Debate: Should the number of MPs be reduced?

 

YES: Douglas Carswell MP; NO: Tom Harris MP

 

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There have been calls for the number of MPs in Parliament to be reduced, but would it provide more effective or less democratic politics? Douglas Carswell MP and Tom Harris MP offer their opposing views.

 

 

Douglas Carswell says...

Parliament isn't working. The economy is teetering on the brink, our currency is plummeting and banks survive on bail outs. Yet what issue most exercised our legislature? Their expenses.

 

The purpose of the legislature is to hold government to account. Yet the House of Commons has not even properly debated the billion pound bailouts. It is supposed to make laws. Yet most of our law now comes from the EU. Parliament is supposed to represent the country. Yet she is too often dominated by identikit professional politicians, rather than citizen lawmakers.

 

Is it any wonder that people have started to resent what they see as parasitical politicians in Westminster? We must reduce the number of MPs as part of a broader programme to make Westminster work better.

 

In the United  States, with a population of just under 306 million, there are 535 Congressmen. There is no reason why Britain, with a mere 61 million people, has to have 646 MPs.

 

Fewer MPs would cost us less- with fewer politicians claiming expenses. But this is not about striking a blow against our bloated, triumphant political class, as described by Peter Oborne. We do need our politicians and MPs - but we need them to work better.

 

If there were fewer members of the legislature, individual members could have a greater impact. With so many MPs at present, in order to be at all effective, MPs have toact through their party whips. A large House of Commons means a greater role for party managers and whips, and less scope for individual, less partisan legislators.

 

Reducing the number of MPs would allow us to democratise the way we select people to stand for Parliament in the first place. Is Parliament really representative of the country? I do not mean representative simply in terms of background or gender. Is it really representative in terms of views, outlook and opinion?

 

I believe that we need a system of open primary selection to decide who stands for Parliament. Open primaries would allow outsiders and those without the backing of the party machine to have a place in politics. Fewer MPs, and with larger constituencies, would be far better suited to open primary contests selecting candidates.

 

Having fewer MPs, elected from large constituencies, and selected to stand in the first place via open primary contests, would make politics more open and competitive. There would be fewer one party fiefdoms.

 

Life as an MP might be a lot more difficult. There would be more work - both from the constituency and in Westminster. But I suspect forcing MPs to prioritise would mean less trivia, and more gravitas in Westminster. With fewer publicityseeking Early Day Motions, perhaps MPs would have to study the proposed legislation in front of them with a degree of earnestness that our legislature lacks.

 

With fewer MPs, standing for office on the basis of open primary contests, those in our legislature would have to carefully balance their loyalty to their electorates, with their loyalty to the party machine in Westminster.

 

Today, there are too many politicians in Westminster, with no chance of ministerial office, looking for something to do. For many, appearing to be busy has become an end in itself.

 

All party pressure groups, campaigns lobbying for government action, and yet more 'big government' are the consequence. Big government has grown because our legislature has failed to hold the executive in check. Indeed, with so many MPs in Westminster, far from curtailing government, MPs have too often lobbied for its expansion.

 

Perhaps the weakest argument for a smaller House of Commons is that it would allow us to ensure a more equitable distribution of seats. Experts tell me that Scotland and Wales are over represented, as are inner cities. Suburbs and rural areas are underrepresented. To me, this is an argument for a fairer distribution of seats, rather than for a smaller Commons per se. Yet it all adds to the view that the status quo is unfair and needs change.

 

Conservatives have often been conservative in outlook as well asname. Yet I  hope that the centre right now recognises that the House of Commons is not working well. It can and should be made to work better. Reducing the number of MPs that sit in it is an important step we need to take.

 

Britain is facing a severe economic downturn. The country is going to have to tighten her belt. Reducing the number of politicians in Westminster - and getting Westminster to achieve more for less - would be a good place to start.

