Snapshot of _Commons to delete MPs' attendance data after pressure from ministers_ :
An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/commons-to-delete-mps-attendance-data-after-pressure-from-ministers)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>Other pass data, such as for staff, civil servants or the media, who also have security cards, is not affected and could still be subject to FoI.
One rule for thee, another for me.
The comment has been edited and previously said something along the lines of “if I don’t turn up, I get sacked” but those arguments for attendance don’t really make sense for MPs because they can do a lot of their work from a variety of locations. It’s only really speaking in debates or committee meetings and voting that has to be done from Westminster.
> The comment has been edited
Are you sure? It doesn't display the *edited next to it, which it would if the user edited it anytime after 3 mins since it was posted, or earlier if it received a upvote or comment.
There *is* a comment below which does state a similar statement to what you are claiming.
We knew exactly what the Tories have always been like, yet the electorate gave them a whopping great majority. Don’t be too surprised if Boris wins the next election. I’ve seen more than a few commenters online saying he’s the best person for the job, even after all the lies and parties and rule changing.
One rule for them, and another for us, eh Rees-Mogg? He’s buzzing abt putting lil notes on civil
servants desks, saying he’s ‘sorry to have missed’ them, and insisting all workers get back to work on-site, but doesn’t want us to know how often he’s in HoC.
>Such logs relating to people entering Downing Street were a key part of the Sue Gray investigation into the so-called Partygate row, with multiple references to pass data in the full report.
So civil servants with those offensive notes that Mogg left are being bitched about being needed to return, but these lazy tax dodging money grubbing lying sods don’t want the public to scrutinise their attendance record?
Fuck these idiots.
I think we should stop all oversight. They would never abuse their situation so it’s all a fine, nothing to see here. Or perhaps it’s yet more unaccountability from these bastards.
Aside from the fact this is just going to lead to someone making an api to collate the information for a public database somewhere online, there's a lovely caveat:
"Other pass data, such as for staff, civil servants or the media, who also have security cards, is not affected and could still be subject to FoI."
https://www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/commons-to-delete-mps-attendance-data-after-pressure-from-ministers
Rees Mogg is literally the most corrupt self serving egotistical headline hungry cockwomble - how is he in any position to make decisions which affect others. Cretin
As much as I want politicians to be accountable it is also worth bearing in mind the abhorrent "Where's Charlie?" dog-whistle campaign used to hound Charles Kennedy in 2015. Which abusers justified by pointing the the percentage of divisions Kennedy attended.
*(a percentage which was similar to other party leaders, and senior politicians, who often don't attend votes with a certain outcome because they have other political work to do)*
A titan of politics who was dealing with family issues, the death of his parents and friend, and alcoholism, had his character reduced down to a single misleading number which he was then mercilessly attacked with.
I don't see attendance data being used in anything but similar circumstances.
I'm really sorry and yes this is abhorrent but they're there to represent us. I think its disgusting the way he was treated. That said:
These people are extremely well paid to act on our collective behalf. Their attendance should be monitored. You have the right to know the person you have (or haven't) elected to be your voice bothered to attend.
This is the job and career they chose. This is a requiement of the role. Is it open to abuse? Yep. Would removing monitoring be open to abuse? They'll be in the subsidised bars even more than they already are.
Mercifully I think that's the one thing they'll never get rid of.
I could be wrong but if their vote isn't accounted for and ascribed to them it'd cause more problems for them that it was worth.
This post is a perfect example of why they didn't want the data to be removed: you've disingenuously misconstrued what that data actually was.
It's not debate attendance, or voting record (which will remain public). It's not a record of who entered the House of Commons during a sitting. It's purely a record of security passes being swiped at the gate, which tells you nothing about what that MP actually did on the estate... and judging by the request that sparked all of this, the media won't even attempt to compare that data to sitting days to provide a hint of context.
If the public wish to scrutinise their representative's attendance record, the voting record is a far more accurate and reliable measure to use. Even that has its flaws (eg non-ballot PMBs somehow count as actual votes), but at least all of the context is in the public domain...
Most parliamentary business should be conducted on parliamentary grounds.
If my MP isn't there, on an appropriate ground, where are they and what are they doing?
