I have previously written about the long summer recesses. The Times today has an editorial arguing the case for Parliament’s deliberations to be spread more evenly over the year. As it notes, MPs are not on holiday for the period of the recess, but nonetheless the recess means that government goes on with no parliamentary scrutiny. This is not wholly accurate, as there is some committee activity (more so this recess than ever before, as far as I can see) and questions can be tabled. Nonetheless, the broad thrust of the editorial is, in my view, spot on and the recommendation sensible. As the editorial says: “With a more sensible organisation of parliamentary oversight, we might avoid the sense that the whole of government is on holiday save for a couple of ministers riding their favourite hobby-horses.”
I would endorse this and add two riders. The first is that I favour not only spreading the workload more evenly throughout the year but also sitting for longer. This would not necessarily be for the purpose of passing more legislation, but rather for ensuring greater scrutiny of existing measures and perhaps even having designated periods of scrutiny: questioning government, providing more time for public bill committees in the Commons and enabling the Lords to introduce a similar procedure. Indeed, it could be that neither House sits but rather that committees meet. In short, not more legislation but more extensive scrutiny.
The second rider is that these changes should be complemented by the introduction of a flat-rate salary for MPs, with no second-home allowances, and a single daily attendance allowance for peers. It may be that the Committee on Standards in Public Life recommends the former and the Senior Salaries Review Body recommends the latter. I think the case for such change is powerful if not overwhelming.
A combination of these changes would enable Parliament to do its work more efficiently, and to be seen to do so, and for parliamentarians to be paid on a transparent and equitable basis. Making these changes requires some strength on the part of government and both Houses: the government in having to accept greater scrutiny, the Commons in having to accept bad publicity if the single-rate salary involves a major jump from the present rate (even if that rate is less than the present salary plus ACA combined), and peers having to bite the bullet if the daily rate is no more generous or even less generous than the total that can presently be claimed from the combination of allowances. Nonetheless, Parliament would benefit and, to my mind, it would be the most effective way forward in restoring public trust.
If you could see past the obvious, would you be interested in a putsch with Von Mandelsohn? Just thinking aloud…
The suggestion of longer sittings seems to support the theory that parliamentarians don’t engage in House work during recesses.
I favour a decent remuneration (read flat-rate salary)for all parliamentarians but have been struck by a number of MP’s websites stating they have but [a four or five year] contract with their constituents. That is true, and one could even argue they are self employed. Is there a reason to continue with their golden goodbye plus pension? Who should be their employers – constituency voters or national taxpayers?
For once, MPs and the various review bodies should forget the media and listen to the voting public (and I do mean those who bother to vote). Why not start here?
“If you could see past the obvious, would you be interested in a putsch with Von Mandelsohn? Just thinking aloud…”
Goodness me, a peer actually contemplating overthrow. How refreshing! (no sarcasm intended)
“The suggestion of longer sittings seems to support the theory that parliamentarians don’t engage in House work during recesses.”
Surely successful oversight of–at this moment unruly and dare I say dangerous–cabinet requires many eyes and many voices being (forcefully) heard at once?
“[…] contract with their constituents […] Is there a reason to continue with their golden goodbye plus pension? Who should be their employers – constituency voters or national taxpayers?”
It it just my naïvety that finds the notion of monetary gain over sense of moral duty and public service rather disturbing?
“For once, MPs and the various review bodies should forget the media and listen to the voting public (and I do mean those who bother to vote). Why not start here?”
If only the media didn’t decide the majority of the (bothering and voting) populace’s every judgement and evaluation for it– I fear you have a beautifully optimistic view of an average citizen’s critical faculties, as sorrowful as that thought is. The enlightenment view of such things is commendable in its idealism, but dangerous when applied. The emotion which media uses so prevalently is what leads to lay persons’ decisions, not reasoning and not facts. Journalism no longer sells, opinion which stirs up emotion does. What follows is self-evident… and I’ve already stated it.
The only way for an elected house to pass a bill that the media unanimously disagrees with is to launch a comprehensive PR (yes, propaganda) campaign, or risk losing its seats come the next election. I suppose that answers my question about naïvety… *sigh*
Lord Norton: The Australian Government of New South Wales and the second reading of the Independent Commission against Corruption Act 1988 cover many issues that resonate at this time. See Link.
Secondary employment is something the public are only too familiar with. It is generally discouraged by a primary employer and is often taken up in secret at the risk of dismissal. This is particularly so within the NHS. Over tiredness on the part of an individual may lead to patient healthcare issues.
