Rocked by the expenses scandal, villified by the public and the media, about to lose their lucrative second jobs – should we be feeling sorry for our MPs? With 50 Labour MPs already holding up the white flag of surrender, and many more to follow, it seems not even MPs are willing to stand as MPs any more.
With so many retirements there has never been a better opportunity for an influx of new talent to enter the Parliamentary Labour Party. But will we get it? In the present circumstances, who would want to be an MP?
By ‘present circumstances’ I don’t mean the expenses or the second jobs furores. In the big picture they are just passing storms, significant yes but no less temporary because of it. What I’m getting at is the fundamental role of an MP in our parliamentary system.
Let me put it this way. Look at almost any comparable legislature in the democratic world. Even in other parliamentary systems, there are usually several different career routes available to an ambitious MP. Usually these divide roughly into ministerial careers or careers in parliamentary scrutiny, chairing major committees that play a significant role whoever is in power. The UK’s select committees may have grown in importance but their comparative power is still derisory. It is unthinkable, for example, that a new MP would aspire to be the chair of the health select committee rather than the health secretary.
This is the crux of the problem. British MPs face a stark choice between hunkering down for a ministerial career or spending their parliamentary life forever at the margins. Without an alternative and with every modern government seemingly intent on undermining the role of parliament when it comes to scrutinising legislation, the job starts to look less and less appealing. If your party is facing a lengthy spell in opposition, with no hope at all of ministerial office, the situation looks grave.
An advantage of the British parliamentary system however is that, once you have become a minister, there is considerable power to wield, with few of the checks and balances built into other healthy democracies. But over the last few years something quite radical has occurred that seems to have largely escaped comment – the increasing likelihood of senior ministers to be drawn from the Lords. Consider this: when Labour’s prospective foreign secretary Patrick Gordon-Walker lost his seat during Labour’s victory in the 1964 election, an MP had to be found to hastily resign his seat so Gordon-Walker could fight a by-election and return to the Commons. When he subsequently lost again, he was forced to resign from the government. It was unthinkable that he could hold his position without being an MP. Yet today the deputy prime minister, and several other key cabinet posts like transport, are held by Lords. Even a traditionalist like John Major is now proposing that, due to a lack of talent in the Commons, junior ministers should be drawn from outside the system. We are in danger of creating a classic catch-22 situation: the job of an MP becomes so unfavourable that fewer good people want to do it, so we bring in outsiders as ministers, creating even less incentive for people to stand for parliament in the first place.
I don’t want to sound too pessimistic. In particular a good MP can have a massive impact on their constituency, and that should always be their primary job. But lots of people go into politics wanting to make a difference to the whole country, not just their local area, and that’s no bad thing. I also recognise that an MP can still make a difference by taking up a cause and seizing the public’s conciousness by fighting a good campaign. But let’s be honest, so can Joanna Lumley.
In fact it’s probably easier for Joanna Lumley, due to the magic stardust of media exposure that celebrities bring but MPs do not. From within parliament the methods of making things happen are limited – securing time to debate an issue is rare, and so few private members’ bills become law that it’s no longer seen as a worthwhile campaigning option. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that major changes in legislation, such as the abolition of the death penalty or the legalisation of abortion, were the result of private members bills. The favoured method of most backbench MPs – signing EDMs – is as effective as scribbling your name on the back of a toilet door.
There is a natural retort to this entire argument, which is to say: ‘if the job is so bad, why are so many people so eager to do it?’. It’s true each winnable seat has no shortage of applicants. All I can say is that, having spent over a decade in the Labour party, including much time spent interviewing potential PPCs and selecting candidates for parliamentary by-elections for the NEC, we are kidding ourselves if we claim that we are attracting enough people of sufficient calibre into politics. They do exist, but they are too few in number. And I make no apologies for demanding as high a standard as possible from those seeking to represent the Labour party at the highest levels.
Of course, I’ve also been lucky enough to meet lots of outstanding people in the party. I sincerely hope that as many of them as possible do choose to stand for parliament. That doesn’t, however, mean we shouldn’t try and reform the system, or seek to attract more people into it. Now is the time to do so.