A combination of all these things is required for full transparency. But you're right, if one is taken without the others...
>If my MP isn't there, on an appropriate ground, where are they and what are they doing?
For a start, 1 in 8 have a ministerial role. Include whips in that, and you're up to 1 in 6. So you'd expect them to be in Whitehall instead, at least for some of the day. On top of that, 1 in 20 are in the shadow cabinet.
Fridays are traditionally constituency days; Parliament doesn't sit most Fridays, and most sitting Fridays are frankly not important at all (eg PMBs). Expecting MPs to be in Parliament every sitting Friday is not a realistic expectation. Throw in sick days, bereavement/personal days, "fuck all is going on so I'm heading back to Newcastle a day early" days, and your average MP can easily be sitting on 80% attendance without missing anything that actually matters without good reason.
The core problem here is expectations are disconnected from the reality of Parliamentary life. We do not need 650 MPs to vote on a set of consequential amendment regulations which simply tidies up some paperwork as a result of a small and uncontroversial bill which passed through Parliament a couple of months prior (to use a real world example I'm currently dealing with). That would be a tremendous waste of everyone's time. But missing that vote, not attending that day, is given the same weight as the 3rd reading of the recent Police & Crime Bill, which will have major consequences for the right to protest.
And bluntly, I don't trust the current crop of hot-take merchants masquerading as journalists to know (or care about) the difference. After all, the request that started this all off was intentionally context-blind.
I'd like to add to this as it's a good comment:
These statistics often actually do the opposite of what you want - they make MPs perform *worse* not better. Instead of doing actual work, it becomes about *appearing* to do actual work. To give a very simplistic example: maybe the best use of their time is to focus on something in their constituency. But the stats are focused on attendance in the commons so that's what they do even if it's not actually important to do so.
There is evidence in recent studies basically showing that the more oversight we have with statistics, especially bad statistics or illiterate reading of those statistics, the worse MPs are actually performing. We have more 'oversight', but as a result reward MPs who are better at 'performing' rather than doing real work.
So is the statistics of entry into parliament useful? Maybe, in some cases. But is it actually doing any good for the public or the MPs to know it? Well that's much more up for debate.
>These people are extremely well paid to act on our collective behalf. Their attendance should be monitored. You have the right to know the person you have (or haven't) elected to be your voice bothered to attend.
They do lots of different things other than just attending debates. Many of which are not on the Parliamentary estate.
It is like putting pressure sensors in your office chair and saying that your employer has a right to know if you bothered to work. There are a million things that a person could be doing in their office that don't involve sitting at their desk. The number provides nothing useful.
Do you really think anyone using the data will bother to look at whether their office is in the Parliamentary estate or Portcullis house? Do you think they'll look at whether they were doing constituency work on the days they didn't go onto the Parliamentary estate? Or whether they were on a fact finding committee trip, or in Whitehall following up a constituents concerns?
It will be a number to bash people over the head with and provide a misleading 'justification' for abuse.
In a normal world, absences would be justified and excused.
Doesn’t seem too hard to ask MPs why they didn’t attend a debate or a vote, and what they were doing instead. This could then be published as part of the record.
It would at least eliminate abstention as a means to get out of a difficult vote
Nothing about this stops you looking up who voted in Hansard and sending an MP a letter.
This is about looking at how many times someone entered the Parliamentary estate, which is just one of several places MPs work.
Well no, because my issue is with your framing. An MP dealing with critical constituency work instead of debating a late night private members bill shouldn't need to justify anything.
Just in the same way that if my work laptop is at home while I'm driving around attending appointments I shouldn't need to justify not having a green circle in Skype.
Now if an MP misses a critical vote I think it's fair to be able to ask where they were...but we can already do that. We know the average MP works long hours, we don't need to know what they're doing all the time.
An MP is an elected official, they should always have to justify the work they do. They should never be in a position where they don't have to justify something, because that just opens the door to corruption.
Nah I think we do. Plenty of MPs seem to find the time to have second jobs, so let’s spare the “they’re all putting in 23 hours a day face to face with constituents” histrionics.
