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Zac Goldsmith has warned that the proposed power to recall MPs does not go far enough.
The Conservative MP for Richmond Park said the distance between people and power needed to be radically reduced, and he welcomed coalition plans to allow voters to get rid of MPs mid-term.
But he said he was disappointed that the proposals fell far short of genuine recall and failed to place power in the hands of the people.
"The new government have already promised to bring in a recall initiative which, theoretically, would allow voters to get rid of MPs mid-term or between elections," he said.
"However, the measures proposed by the government fall far short of genuine recall."
Goldsmith warned that under the plans the real power would remain with MPs, as it would be the Commons standards and privileges committee that would decide whether an MP had conducted the "serious wrongdoing" needed to have them recalled.
"Ironically, it could actually aggregate even more power at the top by handing a tiny group at Westminster the power to rid Parliament of difficult, troublesome MPs," he said.
Speaking during a Westminster Hall debate yesterday afternoon the high profile MP said "true" recall allowed people to sack their representatives for whatever reason they liked.
"I accept that this does not happen in practice, but, theoretically, it is possible for a new MP to jet off to the Bahamas the day after the election, delegate all their parliamentary and constituency work to a team of people employed at public expense and return four or five years down the line, probably to be booted out in the next election," he said.
"It is likely that they would be deselected by their local party; if not, they would have the Whip removed by the central party.
"Nevertheless, the fact remains that the local people who put them in position would not be represented at all during the entire lifetime of the Parliament.
"True recall would change all that, and would make politics much less remote and much more responsive."
Political and constitutional reform minister Mark Harper explained that under government plans the recall mechanism would be set in motion only if there were a trigger-if an MP were engaged in serious wrongdoing.
"At that point, if 10 per cent of constituents signed a petition, a by-election would be triggered in which the individual would be able to stand and defend their record," he said.
He added: "Effectively, that would put the decision in the hands of the people."
But he said that the "serious wrongdoing" clause was introduced because the government did not want the mechanism used as a political tool by political opponents, with Members of Parliament consistently being faced with a recall challenge based on nothing more than the fact that people disagree with them.
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