the point at which that should trigger a recall petition. That is a difficult judgment and one that I say needs to be made by the House of Commons, which is where this decision was taken.
Recall of MPs Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-02
Topic: Government Operations
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): She says she has the right figure. Let me put to her a scenario. Imagine a case of non-declaration of interests that is worthy of a penalty of more than 10 days but not 20 days. I can remember some pretty difficult cases of non-declaration of interests. Are we saying that in such a case we should invoke a procedure which could lead to a by-election that costs hundreds of thousands of pounds both to the political party and the local authorities, with all the inconvenience of bringing in vast numbers of party workers to defend the party interest, because of a case of non-declaration where the Member’s defence may be that they simply made a mistake but where the committee realises that it has to invoke a punishment of at least 10 days?
Recall of MPs Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-02
Topic: Government Operations
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): The answer is yes. If the MP’s own colleagues—I do not want to use the word "peers", as it is a bit confusing—believe that the issue is serious enough for a suspension of at least 10 days, they would do so, although I find it hard to believe that they would so for a mistake. That is what this Bill is all about. The trigger may be 10 days or my noble friend may be right and perhaps it should be 12 days or nine days—I do not know exactly because it is a judgment call—but this Bill is about saying that, where their fellow Members of Parliament consider that the issue is serious enough, that is the trigger for a recall It is also important that the figure is not so low that we undermine in any way either the sort of normal protest that could happen in the House of Commons or the mistake—although I doubt that it would apply for a mistake—or misdemeanour that so offends other MPs that they take the MP to the Standards Committee. The essence of the Bill is that a recall will be triggered when the suspension is for a certain length of time There is another, separate point. Whether the threshold is five, 10, 15 or indeed 40 days, there will always be the difficulty—as happens when magistrates hear cases—where the knowledge that the decision can trigger a by-election will add an extra dimension to the judgments that are taken. That applies both to magistrates in a court case, if it is about whether there should be a sentence of imprisonment rather than a fine, and to those dealing with these situations. That is tough. Decision-making is tough. I recognise that, but I do not think that the number of days minimises that effect. We will deal later with a very helpful amendment from my noble friend about the Standards Committee, which I hope will address some of the challenges that will be before members of the Standards Committee. On this amendment, the decision has been taken by the other place and I think it is right. I hope that my noble friend will withdraw the amendment.
Recall of MPs Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-02
Topic: Government Operations
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, how can I answer that? I am at a loss. The noble Lord says that he has consulted with his colleagues on the Liberal Benches in the Commons, but I know for a fact that a number of Liberal MPs have expressed concern on whether even they were aware of what they were voting for I say to my noble friend Lady Hayter on the Front Bench that many people behind her who support my amendments do not like the Bill. I have always liked the idea of a Bill that deals with recall, and many of us who support the position that I have taken on the Bill support recall. We are arguing about a very small but highly significant detail in the Bill which we believe will have effects which the House of Commons has not as yet taken into account. As I said in an intervention, there was almost no debate apart from a couple of sentences I warmly thank my noble friends Lord Howarth of Newport and Lord Hughes of Woodside for their argument that we should just give the other House another opportunity. I am absolutely convinced that everyone who supports 10 days will back down in the event that this matter is put before the Commons. Therefore, although the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, says that he felt that the Rifkind-Straw affair does not weaken the position, it does so in the sense that it has put the fear of God into many Members of Parliament that they cannot meddle with the decision. They would have meddled with it, but they do not want to. That is why that has somehow changed the agenda and made it much more difficult for us to get the amendment through today My noble friend Lady Taylor, who spent some years on the Privileges Committee with me, drew on what is at the heart of our amendment. The committee in the Commons will now be politicised; some in the Commons will think, "Well, if we can change it and get more of a lay membership, somehow the climate within the committee will change", but I am afraid that is not the case. The fact that by-elections can now be precipitated simply by 10 days’ suspension will infect that committee, whether it has lay membership or otherwise. They will be conscious of the debate going on in Parliament more widely on what happens as a result and what happens during the course of a by-election with all the expense involved I have listened to my noble friend. I would love to divide the House today, but I will not do so. There will be an incident, a decision and a public row, and those who argued in defence of this 10-day nonsense will come to regret what they have done—and that applies to all Dispatch Boxes in both Houses. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Recall of MPs Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-02
Topic: Government Operations