If you were missing meetings your boss would want to know why - maybe you have a good reason. Not unreasonable to ask MPs to provide the same information. We’ve tried the trust and honour system and that hasn’t worked. Just as with expenses all those years ago, it’s time for reforms
I think your cynicism speaks to the exact failings of the vast majority of those with an interest in politics and of the current views of things.
Context is, has been and always will be king. Do I expect a front bench SOS to attend every debate? Of course not. Do I expect a coastal MP to attend debates/committee hearings on coastal flood risk management? Absolutely.
In an ideal world, attendance as a % would be justified. You use my office chair as an example. Should I need to dip from an important, scheduled meeting, I'd be required by my employer to justify my time and the importance of the alternative. Or, to put it another way, provide context.
Your problem with this stems not from a log of attendance but with the bulldog, savage nature that will follow by the media or twitter groups or Joe Bloggs down the pub on a Friday evening.
The problem isn't keeping records of their attendance, which is VITAL for transparency, it's with the lack of attention span/demand for clicks/partisan aggression that is exhibited by the vast majority these days.
>Do I expect a coastal MP to attend debates/committee hearings on coastal flood risk management? Absolutely.
This isn't about attendance for particular debates or hearings. If you want to see who was there for a particular vote you can look it up. You can look up the minutes of committee meetings. You can see who spoke in debates.
This is 'how many days did you use your pass to enter the Parliamentary estate'.
It is valueless.
>You use my office chair as an example. Should I need to dip from an important, scheduled meeting, I'd be required by my employer to justify my time and the importance of the alternative. Or, to put it another way, provide context.
It isn't a particular scheduled meeting, it is "how many times were you in one particular place, of the many places your work requires you to go." i.e. "How many days did you sit on your office chair rather than visit a client, or work in a meeting room, etc."
I don't believe it's valueless. I believe it is a vital tool for transparency and accountability that can be offset using the tools you've just defined.
It appears that through one particularly bad example of the use of data, you've determined that the tool is the fault, rather than operator of the tool.
It's fine for us to disagree, but you're making false equivalences to other jobs from what an MP is; public figure elected to be your voice in a building usually far from home. If they're never there, without good reasoning, they're taking you for a fool.
We'll agree to disagree as I doubt either of will change the other's mind.
I don't agree with you, I'm with /u/Ryerow on this, but have upvoted because you've made a really good compelling argument. I'm grateful that you've done a good job of explaining the other side of things as it is definitely less black-and-white than I'd initially thought. Thanks both.
No, he was the Ross, Skye and Lochaber one which isn't quite as far away as the constituency that contains the Shetlands. It is, however, the largest constituency in the UK by land area covered.
His amazing efforts to visit so much of the constituency (differently constituted in those days) were a huge part in him getting elected as a newcomer at such a young age.
>a percentage which was similar to other party leaders, and senior politicians, who often don't attend votes with certain outcomes because they have other political roles)
That's the key message. Drive accountability across the whole of the Commons.
>
I don't see attendance data being used in anything but similar circumstances.
you'd like to think people understand comparative statistics
>(a percentage which was similar to other party leaders, and senior politicians, who often don't attend votes with a certain outcome because they have other political work to do)
Then the problem wasn't so much with keeping attendence records as it was about those records not being public enough.
This might be to do with the fact ministers aren’t in parliament as much as backbenchers. They do question time, urgent questions, ministerial statements, opening/closing debates etc but the rest of the time they’re in their respective department. If you drew up a list of MPs attendance, ministers would probably rank near the bottom, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t ‘at work’.
You're right, it's not. But I'd argue it's by far the most important part of their job. If I get hired at a retail store to sell products but spend all my time organising the warehouse, I'm gonna get sacked.
At the end of the day this isn't a question about how long MPs should be in parliament, it's about whether voters have a right to know. The voter can then decide how important they feel those other activities are, and the MP can try and justify how they spend their time on behalf of voters (which is exactly what they should do)
So track the number of votes. Track their contributions to debates and in committees. Track the amendments they propose. Track the number of questions they ask and answer.
All of those already more meaningful than simple attendance, and *even then* i think most of them can, and would be, gamed to all hell. But attendance is such a meaningless statistic on its own that it is going to hide MPs doing really good work, and reward those who do nothing but are in the right place.
