Time Is Of The Essence

The perennial challenge for the House of Commons is how can MPs be both good constituency champions and national legislators at the same time?

Edmund Burke set out what has become the accepted constitutional position in his speech to the electors of Bristol in 1774. He said, “Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, for Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudice, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole”.

As an historic aside, Burke said this after being elected not before, and his Bristol constituents clearly disagreed with him, as they did not re-elect him. Instead, he had to find a pocket borough belonging to his patron, the Marquess of Rockingham. Nonetheless, his statement became established as the basis on which members gathered at Westminster.

In recent years, this has changed, with MPs paying much more attention to their role as local champions. This is especially apparent in planning issues, where the cost of HS2 was inflated by Tory MPs lobbying for tunnels where the route went through their constituencies, and when MPs from all parties, in the full knowledge that the country needs more housing, oppose development in their own patch. This is a subject that will be worth debating in a future article.

This change has had an effect on how the Commons does its work, with more time devoted to highlighting issues rather than legislating. This is partly because the Executive's administrative power is so much greater than it used to be, thus a problem facing a constituent may often be more easily solved by ministerial fiat than by a new law.

It also involves the power of the press and media more generally, as both ministers and quangos are embarrassed into action rather than actively wanting to do something. For instance, when I was campaigning for an expensive drug to be made available for the treatment of Batten Disease, I knew that I needed to shame the government into action as much as win the argument. I deliberately made a thorough nuisance of myself using Commons procedures, and this helped ensure that the drug became available both to my constituent and to others.

All of this is perfectly proper; from mediaeval times, the Commons has been there to seek redress of grievance. Interestingly, many petitions survive from the early 14th century and they were turned into legislation; the process of making laws to satisfy the needs of individual MPs starts very early in our history.