20/03/2009
Westminster's dirty little secret
It's Friday and the Commons is virtually dead - again.
Nick Brown says he's going to root out slacker MPs, that "five per cent" who don't vote, sit on standing committees or select committee and basically do bugger all.
But even though there is a hard core of truly shockingly lazy MPs, the problem goes much, much wider.
A combination of generous holidays and reformed hours means that many MPs now have what is effectively a three day week (tho in some cases it is a two-and-a-half day week). This is Westminster's dirty little secret that no one here wants to talk about.
Many arrive on a Monday evening and go home on Thursday lunchtime. But because there is no means of "clocking in" and "clocking out", the public are completely unaware of just how little time MPs spend in the Commons.
Some of this is down to the unintended consequences of a sensible attempt to make Commons hours more "family friendly". Robin Cook wanted the Commons to sit in the mornings most days and finish say seven pm. But his reforms were partially reversed by Jack Straw so the House doesn't actually sit until 2.30pm on a Monday yet rises often on Thursday afternoon.
However the main culprit is New Labour's creation of "constituency days". This means that the House sits very rarely on a Friday and instead Members are supposed to be devoting themselves to their constituents.
Some MPs are incredibly hard-working but beyond the Friday surgery (which is often at tea time), and the odd school visit or fete, what do they really do with this day off from Parliament? Many of them spend time doing party work (as opposed to Parliamentary work), holding street stalls, canvassing and so on. Sadly, the only way of checking would be to follow them from morning til night around their constituency, keeping a distance like a plain-clothes copper.
Similarly, what do they do with their very generous holidays? (Again, Cook wanted September sittings but Straw quietly strangled them). It's still amazing that at a time of recession, they took 24 days off for Christmas. They will get a further 17 days at Easter, ten at Whitsun and an astonishing 82-day break this summer. Again, every MP here will tell you that these are not really "holidays" and they are all working hard in their constituencies - but we have no real idea what they do with this time.
I've been noticing this trend more in recent months. Fortunately, more and more Tory MPs are alive to all this. Sir George Young, a contender for Speaker after the next election, pointed out in Business Questions earlier this month that the House regularly rises early on a Thursday. It adjourned at 2.52pm on 12 February. Sir George rightly pointed out that Harriet Harman had promised "weekly topical debates" of 90 minutes every Thursday. But few have taken place.
During the debate on the Damian Green affair, Nigel Evans rightly expressed shock that the House was packed on a Monday afternoon. "Let us try to think of the last time when the House has been packed at 2.48 on a Monday afternoon," he said.
Shadow Deputy Chief Whip Andrew Robathan believes that the problem stems from Labour MPs not bothering to turn up. On February 27, he noticed the dearth of backbenchers on the green benches during an economy debate: "I do not know whether the Chancellor noticed while he was making his statement that there were only about a dozen Government Back Benchers behind him and three times that number on these Opposition Benches for a party half the size."
Earlier this year, ConHome's Jonathan Isaby spotted that MPs were sloping off early and failing to attend key readings of bills.
Then again, we've only got a global economic crisis, the threat of catastrophic climate change and the threat of international terrorism to deal with. Maybe our MPs believe there's nothing worth debating in Parliament.
I suspect it will take a reform-minded Speaker and a reform-minded Commons leader to make sure we get real value for money once again.
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