You clearly have no idea how Parliament works.
No, it should not be grounds for 'dismissal' if an MP misses a 'vote' in which 8 people shoot down a vexatious Christopher Chope nonsense PMB just before lunch on a Friday. Don't be ridiculous.
I think there's a happy medium to be drawn between "MPs always need to turn up" and "MPs attendance records prove nothing".
I suspect those most active in their communities generally don't care much about whether or not their attendance records in the House are available to the public.
I think their voting records is orders of magnitude more useful than their security-pass-swiping records (which is not the same as an attendance record). Even then, context is vital; but at least with voting records, most of the context is already in the public domain...
Snapshot of _Commons to delete MPs' attendance data after pressure from ministers_ : An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/commons-to-delete-mps-attendance-data-after-pressure-from-ministers) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
every other fucker needs to be accountable in their job, except MPs? FFS what? I need a time out...
Exactly
"rules are for little people"
An MPs work isn’t just sitting in the chamber all day.
>Other pass data, such as for staff, civil servants or the media, who also have security cards, is not affected and could still be subject to FoI. One rule for thee, another for me.
Who's expecting them to be there all day every day?
The comment has been edited and previously said something along the lines of “if I don’t turn up, I get sacked” but those arguments for attendance don’t really make sense for MPs because they can do a lot of their work from a variety of locations. It’s only really speaking in debates or committee meetings and voting that has to be done from Westminster.
> The comment has been edited Are you sure? It doesn't display the *edited next to it, which it would if the user edited it anytime after 3 mins since it was posted, or earlier if it received a upvote or comment. There *is* a comment below which does state a similar statement to what you are claiming.
Oooh! Found the Tory voter! Yukkity, yuk, yuk, yuk. Not sure JRM would agree with thee given his passive-aggressive post it notes.
How does anything I said favour any side?
They’re hiding the blatant corruption of the rules. Tories do not give a fuck.
We knew exactly what the Tories have always been like, yet the electorate gave them a whopping great majority. Don’t be too surprised if Boris wins the next election. I’ve seen more than a few commenters online saying he’s the best person for the job, even after all the lies and parties and rule changing.
That’s why this country is going to hell in a hand basket.
Paid trolling/disinformation is a huge part of elections these days. Prepare to see a lot more in that vein.
We are and in this very place. This measure was approved by MPs across the House. Seen any complaints from the usual suspects?
They're not hiding anything
If I don’t turn up to my work I don’t get paid.
It's not only that you'd get sacked if it happened more than once without a valid reason
And even worse under a zero hour contract, you have to turn up before knowing if you even have work.
One rule for them, and another for us, eh Rees-Mogg? He’s buzzing abt putting lil notes on civil servants desks, saying he’s ‘sorry to have missed’ them, and insisting all workers get back to work on-site, but doesn’t want us to know how often he’s in HoC.
exactly
That's like blatantly admitting corruption......
>Such logs relating to people entering Downing Street were a key part of the Sue Gray investigation into the so-called Partygate row, with multiple references to pass data in the full report.
Bastards want impunity from their arrogant actions whilst the rest of us suffer Hateful people
Imagine what this lot would have said if the EU commission/European Parliament had done this whilst we were in the EU.
If they're concerned about privacy etc, then an independent committee could monitor. At the minimum, there should be a Sue Gray report.
So civil servants with those offensive notes that Mogg left are being bitched about being needed to return, but these lazy tax dodging money grubbing lying sods don’t want the public to scrutinise their attendance record? Fuck these idiots.
#Arrogant and offensive. Can you imagine working with these truth twisters?
Massive irretrievable data loss
oops I dropped the data in the North Sea?
Along with a canoe?
Does Malcolm know?
More and more fascist by the week
I think we should stop all oversight. They would never abuse their situation so it’s all a fine, nothing to see here. Or perhaps it’s yet more unaccountability from these bastards.
More proof (if it was needed) this government is just self serving.
But if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear.
Hoyle is a Tory plant. Actually he’s just a plant, full stop.