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this amendment was born from an undertaking given by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, in winding up in the last debate on Report, at col. 1144 of the Official Report of 10 February 2015, when he said that he would consider my Amendment 6, which dealt with the issue of lay membership of the Standards Committee. My amendment draws on a report of the Procedure Committee on lay membership of the Committee on Standards and Privileges from November 2011. The report states that the Procedure Committee in the Commons concluded that, "if lay members were to be given voting rights, legislation should set the matter beyond a doubt. The Committee believed that appointing lay members in the absence of such legislation would carry a ‘strong element of risk’, in that it could ‘lead to conflict between the House and the courts and might have a chilling effect on how the Committee conducts its work even before such a challenge emerged’" That comment in the report came in response to a Commons resolution of 2 December 2010 inviting the Procedure Committee to bring forward proposals from the Committee on Standards in Public Life for lay membership to be appointed to the Standards and Privileges Committee, which, indeed, is precisely what has happened. However, the voting aspect is not a new issue for the House of Commons to consider. It was first considered in 1876, when Sir Thomas Erskine May, then Clerk of the House of Commons, argued that it was not an illegal act to appoint lay members with full voting rights to committees on Private Bills. However, since then, I understand that both the Clerk of the Commons —I think in the last Parliament, but perhaps even earlier in this Parliament—and the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege opposed lay members being given the right to vote. I have therefore tabled this amendment to give the Government the opportunity to clarify their position on that matter I consider that this is an important issue. That is why I am moving this amendment. On 10 February, at col. 1131 of the Official Report, I argued for a very different approach to the handling of complaints by the Commons Standards Committee based on a majority lay membership—which I support—with a right to recommend, but not vote, and with its recommendations being either accepted or rejected by a committee minority of elected Members of Parliament—as elected Members of Parliament, they would enjoy full parliamentary privilege—as against the majority lay membership. If the Minister has difficulty addressing all the points I am making on this matter, I will perfectly understand if he wishes to write to me after the debate. However, it is very important that at some stage in the near future—certainly in this Parliament—we establish the Government’s attitude to lay members of the Standards Committee being given that right to vote. I beg to move.
Recall of MPs Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-02
Topic: Government Operations
Alan Thomas Howarth (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I argued in the previous debate that surely the way for the House of Commons to re-establish its good reputation is for it to take responsibility for its own self-government and its own self-discipline. I am therefore opposed to the propositions put forward in these amendments, and indeed by the House of Commons Committee on Standards, not only that there should be lay members of the committee but that there should be equal numbers of lay members and Members of Parliament and that the lay members should have votes. It seems to me that those arrangements would not be consistent with the House of Commons taking the responsibilities that I believe that it should I also suggest that what we are being invited to approve is inconsistent, first with Magna Carta, which established the principle of trial by peers, and secondly with the Bill of Rights, which asserts parliamentary privilege and insists that the proceedings of Parliament should not be questioned or impeached by those who are not Members of Parliament. It may indeed be the case that Parliament has power to set aside Magna Carta—even in its 800th anniversary year—and that it has power to discard elements of the Bill of Rights. I would suggest only that parliamentarians should draw a very deep breath and think very carefully indeed before they do so The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is always Jacobinical—he has a splendid fury in his reforming drive—but the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, has a profound knowledge of parliamentary history. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, who is not able to be in his place today, is deeply knowledgeable about parliamentary privilege. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, another of the sponsors of Amendment 5, is a very experienced former Member of the House of Commons. I am startled that some of those noble Lords should associate themselves with this kind of drastic change, which, in the present circumstances, when all of us are intensely concerned to see how the good reputation of Parliament can be better upheld, would surely be in effect an abdication of the central responsibility that Parliament has for itself and for its own good conduct. I am deeply opposed to these amendments.
Recall of MPs Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-02
Topic: Government Operations
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am sorry to part company from my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport, but I support Amendment 5. Perhaps it is a bit of a selfish reason as to why, which is that it helps facilitate the alternative approach that I put forward on Report. The amendment says that the committee should have, "a number of members who are not Members of Parliament at least equal to the number of members of that Committee who are Members of Parliament" Of course, had the arrangement that I proposed on Report been in place, there would be more lay members of the committee than ordinary members. That falls precisely within the definition set out in this amendment, in that Ministers could actually introduce the scheme that I was suggesting in legislation—or indeed the House could, but it would need legislative support To remind Members of what that scheme was, essentially there would be 10 members of the committee, with seven lay and three elected. The three elected members would enjoy parliamentary privilege because they are elected. The seven lay members would be effectively advising the committee. They vote and make their recommendation, but it is for the three elected members to decide whether to reject or accept the recommendation of the lay members. The elected members essentially have charge—a responsibility for approving the recommendations so that they can be submitted to the full House of Commons. For that reason I accept the amendment. It takes us partially down the route that I want to go down, and I hope that the Government, at some stage in the future, will finally select that route.
