Support with scrutiny: What are MPs for?

It was reported last year that the new army of Labour MPs had been sent a message from the whips telling them not to put down or support amendments to legislation. Their job was to support the government, not to scrutinise it. Any representations should be made privately, not publicly. It is the job of the whips to send warnings like this. Their trade is discipline. But what does it mean for the job of being a member of parliament? Isn’t scrutiny supposed to be one of their key functions? What are MPs for?

New MPs are busy – but they need to be busy with a purpose

We have been here before. Following the Labour landslide of 1997 there was a push to get MPs out of Westminster. So ‘constituency weeks’ were invented for MPs to be away from the Commons, with some even removed from select committees in order to devote themselves to local campaigning. When Tony Blair addressed the massed ranks of newly elected MPs after the general election, he told them that their primary job was to get out of Westminster and become ‘ambassadors’ for the government in the country. 

In one sense this was understandable. MPs are elected because of their party label and the party rightly expects loyalty in return. This is generally not a problem, as MPs want their party to succeed and their government to prosper. But it does raise questions about what MPs are for, questions which become more acute for a governing party with a huge majority. Six months on from the election, there must be a lot of new MPs starting to wonder exactly what their job is, beyond asking ‘helpful’ questions at PMQs and cuddling their constituents. Because there is no job description for MPs, they have to work out for themselves what sort of job they want to do. There is plenty to keep them busy, but whether it is busyness with a purpose is another matter.

I once suggested a typology of possible roles – Lickspittles, Loyalists, Localists, Legislators, Loners and Loose Cannons – as a way of teasing out some of the different ways of being a member of parliament. The main point is that there is no single agreed role and, unlike in other jobs, all MPs therefore do the job differently. There have been attempts at times to draw up a job description, often in the context of pay reviews, but these were generally unrealistic and left out the fact that MPs were primarily politicians and what they did was politics. None of this mattered when MPs were poorly paid and part-time, but now they are paid a decent professional salary, it is reasonable to try to pin down what they are expected to do for the money.

A more professional Commons still doesn’t come with an MP’s job description  

In many ways the Commons is a much more professional place than it was a generation ago. MPs may have more demands on them, but they also have more staff and resources to deal with the routine stuff. Most now see it as a full-time job and want to do it well. Bad behaviour is better policed. There is still no career structure or pastoral care system familiar in other workplaces, but for some the select committees now offer an alternative career route and more job satisfaction than just hoping for a job in government. The Commons itself also looks dramatically different from a generation ago, now much more like the country it represents.

All these are real gains. But they still leave many new MPs wondering exactly what the job is that they are supposed to be doing. After the initial excitement of election, this can soon produce frustration, especially if they are told not to engage in the business of scrutiny. One response, which has become much more marked in recent years, is to devote their energies to their constituencies. It is notable just how many parliamentary questions now refer to constituency matters, often of a very parochial kind, rather than general policy issues. There is self-interest in this of course, as it is thought (probably wrongly) to help with re-election, but if it means that less attention is being given to the real business of Westminster then this is a serious loss. Some MPs are already proposing that the Commons should sit for less time so they can be elsewhere.

The debate on assisted dying may make MPs think differently about their roles

The experience of the assisted dying debate may have an enduring impact on how MPs see their role, especially in the case of the many new MPs. It is an issue they have had to decide for themselves without instruction from the whips. They have also had to work with members of other parties. This may well prove a formative experience and make it less likely that they will be content simply to do what they are told, which in turn maymake party management more difficult. There has long been a trend away from the rigid party discipline that once characterised Westminster politics and this may now intensify. It does not mean that party loyalty will cease to be the organising principle of Westminster politics, but it does mean that it will have to operate in a rather different way.

Those MPs who have become used to thinking their way through a complex and challenging issue will not easily adjust to an assigned role of mere lobby fodder. They will expect to be taken seriously and not to be told that their job is only to vote for the party and not to engage in the legislative and scrutiny business of Westminster, or to form alliances on particular issues. This may make life more difficult for the whips, but it may also help to define what MPs are for.

Tony Wright served as a Labour MP between 1992 and 2010.