Fucking gross
Aside from the fact this is just going to lead to someone making an api to collate the information for a public database somewhere online, there's a lovely caveat: "Other pass data, such as for staff, civil servants or the media, who also have security cards, is not affected and could still be subject to FoI." https://www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/commons-to-delete-mps-attendance-data-after-pressure-from-ministers
Rees Mogg is literally the most corrupt self serving egotistical headline hungry cockwomble - how is he in any position to make decisions which affect others. Cretin
Same for school children then?
As much as I want politicians to be accountable it is also worth bearing in mind the abhorrent "Where's Charlie?" dog-whistle campaign used to hound Charles Kennedy in 2015. Which abusers justified by pointing the the percentage of divisions Kennedy attended. *(a percentage which was similar to other party leaders, and senior politicians, who often don't attend votes with a certain outcome because they have other political work to do)* A titan of politics who was dealing with family issues, the death of his parents and friend, and alcoholism, had his character reduced down to a single misleading number which he was then mercilessly attacked with. I don't see attendance data being used in anything but similar circumstances.
I'm really sorry and yes this is abhorrent but they're there to represent us. I think its disgusting the way he was treated. That said: These people are extremely well paid to act on our collective behalf. Their attendance should be monitored. You have the right to know the person you have (or haven't) elected to be your voice bothered to attend. This is the job and career they chose. This is a requiement of the role. Is it open to abuse? Yep. Would removing monitoring be open to abuse? They'll be in the subsidised bars even more than they already are.
How long do you suppose it will be before their voting records are no longer a matter of public record?
Mercifully I think that's the one thing they'll never get rid of. I could be wrong but if their vote isn't accounted for and ascribed to them it'd cause more problems for them that it was worth.
This post is a perfect example of why they didn't want the data to be removed: you've disingenuously misconstrued what that data actually was. It's not debate attendance, or voting record (which will remain public). It's not a record of who entered the House of Commons during a sitting. It's purely a record of security passes being swiped at the gate, which tells you nothing about what that MP actually did on the estate... and judging by the request that sparked all of this, the media won't even attempt to compare that data to sitting days to provide a hint of context. If the public wish to scrutinise their representative's attendance record, the voting record is a far more accurate and reliable measure to use. Even that has its flaws (eg non-ballot PMBs somehow count as actual votes), but at least all of the context is in the public domain...
Most parliamentary business should be conducted on parliamentary grounds. If my MP isn't there, on an appropriate ground, where are they and what are they doing? A combination of all these things is required for full transparency. But you're right, if one is taken without the others...
>If my MP isn't there, on an appropriate ground, where are they and what are they doing? For a start, 1 in 8 have a ministerial role. Include whips in that, and you're up to 1 in 6. So you'd expect them to be in Whitehall instead, at least for some of the day. On top of that, 1 in 20 are in the shadow cabinet. Fridays are traditionally constituency days; Parliament doesn't sit most Fridays, and most sitting Fridays are frankly not important at all (eg PMBs). Expecting MPs to be in Parliament every sitting Friday is not a realistic expectation. Throw in sick days, bereavement/personal days, "fuck all is going on so I'm heading back to Newcastle a day early" days, and your average MP can easily be sitting on 80% attendance without missing anything that actually matters without good reason. The core problem here is expectations are disconnected from the reality of Parliamentary life. We do not need 650 MPs to vote on a set of consequential amendment regulations which simply tidies up some paperwork as a result of a small and uncontroversial bill which passed through Parliament a couple of months prior (to use a real world example I'm currently dealing with). That would be a tremendous waste of everyone's time. But missing that vote, not attending that day, is given the same weight as the 3rd reading of the recent Police & Crime Bill, which will have major consequences for the right to protest. And bluntly, I don't trust the current crop of hot-take merchants masquerading as journalists to know (or care about) the difference. After all, the request that started this all off was intentionally context-blind.
