There’s an intriguing detail in today’s widely welcomed proposals for reforming how the House of Commons works. In a bid to weaken the power of the whips and to strengthen that of backbenchers of all parties, the House of Commons Reform Committee has recommended that MPs vote in secret for a new body that will control some of the business in the House.
Secret voting would reduce the influence of the whips certainly, but it would also reduce accountability to the public. It’s not hard to imagine a controversial decision by this new body – or a controversial election to it – resulting in a wave of anger about secret votes by MPs.
Using secrecy to protect the independence of Parliamentarians was an approach taken in post-1945 Italy, where for several decades the details of Parliamentary voting were kept secret. This was in reaction to the strong arm tactics that had been previously used by fascists in order to get Parliamentarians to toe the line.
Added to John Bercow’s recent Speaker election being the first to be done by secret ballot, it is at best a weird irony that the clamour for reform and transparency is leading Parliament in part down the road of secrecy. At worst it is storing up another storm of criticism when the secret processes produced an unpopular result.
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Can we find some way that the constituents know how they voted but the whips don’t? I’m thinking of something along the lines of locking the whips in a cellar…
More seriously, I would like to see things changed so that the whips have far less power to control how MPs vote. If their constituents are clear in their desire/approval for a certain vote, then that’s how the MP should vote, and the whips should not be able to punish them for it.
Why not just abolish the whip? Free MPs up from party control? A party label and manifesto brings like minded people together, but neither should be restrictive.
Let’s be extreme for a moment – set a restriction on MPs so they can only vote on an issue if they were present for a minimum percentage of the summary debate; let reasoned argument and personal logic decide the outcome of a vote rather than ‘because I said so’. If MPs couldn’t be bothered to contribute and have their say, inform the voters, and I’m sure they’d be having theirs, at the election, in the ballot box.
The trouble is, whips’ power is largely informal as I understand it: they punish by leaving you out of the goodies; and of course you won’t get into a government job (or a Committee chair, for the committed parliamentarian) if you’re a troublemaker. Best and most radical solution would be a complete separation of executive and legislature – so that there is no payroll vote, and being an MP is not seen as primarily a qualification for a ministerial post; but even without such an improbably revolutionary step, a drastic reduction in the number of ministerial posts permitted in the Commons, and openly elected Committee membership and chairs, with substantial statutory powers for Select Committees, would help to build up the attractiveness of an independent parliamentary career.
I thought Liberals had been in favour of the secret ballot since about 1870, it’s certainly enshrined in our own Party’s constitution for all internal elections. An election is an entirely different matter from voting on legislation or Parliamentary business, all of which should always be a matter of public record.
Andrew, what do you mean “abolish the whip”? If MPs chose to obey any such recommendations, that’s up to them. If people chose to elect MPs who chose to obey such recommendations, that’s up to them. There’s no legal compulsion, so how can you abolish it?
Most people, if asked, would say “yes” in response to the question “Should MPs vote as they think best or as their party tells them”. But then if they were asked “Do you prefer a political party which is united to one where its MPs are always arguing with each other and voting in different ways?” they would also respond “yes”. It’s the same as asking “Do you want tax cuts?” and “Do you want better and more extensive public services?”. They will respond “yes” to each, without necessarily seeing there is something of a balance between the two.
The votes in the ballot box tend to show what they really think, though politics being what it is people like to vote for parties which promises mutually contradictory things and then moan about politicians always promising what they can’t deliver.
I would like our party to show a grown-up attitude and in the way it presents itself move people away from this way of thinking. I regret, after 30 years of membership and trying to push this, I see little success. We too have campaigns run by marketing men who push this childish attitude to politics because they think of it a salesmen’s job, rather than an adult attitude to politics in which we work with the electors as colleagues.
I think there is a clear enough distinction between voting on an issue (always public) and electing an officlal (secret ballot). Ultimately, the test is whether this is a matter of policy or a matter of representation. Clearly we want select committees to reflect the balance of the chamber so it would appear to be a question of representation.
The argument over the secret ballot in the 19th century was rooted in whether it was better to have a system that is transparent – and transparently corrupt – or secret – and subsequently harder to corrupt. Correctly, Parliament ended up opting for the latter.
Who would this hypothetical controversial candidate for a select committee chair be exactly anyway? We deal with the opposite situation – the bland party loyallist being shoehorned in – at the start of every Parliament.
The best way would be to make the votes secret for a limited period – i.e. the identities of which MP voted in which lobby would only be published, say, one month after the division….
That’s a decent distinction James, though not one that would survive a controversy I think.
As an example, suppose over the summer there had been a secret ballot amongst MPs for a new standards committee chair. Given the number of MPs deeply unhappy about the Telegraph, publicity, changes to the rules etc, in the secrecy of the ballot box it’s easy to imagine many of them voting for a non-reformist candidate.
The business committee being proposed is obviously a different beast. But suppose there is a period of controversy over its behaviour and whether it is doing things in the public (rather than MPs’) interest. And then a backward looking MP gets elected as the new chair after a secret ballot…
I don’t think the parallel with secret voting in public elections works, by the way, because voters are not accountable to anyone else for their voting behaviour. But if I elect an MP, isn’t it reasonable for me to know about what they then do in that role?