Paul and Nicky Tyler on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall

The Parliamentary Recess already seems to be ebbing away. We’re in the second half of August, autumnal weather is with us and it’s only four weeks until the party conferences. MPs, if they got away at all, are beginning to return from their holidays, which many – like everyone else – take while their children are off school.

For me, there is a marked reduction in my workload during the summer now that I am a Peer. When I represented North Cornwall in the Commons, I did try to get away on holiday – and I encouraged my staff to do so. But an MP’s work never stops, so I’d come back to two weeks’ worth of constituents’ letters both on policy campaigns and about difficulties with various government agencies and private companies. A mass dictation session would begin, as my then secretary typed hundreds of responses that I had recorded into the horrid little dictaphone I carried about with me.

I know from my successor that MPs now receive more correspondence than ever. The advent of email campaigns means that people can send a pre-written letter to their MP at the touch of a button. And, of course, it’s hardly any trouble to drop a bespoke letter to him or her via email too, asking for responses on a variety of different issues. MPs receive hundreds of such communications every week, and all have to be replied to – summer or not.

Meanwhile, my mailbag has certainly reduced. I probably get 30 pieces a week over the summer, and perhaps 100 when the House is sitting. This month it has mostly been invitations to events in the autumn and unsolicited copies of such august publications as India Digest and Germany Today. But many people still – after three years out of the Commons – write to me as “Paul Tyler MP”. I even had a Cabinet Minister write to me recently as the MP to let me know about some local developments in North Cornwall – do these people not keep up with the world?!

In Cornwall, however, many former constituents do keep in touch. Some want me to participate in community activities – I am a Trustee of various local charities and also a Deputy Lieutenant of the Duchy. After 40 years in Cornish public life I suppose this is inevitable. And last week, to mark the fourth anniversary of the devastating floods in and around Boscastle (in which my wife and I were ourselves caught up) I was summoned to reflect extensively on what happened, and how the people there had coped since, in TV and radio interviews. An ex-MP – in Cornwall at least – is never totally forgotten.

I am sure that many other Peers, whether former MPs or not, have similar attachments to specific areas of the country. After all, we all have full titles which reflect our chosen locality of special significance.

However, I deliberately and determinedly do not give substantive replies to former constituents about difficulties with benefits, pensions and so on. My successor is extremely capable, so he doesn’t need me meddling in individual cases, and besides Peers simply do not have the same access to Ministers on these sorts of issues.

I do still respond to a variety of correspondence from people about the issues I have pursued over many years, like organophosphate poisoning and parliamentary reform. Their letters are often refreshing, since people write accepting that you are trying to do something good and useful, rather than assuming (as many do with MPs) that you are useless hack, in the job only for your own advancement, and for that of your party!

Perhaps that outlines a key distinction between the nature of the job of an MP, and that of a Peer. The latter can choose, if he or she wants, to do nothing, so people are grateful if you do anything (and I try to do a great deal). The former feels he must do everything, and finds that appreciation is the exception not the rule. What a difference!