People on low incomes that engage in secondary employment know just how tiring one, two or maybe three jobs can be. They also know that it is wrong – why else would their primary employer discourage it. They project this experience onto politicians knowing that politicians are not giving their all to their job.
The picture in the Spiegel link is a metaphor. The public are upstanding whilst the beggar, our politicians, holds out a bowl in the hope of public monies. There is another way of viewing this. Anybody on welfare will have monies reduced by amounts received from part time employment.
You say that MPs should receive an increase in salary; I would argue that it should be reduced pro rata by the income from their secondary employments because this is what happens to the poorest in our society when in receipt of welfare. Why should an MP receive full time pay from the public purse for a part time job?
Your reply in post ‘Protecting Privacy’:
“On your second point, you appear to confuse the role of the Treasury in influencing public policy with the role of the Inland Revenue as a tax-collecting body.”
You missed the point entirely. Your defence of income privacy is surrounded by a monolith that has no public accountability or scrutiny. If corruption or incompetence is fact, providing such an opaque wrapper is the perfect hiding place.
Ref: German Town Blasted for Cutting Beggar’s Benefits
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,616509,00.html
East Riding Primary Care Trust: Secondary Employment
http://www.erypct.nhs.uk/upload/HERHIS/East%20Riding%20PCTs/Document%20Store/Audit%20&%20Integrated%20Gov/15%20July%202009/Item%205%20-%20Declaration%20of%20Secondary%20Employment%20form.pdf
ICAC: Second reading speech of the ICAC Act 1988
http://www.icac.nsw.gov.au/index.cfm?objectid=EBE7410F-92E1-31B6-22B0EF7FD8F4BE6D
I’m afraid I don’t think Parliament should sit for longer. The government already makes far too much legislation without it being adequetely scrutinized and amended, if we gave them more time, they would make far more of this rubbish.
The present situation leaving the government at best scrutiny light and at worst scrutiny awol is unacceptable. I can though see a number of problems with the proposed increase. Longer chamber time unless some restricting mechanism is introduced further weakens the ability of the lords to talk a bill out or force concessions because the government wants to get the bill on the statute book before the recess. More time might make the government more obstinate. Secondly where little legislation is happening – as at present parliament is going through the motions in the absence of government ideas – much useful time is filled with deliberate padding. The supposedly topical debates in the commons are rarely very topical. You can guarantee if the topical issue of the day is embarrassing to the government then the debate the government picks is wool farming! I suspect that more time would only exacerbate this trend unless mechanisms were put in place to weaken/limit government controls.
Lord Norton,
The concern that will likely be raised about a daily attendance allowance for the Lords is that the European Parliament has a similar system, which has resulted in some MEPs being accused of attending Parliament solely to collect their allowances before leaving.
While the veracity of the allegation is contested, will a system based on this model be deemed sufficiently rigorous to ensure public confidence?
This is not to say that finding a solution to adequately recompensing parliamentarians is a straightforward task, and an attendance allowance may be the least worst option given the attendant complications and bureaucracy that potentially exist in other models.
Matt Korris
Hansard Society
Thanks for the comments.
Kyle Mullholland: More time sitting does not necessarily equate to more legislation. The time can be devoted to better scrutiny. In the case of the Lords, for example, one could refer a Bill to a select committee following second reading for evidence-taking examination. In the Commons, more time could be provided for the evidence-taking part of Public Bill Committees. One could stipulate that sittings between July and October be confined solely to such scrutiny and to non-legislative activity. This therefore does not affect the capacity of the Lords to exert influence as we come towards the end of a session. It enhances it capacity to scrutinise.
Croft: On the padding-out element, one can provide for more productive scrutiny through taking responsibility for determining the timetable out of the hands of government. Compared to other legislatures, executive control of the parliamentary timetable at Westminster is exceptional. I might add, of course, that the two Houses do not need to sit in parallel and have not always done so. I am not advocating sitting for the sake of sitting.
Senex: As I have previously argued, it is possible to do a full-time job and yet do another job as well. A great many people do so. It may be tiring, but as long as the job gets done effectively, then there is not a problem. The issue is the quality of the work undertaken. To take on a second job does not mean the full-time job becomes a part-time one.
Matt Korris: The issue you raise is complementary to my point. There are various steps you can take to ensure that peers do not simply pop in for a few minutes in order to claim the daily allowance. These include noting attendance at separate points during the day and/or factoring in attendance at committees.
ladytizzy: You raise a fascinating point as to the status of MPs and who the employer may be deemed to be. It raises a plethora of interesting questions. If constituents were deemed to be the employers and there was a contract, what would be the conditions for dismissal in between elections?