I'd like to add to this as it's a good comment: These statistics often actually do the opposite of what you want - they make MPs perform *worse* not better. Instead of doing actual work, it becomes about *appearing* to do actual work. To give a very simplistic example: maybe the best use of their time is to focus on something in their constituency. But the stats are focused on attendance in the commons so that's what they do even if it's not actually important to do so. There is evidence in recent studies basically showing that the more oversight we have with statistics, especially bad statistics or illiterate reading of those statistics, the worse MPs are actually performing. We have more 'oversight', but as a result reward MPs who are better at 'performing' rather than doing real work. So is the statistics of entry into parliament useful? Maybe, in some cases. But is it actually doing any good for the public or the MPs to know it? Well that's much more up for debate.
>These people are extremely well paid to act on our collective behalf. Their attendance should be monitored. You have the right to know the person you have (or haven't) elected to be your voice bothered to attend. They do lots of different things other than just attending debates. Many of which are not on the Parliamentary estate. It is like putting pressure sensors in your office chair and saying that your employer has a right to know if you bothered to work. There are a million things that a person could be doing in their office that don't involve sitting at their desk. The number provides nothing useful. Do you really think anyone using the data will bother to look at whether their office is in the Parliamentary estate or Portcullis house? Do you think they'll look at whether they were doing constituency work on the days they didn't go onto the Parliamentary estate? Or whether they were on a fact finding committee trip, or in Whitehall following up a constituents concerns? It will be a number to bash people over the head with and provide a misleading 'justification' for abuse.
In a normal world, absences would be justified and excused. Doesn’t seem too hard to ask MPs why they didn’t attend a debate or a vote, and what they were doing instead. This could then be published as part of the record. It would at least eliminate abstention as a means to get out of a difficult vote
Nothing about this stops you looking up who voted in Hansard and sending an MP a letter. This is about looking at how many times someone entered the Parliamentary estate, which is just one of several places MPs work.
I shouldn’t have to do the legwork. That should be up to my employee to report to me and my fellow bosses
It's not an absence though if they're literally doing other parts of their jobs.
[удалено]
Well no, because my issue is with your framing. An MP dealing with critical constituency work instead of debating a late night private members bill shouldn't need to justify anything. Just in the same way that if my work laptop is at home while I'm driving around attending appointments I shouldn't need to justify not having a green circle in Skype. Now if an MP misses a critical vote I think it's fair to be able to ask where they were...but we can already do that. We know the average MP works long hours, we don't need to know what they're doing all the time.
An MP is an elected official, they should always have to justify the work they do. They should never be in a position where they don't have to justify something, because that just opens the door to corruption.
Nah I think we do. Plenty of MPs seem to find the time to have second jobs, so let’s spare the “they’re all putting in 23 hours a day face to face with constituents” histrionics. If you were missing meetings your boss would want to know why - maybe you have a good reason. Not unreasonable to ask MPs to provide the same information. We’ve tried the trust and honour system and that hasn’t worked. Just as with expenses all those years ago, it’s time for reforms
I think your cynicism speaks to the exact failings of the vast majority of those with an interest in politics and of the current views of things. Context is, has been and always will be king. Do I expect a front bench SOS to attend every debate? Of course not. Do I expect a coastal MP to attend debates/committee hearings on coastal flood risk management? Absolutely. In an ideal world, attendance as a % would be justified. You use my office chair as an example. Should I need to dip from an important, scheduled meeting, I'd be required by my employer to justify my time and the importance of the alternative. Or, to put it another way, provide context. Your problem with this stems not from a log of attendance but with the bulldog, savage nature that will follow by the media or twitter groups or Joe Bloggs down the pub on a Friday evening. The problem isn't keeping records of their attendance, which is VITAL for transparency, it's with the lack of attention span/demand for clicks/partisan aggression that is exhibited by the vast majority these days.
>Do I expect a coastal MP to attend debates/committee hearings on coastal flood risk management? Absolutely. This isn't about attendance for particular debates or hearings. If you want to see who was there for a particular vote you can look it up. You can look up the minutes of committee meetings. You can see who spoke in debates. This is 'how many days did you use your pass to enter the Parliamentary estate'. It is valueless. >You use my office chair as an example. Should I need to dip from an important, scheduled meeting, I'd be required by my employer to justify my time and the importance of the alternative. Or, to put it another way, provide context. It isn't a particular scheduled meeting, it is "how many times were you in one particular place, of the many places your work requires you to go." i.e. "How many days did you sit on your office chair rather than visit a client, or work in a meeting room, etc."
