Fixing relations with MPs will require more than warm words from Andy Burnham

Andy Burnham is right to identify parliament as a source of useful scrutiny rather than a problem to be managed. But almost every recent prime minister has promised to improve relations with their MPs and found that goodwill alone is not enough. The test of his commitment will not be whether he spends more time in the tearoom, but whether he – and those in his government – can change the way government and parliament work together.

Keir Starmer demonstrated the costs of neglecting the relationship with backbench MPs

The experience of the last government illustrates why Burnham is right to recognise that backbenchers are not a peripheral concern but can be a source of political strength. Despite repeated promises to "reset" relations with Labour MPs, many of Keir Starmer’s backbenchers felt increasingly disconnected from the centre of government. A large intake of new MPs had limited access to the prime minister or No10, leaving them with little understanding of the reasoning behind some of the government’s big, and difficult decisions.  

Frustrations also grew over the way legislation was developed and steered through parliament. Burnham will inherit many of the same structural challenges – it is just not possible for the prime minister to be in regular dialogue with the entire cohort of Labour MPs – but with an added complication. After years outside Westminster, most MPs don’t know him well. He will, in many cases, need to build relationships from scratch – a task that many PMs have undertaken for years in opposition or on the back benches. While the parliamentary party may be largely united behind his leadership today, even the largest majorities can become fragile – as Starmer found – if MPs believe they are being ignored rather than engaged.

MPs are a source of important intelligence and can be an early warning system  

As well as strengthening a prime minister’s political position, a positive relationship with MPs also offers ministers useful information that can help make policy more robust.  

The volume of casework that MPs now deal with makes them an invaluable source of information about where and how policy isn’t working. While critics often suggest otherwise, MPs are, through correspondence and surgeries, in touch with the challenges and concerns affecting the public. If a prime minister is prepared to listen, then backbenchers are well placed to highlight emerging policy failures, problems with service provision, gaps in legislation, and even give a sense of regional trends.  

Ministers see this through their own constituencies—for example, former Liberal Democrat health minister Norman Lamb told us he found his casework crucial to surfacing problems and understanding how change was felt on the ground – and they will hear it from fellow MPs via correspondence and conversation. But government could do more to harness this source of intelligence. A more systematic approach to aggregating and analysing MPs’ casework, looking across the piece at what is coming in and feeding that into government thinking, would be a way of improving relations with MPs while also gathering information that helps government better deliver for the public.  

It is welcome that Andy Burnham has indicated that he expects ministers to regularly meet with backbenchers and listen to their concerns. But he could go further and establish more formal channels between ministers – or their departments – and parliamentary parties that would give ministers a structured process to identify emerging issues, rather than the current system in which MPs tend to deal with ministers only on a case-by-case basis. 

Institutional reforms could ensure lasting change in the relationship between ministers and backbenchers  

Burnham’s choice of chief whip – Anneliese Midgley, who has been an MP for only two years and has no previous government experience – is an indication that he intends to use the whips differently. In contrast, former chief whips over the past decade have been in parliament for a minimum of six years before taking up the role: Alan Campbell had 27 years under his belt before becoming chief whip in 2024.

But changing the relationship between government and parliament won’t be achieved simply by asking his whips office to adopt a more pastoral, than intimidatory, approach. It depends on ministers treating engagement with MPs as a core part of their work. Some ministers protect time in their week to be present in Westminster, but this is a deliberate choice. Private offices and departments naturally prioritise other things, and can easily lose sight of the fact that ministers are MPs too. Unless ministers insist that time in parliament matters, their teams are unlikely to make space for it.

But a change in behaviour from whips, or smarter diary management from ministers, are short term fixes. If Burnham truly wants to build a more collaborative parliament, he should also consider institutional reforms that redistribute power more permanently including revisiting proposals for a House Business Committee, so that MPs have more say over that they debate and when; and giving the House greater control over sitting dates and recall. Otherwise, everything that he suggests will be based on Burnham’s personality and his instructions to his team, rather than creating a settlement that endures beyond his premiership.