 

 

Douglas Carswell is Conservative MP for Harwich

Tom Harris MP says..

There are some questions that politicians can ask the general public and be absolutely guaranteed an affirmative answer. These include: do you think there are too many MPs? Do you think MPs should be paid less? Do you think MPs should have shorter recesses? Do you think MPs' pensions are too generous? Do you think MPs' allowances should be cut?You get the picture.

 

It's a lazy political leader who chooses to blow this particular dog whistle, and David Cameron has chosen the first one listed. He suggests there are, indeed, too many MPs and that their number should be cut by 65. It's an odd figure, though, isn't it. Not 60, not 30, not 53, not 101. What science, what arithmetical calculation has led Cameron to the conclusion that a reduction by any number other than 65 would be  injust?

 

He has arrived at this number by looking at his hands. The baseten numerological system used throughout the world is an entirely arbitrary one and was arrived at because people used to count on their fingers. So it seemed perfectly logical to adopt a counting system that used the number of fingers as a base. Cameron has looked at the current total number of MPs (646), divided it by the number of fingers he possesses (arriving at 64.4) and rounding up to the next number. Voila, a Conservative template for rewriting the British constitution.

 

Given that he has suggested such a specific number to be lost from the Commons, Cameron has shown remarkable cowardice by not putting forward a similarly specific argument for doing so. "There are too many MPs" isn't actually what most would call analysis. Does he imagine that the Commons itself has ever decided that there should be precisely 646 MPs? That is a number that was arrived at by the Boundary Commission, a strictly non-party political body whose incredibly complicated job is to create a constituency map of Britain that will respect, as far as practicable, historic geographic allegiances while at the same time ensuring - once again, as far as practicable - that the number of electors in each seat is broadly similar across the country.

 

In fact, Cameron's beef with the Commons seems to go beyond his unhappiness that there are more than the magic number of 581 MPs. He seems more concerned that there is an in-built bias in the current constituency map in favour of Labour and against the Conservatives, similar, in fact, to the pro-Tory and anti-Labour bias that existed in the 1980s.

 

That is why, every 15 years or so, the Boundary Commission undertakes a wholesale review of constituency maps. A massive consultation leads to the publication of draft boundaries, responses are invited, including from local  political parties and MPs, and a final map is agreed upon. All very open and democratic. What the Boundary Commission doesn't do is work to a specific target for the number of seats they must produce. Even in 2004, when the number of seats in Scotland was reduced, this was to reflect a political decision that the new seats, unlike the old ones, should have more-or-less the same number of electors as English constituencies. There was no target of 59 set.

 

And what of Cameron's other argument, that fewer MPs could cope with the workload of the Commons? Where is the evidence for this - actual, empirical evidence? If Cameron becomes Prime Minister, he could certainly tell the Boundary Commission that in future, constituencies should have X per cent more electors. But why? Where is the evidence that such a change would improve the way business is done in the House (other than guaranteeing a seat at PMQs, of course)?

 

And we should be careful about being too dogmatic when it comes to the number of electors. I notice Iain Dale drew a comparison between the Isle of Wight (electorate approximately 100,000) and some inner city constituencies which have (he claims) about 50,000. There is no issue there that cannot be addressed by a redrawing of the boundaries. But the Isle of Wight will still have 100,000 electors after any redrawing of the boundaries. Unless it's divided into two seats of 50,000 each, it will always have more than most mainline seats, just as Na h-Eileanan an lar (formerly the Western Isles) has, by necessity of geography, fewer than 30,000 electors.

 

Cameron is playing a silly populist game. He knows he can't go wrong in the eyes of the public by attacking the body politic in this country, that it holds no risks, and that's why he has done it. So instead of standing up for his chosen profession and defending its worth, he has followed the media's agenda of undermining representative democracy, by jumping on the anti-politics (and for that, read "anti-democracy") bandwagon.

 

 

Tom Harris is Labour MP for Glasgow South