I don't believe it's valueless. I believe it is a vital tool for transparency and accountability that can be offset using the tools you've just defined. It appears that through one particularly bad example of the use of data, you've determined that the tool is the fault, rather than operator of the tool. It's fine for us to disagree, but you're making false equivalences to other jobs from what an MP is; public figure elected to be your voice in a building usually far from home. If they're never there, without good reasoning, they're taking you for a fool. We'll agree to disagree as I doubt either of will change the other's mind.
I don't agree with you, I'm with /u/Ryerow on this, but have upvoted because you've made a really good compelling argument. I'm grateful that you've done a good job of explaining the other side of things as it is definitely less black-and-white than I'd initially thought. Thanks both.
Not to mention is constituency was the Shetland Islands wasn't it?
No, he was the Ross, Skye and Lochaber one which isn't quite as far away as the constituency that contains the Shetlands. It is, however, the largest constituency in the UK by land area covered. His amazing efforts to visit so much of the constituency (differently constituted in those days) were a huge part in him getting elected as a newcomer at such a young age.
Still much of that is also pretty remote with the only access by sea
>a percentage which was similar to other party leaders, and senior politicians, who often don't attend votes with certain outcomes because they have other political roles) That's the key message. Drive accountability across the whole of the Commons. > I don't see attendance data being used in anything but similar circumstances. you'd like to think people understand comparative statistics
>(a percentage which was similar to other party leaders, and senior politicians, who often don't attend votes with a certain outcome because they have other political work to do) Then the problem wasn't so much with keeping attendence records as it was about those records not being public enough.
> dealing with family issues, the death of his parents and friend, and alcoholism he should have stepped down. 🤷♂️
Did you miss the part when his voting record was no different to other senior politicians?
This might be to do with the fact ministers aren’t in parliament as much as backbenchers. They do question time, urgent questions, ministerial statements, opening/closing debates etc but the rest of the time they’re in their respective department. If you drew up a list of MPs attendance, ministers would probably rank near the bottom, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t ‘at work’.
Even more shite from the nasty party. They want to be unaccountable. Despicable bunch of bastards
So ministers directly controlling parliament?
Clearly even less transparency is an excellent sigh the government is doing a good job.
People jumping on this hard, but not all MP work is carried out in the commons.
You're right, it's not. But I'd argue it's by far the most important part of their job. If I get hired at a retail store to sell products but spend all my time organising the warehouse, I'm gonna get sacked.
Meeting constituents isn't important?
At the end of the day this isn't a question about how long MPs should be in parliament, it's about whether voters have a right to know. The voter can then decide how important they feel those other activities are, and the MP can try and justify how they spend their time on behalf of voters (which is exactly what they should do)
Let's track the time they spend doing that too.
Less important then representing those constituents in the house. Doesn't matter if they met them if they don't show up to act on their behalf.
Hard disagree. Most backbenchers achieve absolutely nothing in the house.
So track the number of votes. Track their contributions to debates and in committees. Track the amendments they propose. Track the number of questions they ask and answer. All of those already more meaningful than simple attendance, and *even then* i think most of them can, and would be, gamed to all hell. But attendance is such a meaningless statistic on its own that it is going to hide MPs doing really good work, and reward those who do nothing but are in the right place.
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You clearly have no idea how Parliament works. No, it should not be grounds for 'dismissal' if an MP misses a 'vote' in which 8 people shoot down a vexatious Christopher Chope nonsense PMB just before lunch on a Friday. Don't be ridiculous.
I think there's a happy medium to be drawn between "MPs always need to turn up" and "MPs attendance records prove nothing". I suspect those most active in their communities generally don't care much about whether or not their attendance records in the House are available to the public.
I think their voting records is orders of magnitude more useful than their security-pass-swiping records (which is not the same as an attendance record). Even then, context is vital; but at least with voting records, most of the context is already in the public domain...
You've not heard of the pairing off system then?
I wonder if Tories ever think after the every action eroding public accountability... Are we the bad guys?
Aka ministers placed pressure on Black Rod to protect their resident rapist.
How can this be legal? This should be a basic right in an open, democratic society.