Confining July-October to evidence taking or non legislative activity would probably lead to an excess there and a dearth at other times of the year on bills that need it more. I’d suggest that closing the summer recess window probably entails a change of structure – more sessions of shorter lengths to produce breaks spaced across the year each of which have some defined mandatory time ring-fenced for the activities you suggest.
Well everyone (even many politicians) seem agreed that less control is needed but it all seems to go a bit vague at that point…
On MPs and contracts we’re back to recall elections which within reasonable limits seem a very good thing.
Croft: I doubt if using the summer period for committee work would create an excess or dearth but I would be quite happy with a change of structure along the lines you suggest.
An employment contract between constituents and their representative would require a form of job description; no harm in a modern day adaptation of Burke’s framework. Standard employment legislation will deal with disciplinary measures.
There are distinct advantages in giving constituents control, though the issue of the Prime Minister deciding an election is troublesome. This could be resolved by simply removing this privilege from the PM and having fixed terms. Logically, we would have to look at how we subcontract MPs to form a government.
Human nature takes over at some point, and little enclaves will spring up and before you can say Bob’s your uncle, the UN forces will come in to take control.
Gosh, I wish I hadn’t mentioned it now.
Recall elections are a ridiculous idea. There are probably fewer MPs than I can count on both hands that have an absolute majority, so even discounting the apathetic, most people who voted did not vote for their MP. So we would have recall elections every couple of weeks in almost every constituency.
Parliament is sovereign. That is a pillar of our constitution. Within the five years, only Parliament can decide to sack an MP. I believe we would have many people being removed from Parliament, not just for the reasons that the likes of Captain Baker were expelled.
I see your letter has been published in today’s Times saying much as you did here. It’s above another from the present Lord Salisbury commenting on his eminent ancestor’s style of government. I must admit to the 3rd marquess being one of my favourite prime ministers. How can you not like a man who thought time away from government was well spent randomly mixing dangerous chemicals in his own lab.
I see references to Australia and Europe and the United Nations and so that encourages me to comment when I might have foreborne because terms of seating seems to be the kind of issue people ought to be working on in the UK and as someone who is not a part of the British polity it seems likely that I may only either be ignored or injure those I support and help those to whom I lend no arguments of support. But I suppose if this is not a venue for a mature public exchange there really must be very few.
Governance is not medicine or nursing, it is profoundly unique when it is well understood. I think that the civil service should be subject to any arguments against secondary employment which apply to the NHS. However, the same does not follow for Parliament. Back before the Conquest the English used to get together and elect themselves a King. Birth, status and experience in arms joined with wealth to qualify the electors and nobody thought they should be professional electors. From that remote (by British standards — part of my heritage is a forgotten Greek line) origin through modern times it has been understood that government councils and counsels should not be a purely inside sort of thing. Somehow in the early twentieth century the balance shifted so that vocal and influential Brits saw the class of Earls, Dukes and Counts as being uniquely disqualified by their ties to gardening, dealing with tenants, attending to parish rituals, and fiddling around in odd military resumes. Prior to that there were many who could see these persons as drawing a great richness and insight into this House.
Reformers would have sought to see more of them really well educated. Radical reformers would have re-established legal houses for the greatest Hereditary Peers with election of nominees from the top of the line of succession by the extended Earl’s or Duke’s House with final choice made either by the Sovereign or Lords. However, creeping silent and dishonest revolution and facade painting have been the order of the day. Lord P. Norton Baron of Louth is among created Peers quite a paragon of the ideal for created peers or their foregin equivalents over time — being a distinguished instructor (as a generic term) and writer among other things he does. His advocacy of longer sessions (US term) is perhaps due to the fact that he is a very energetic person. Outside the Lords, MPs who are Union Members, solicitors, rural physicians and farmers bring a vast amount to the government that professional pols do not bring.
Outside the UK it is arguable that when France was at its greatest the Estates General was based on the concept of secondary employment. The Chinese Communists have probably outlived many of their peers and propped up the parties in the Peoples Republic of Korea and in Vietnam for the largely ignored virtue of the fact that the large Congress of People’s Deputies has usually been treated with real respect by the “politburo” organs and the presidency. These leaders of tribes, districts, schools, party organs and other groups are heard and informed at a high level even if they fall short of being a real legislature. Texas which is often seen as the most uncivilized State in the USA has actually many claims to disproportionate world dominance and leadership and holds the secondary employment of its legislators as an article of faith. Check and see how often they have sat historicaly
A fascinating way of gaining something by
sitting longer might be to involve such a lengthening in the process of devolution. The members of the British Parliament would then all be members of the Scots,English, Welsh and Northern Ireland Parliaments that would also have ember not in the UK body. These national MPs and Lords would preserve the tradition of secondary employment and those seated in the highest union body would have little time but would be engaged in a rich national and Union dialog.
