In the second of a two-part series, former senior House of Commons official David Natzler discusses whether MPs should be subject to a minimum attendance requirement, and their role as constituency caseworkers. He concludes that an objective measure of individual MPs’ constituency activity and work, and some agreed minimum standards, would be useful, but that the right of MPs to determine for themselves how to do their job should be preserved.

In the first blog in this series, I set out the background to the recent resignation of Nadine Dorries and suggested that it raised some general issues of importance. In that post, I discussed the process of appointing MPs to the House of Lords, and on the process of resignation, suggesting that sitting members of the Commons should not be eligible for peerages, and that the process of resignation should be brought in line with prevailing norms, involving a simple letter of resignation to the Speaker or Clerk of the Commons. In this post I look at the issue of MPs’ attendance and at the performance of their constituency role.

Attendance

There was criticism of Nadine Dorries for not having spoken in the Commons chamber for around a year, since 7 July 2022 when she answered questions in the Commons as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. She was also criticised for not tabling a written question since 20 December 2017 (although between July 2019 and September 2022, she was a minister, and therefore not able to table questions) and for not having voted since 26 April 2023.

MPs are not formally obliged to attend the House of Commons. Those such as Sinn Féin MPs who decline to take the oath or affirmation of allegiance after their election may indeed never do so during their time as MPs. As Erskine May puts it: ‘On ordinary occasions, the attendance of Members in Parliament is not enforced by either House’.

In the Commons, ensuring attendance has become a function of the party machinery. The party whips keep a record of MPs’ attendance so far as they are able. But no official record is taken of their attendance in the chamber of the Commons. Their names are recorded if they take part in a division, but not if they are present and abstain. Votes cast by proxy indicate that for whatever reason the member is not attending at that moment. Data could in theory be gathered from the pattern of use of the electronic pass to enter the Palace of Westminster and its outbuildings, but that would be of doubtful legality. Speeches, questions and interventions during debates are of course recorded and attributed in Hansard, as is attendance at committees. But it is perfectly possible in theory that an MP could be regularly at work at their office in Westminster and attending meetings with ministers and others without any formal record of their presence, and without feeling the need to table written or oral questions, or take part in debates and questioning.

There is nothing wrong in principle with parliamentary silence. The Speaker and his Deputies do not make speeches or table questions. Ministers do not ask questions, nor do government whips (who are technically junior ministers without a departmental portfolio). Nor is absence inherently wrong. MPs spend many working days in their constituencies or elsewhere in the country or abroad, in what they judge to be the legitimate pursuit of their parliamentary role. It is a basic principle that it is for each MP to decide on how they fulfil their role. But the public does rightly expect some public representational display of an MP’s efforts and some indication that they are hard at work as an elected legislator.

The Commons could in theory set up a minimum attendance regime together with a system for formally recording attendance. The Lords has a formal recording of attendance of members, which is required to operate the system of payment. Peers are subject to a statutory provision in the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 that means a failure to attend during a session leads them to cease to be a member of the Lords at the beginning of the following session. Members removed in this way are then listed on the parliamentary website. Peers can obtain a leave of absence at the start or during the course of a parliament, subject to them stating that they have a reasonable expectation of returning as an active member. Other bodies throughout the UK have similar provisions. For example, local councillors who fail to attend a meeting for six consecutive months cease to be a member of the authority, unless the council accepts a reason for such a failure to attend before the six-month period expires, under section 85 of the Local Government Act 1972.

Legislatures with a high quorum required for a valid decision (such as two-thirds of the membership) may take steps to require attendance and penalise non-attendance, to overcome ‘quorum-busting’ tactics. For example, in the US state of Oregon since 2022, 10 or more unexcused absences from floor sessions lead to disqualification. It is not working.  Republican State Senators are still absenting themselves. It has also led to a standoff with one senator, Brian Boquist, threatening violence if any step was taken to bring him in, and subsequent legal cases. Back in 1988 Senator Bob Packwood was carried feet-first into the US Senate by Capitol Police to establish a quorum. It is said that as a State Representative in Illinois the young Abraham Lincoln jumped out of a window to avoid being counted in the quorum.

But the House of Commons has, as a rule, no need of the presence of any individual member in order to function as a legislature. One absent backbench member does not obstruct its work, since the quorum at a recorded vote is only for 40 members to be present and voting. In March 2010, at the prompting of the Liaison Committee, the Commons gave the Speaker the power to trigger the potential removal of a select committee member who had failed to attend at least 60% of the formal meetings in a session. This was a response to the Wright Committee’s call in 2009 for ‘clear consequences for unreasonable absence from select committees’. The then Leader of the Commons, Harriet Harman, noted drily in debate that six of the signatories to the proposed 60% threshold had failed to meet it in respect of Liaison Committee meetings. It is largely a dead letter. A formal minimum attendance requirement, such as Australia’s two-month rule, would risk bringing the institution into greater contempt than one individual’s persistent and self-advertising refusal to attend. Any maximum absence period or percentage attendance rate either looks lax or is so strict that it requires a meaningless regime of constant formal permission for absences. The answer seems to rest with the whips, and the force of public opinion. A formal attendance requirement would be a retrograde step.

Constituency work

On 14 June Dorries stated that her office would continue to function as normal. On 23 August she said that she and her team of four caseworkers were ‘working daily with constituents… we are just getting on with the work.’ There is no formal requirement for an MP to engage in constituency casework, and little or no recourse for constituents who feel ill-served. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards will not entertain complaints of this sort. The only reference to constituencies in the MPs’ Code of Conduct is permissive, allowing MPs to pursue a constituency interest in any approach to ministers or public officials. There is also very little way of knowing how far an individual MP is indeed properly engaged in their constituency work. By its nature much of it is conducted in confidence, as it engages personal information. Ministers and their departments will be aware of the number and nature of contacts and cases raised and will no doubt have relevant statistics, which are not published. The bulk of this work is now carried out by MPs’ staff (funded by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority), who seem able to function for some time virtually autonomously if necessary – for example in the event of an MP’s illness or family circumstances – and the rules allow for a parental leave and absence budget.

The Nolan principle of Accountability – one of the Seven Principles of Public Life – states that ‘Holders of public office are accountable to the public for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.’ But the means of public scrutiny of the performance of MPs’ constituency work are largely missing. In recent years some MPs have produced their own annual reports on their work, but it is by no means a universal practice. The monarchy sets an example by publishing the numbers of official engagements carried out by members of the Royal Family. Thought could usefully be devoted to devising some objective measure of individual MPs’ constituency activity and work, and some agreed minimum standards, not least given the amount of public resources devoted to it, while preserving the right of MPs to determine for themselves how to do their job.

This is the second in a two-part series on some of the constitutional issues raised by recent resignations from the Commons. The first post, which covers how and when MPs should be able to resign, was published yesterday. David has also authored numerous posts about parliament and how it operates, which are also available on this blog

About the author

David Natzler is a former Clerk of the House of Commons whose career in parliament spanned over 40 years.

Featured image credit: (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by UK Parliament.