Recall of MPs Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-02
Topic: Government Operations
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this has been an interesting debate—and not simply because it is an easier one to respond to. As I said when we discussed this subject in Committee, or possibly on Report, we strongly support having more lay members on the Standards Committee. We believe that it is crucial for that body to have the confidence of the public, so opening up its work to people who are not MPs is an excellent step towards gaining that confidence. In other areas of life—in the medical profession, the legal profession and other professions—outside independent members are now the norm in any disciplinary process. That gives confidence to patients and clients that someone other than the cohort of those whose behaviour is being judged is involved in the decisions. Indeed, I think I am right in saying that in most of those other professions there is now a lay chair of the relevant disciplinary body As my honourable friend on the Front Bench in the other place said, we want to see a, "radical overhaul of the Committee. That would include the removal of the Government’s majority and an increase in the role and authority of its lay members. We propose that at least half the Committee should be lay members and that the Chair of the Committee should not be a Member of Parliament".—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/14; col. 69.] It is encouraging that today there has been backing from all sides of the House on the need to move forward in this respect. The Government may say that the Bill is not the appropriate place to make such a change—although I note the astute amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and others—but whether that is the case or not, we are sending an important message that all the political parties are determined to see the Standards Committee work effectively, fairly and transparently, and in a way that gives voters confidence in its work.
Recall of MPs Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-02
Topic: Government Operations
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): Can I clarify the position and go back to what I was asking? What is the Government’s position on voting in that committee in the event that it were to proceed to implement the increased lay membership, to which the Minister referred?
Recall of MPs Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-02
Topic: Government Operations
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am indebted to the Minister because he has made the position clear. We now know that the Government do not support the Standards Committee’s lay membership being given the right to vote, which brings me right back to my Amendment 6 which I moved on Report, which I now believe is a real option. I was also against the lay membership being given the right to vote informal proceedings, which was what I was trying to flush out, because it makes my amendment more sensible All I would like from the Minister is an assurance that the debate that took place on Report, and if I might modestly say in particular the proposal in my amendment, will be considered by the appropriate authorities. I would ask those who are charged with reading these matters in the other place, as invariably they do when we deal in this place with House of Commons business, to read the debate and consider that amendment. I think that my proposal was a very reasonable way to proceed. It would ensure that the lay membership really felt they were making a contribution and it would not take us down road concerning the issue of parliamentary privilege, which my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport was essentially alluding to. On that basis I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Recall of MPs Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-02
Topic: Government Operations
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): I add my thanks to the Minister for tabling this amendment, to which we have added our names. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport, who argued persuasively both on Report and today. Given the move from four to 10 signing places, we really did not need the lengthy period of eight weeks. I hope that, for costs and other reasons, there will now be less need for people to apply for postal votes, and it will be easier for people to arrange to meet one of the signing places. While we would not want to rush the petition, we think that both the MP and the constituents deserve to have as swift a result as possible so that the MP is not taken away from their normal parliamentary duties for an inordinate period, as has been outlined by my noble friend Lord Howarth. We see six weeks as being an improvement on eight and look forward to this amendment passing shortly.
Counterterrorism Policy: Syria and Iraq — House of Lords, 2015-03-02
Topic: Law and Crime
Angela Smith (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the answer to the shadow Home Secretary In our debates on the counterterrorism Bill, we referred on several occasions to the 600 or so British citizens who have travelled to Syria to join the conflict. Each of those 600 has somehow come into contact with extremists and been radicalised. When this Government came to power, they revoked the relocation orders that removed individuals from terrorist networks to disrupt those networks. They took that action against professional advice. Do the Government now accept that the removal of relocation orders made it harder to disrupt terrorist networks, particularly those in parts of London Given that the Government advice is not to travel to Syria, we all find it absolutely incredible that three 15 year-old schoolgirls were able to make that journey, taking over 30 hours, without any intervention. When were the authorities in Turkey notified? Was it really three days later and, if so, why did it take so long? What communications were there with the British embassy in Turkey and what action was taken by the embassy to try to locate the young girls? Did anyone think of just checking the bus station? What measures are now being put in place to prevent this happening again?