Today we are all governed by vast reams of rules and hidden bureaucracies. The only defense is the constant (not overly frequent or tumultuous)improvement of vigorous constitutions. However, that is the hard and risky work that we probably as a species have given up doing. So since constituents will not hang together they in many cases hang separately.
Kyle Mulholland: I tend to share your concerns about recall elections. Though far more MPs are elected with 50%+ of the poll than is popularly realised, nonetheless there is a very real problem with the level at which the threshold would be set. As you indicate, the danger is that opponent parties would seek to exploit it.
Croft: I rather got a rush of blood to the head after I had posted my thoughts here and sent them to ‘The Times’ with the result that you have seen. I rather agree with you about the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, a rather magnificent member of the Cecil family. You may be aware that in a poll of historians and political scientists in 1999 on the most successful twentieth-century prime ministers, he was ranked 7th.
Frank W. Summers III: Thanks for the fascinating contribution (and compliment). I think you make some very pertinent points. I would just reinforce two that I see as being at the heart of your observations. The first is a sense of public service. There is much to be said for those who enter public life in order to serve the nation. At the moment, we suffer from a perception that politicians are in politics for self-service rather than public service. The other is that the nation benefits from having people in public life who have experience outside the realm of politics. We are moving in the direction of creating a rather insular parliamentary class with little or no experience of other walks of life. On your point about devolution, you may be aware that there has been the suggestion before that the Scottish parliament should comprise not MSPs but rather Westminster MPs sitting for Scottish seats. This would make Holyrood rather like the pre-1979 European Parliament. However, your suggestion involves the creation of an English parliament, which is arguably a step too far.
Kyle Mulholland: I thought when this was discussed before that the evidence showed that in those countries with recalls they are exceptionally rarely invoked and even more rarely successful. Relying on the house to put its affairs in order has not I suggest been successful. At present unless you are imprisoned for 1yr you are there for five years no matter how epically awful you prove to be. The threshold is the issue but hardly insoluble.
Lordnorton: Somehow I don’t imagine the peers in the Lord’s tearoom were muttering to themselves about Lord Norton having another rush of blood to the head! You always seem considered in the chamber or in interview. I never quite sure how to take polls on politicians. Do they reflect the politics of the panel, their views of particular contentious policies or the premiership in the round.
Croft: On recall elections, I certainly accept that the issue of a threshold is not insoluble. The question is not so much whether the issue is insoluble but rather whether the threshold is insurmountable. if the bar is set high, would it really restore confidence? If set too low, would it encourage opponents to seek to utilise it? I appreciate that where recalls are possible, they are rarely used.
On your points directed to me, I have my moments! On polls about politicians, as with polls generally, it depends on the wording. Politicians as politicians come close to the bottom in polls on trust. MPs historically have tended to do better and ‘the local MP’ even better than MPs generically. Views of the local MP tend to exist independently of views of the House of Commons – the former have tended to remain pretty constant and the latter to fluctuate signficantly. Fluctuations of views about the Commons do tend to occur in line with popularity of the incumbent regime.
I might add, in polls on trust, whereas very few people trust politicians to tell the truth, a large majority tend to trust professors to tell the truth.
Of course like most things we all have our own preferred model. I like the idea of a low threshold that is realistically and practically likely to be obtainable but which has to be triggered on defined criteria. So an MP convicted of an offence but not receiving a disqualifying sentence or one who was sanctioned/punished by the house or the new standards system for some serious matter would activate the trigger and allow constituents to attempt to reach the low threshold. I wondered of a way to deal with MPs who cross the floor or who have the whip withdrawn for more than a trivial period but that seems much more difficult but certainly the former can be a source of constituent anger.
I’d guess that a negative view is directed against professions for three reasons. Those that are perceived as corrupt or greedy, those that take decisions that affect our lives in a negative way (positives tend to be forgotten especially by the electorate) and those who we have some direct negative contact with. MPs/bankers are not in a good position on 2 of 3 at the moment. While academic work can cause a positive/negative impact on the public it is probably at several removes so doesn’t get the praise/blame. Even with everyone and their dog now being told they should be going to university probably a majority of the population has either limited or no contact with professors to find out what you are all really like!
Croft: It’s a fascinating suggestion – linking the possibility of a recall to a triggering event. As you indicate, switching parties may prove a popular basis for a recall. On trust in professors, I put it down to having a fairly discerning population.