Mark Stuart: MPs should keep out of constituencies and return to real role in Westminster

Call me old-fashioned, but I look back nostalgically to a time when our distinguished Members of Parliament used to spend very little time in their constituencies. During his spell as a Coalition Liberal, Winston Churchill represented Dundee, which he rarely visited, so much so that the voters of that fair city eventually booted him out in 1922.

Churchill simply wouldn't get away with that sort of behaviour today. Modern MPs devote over half their time to their constituency work. In doing so, they are reflecting the desires of the voters.

In opinion surveys, electors don't particularly care whether their MP is black, white, male or female. Instead, what they want above all else is a local person (ideally born locally or possessing strong family links) who will reflect their concerns in Parliament.

As a result, our MPs have put the needs of their constituents above those of their traditional scrutiny role at Westminster. But is this a healthy development as the coalition advances controversial plans to cut the number of MPs by 50 at the next election?

I suspect that the great Tory historian, Edmund Burke, would be turning in his grave if he knew that MPs had largely abandoned their role as representatives of the people, sent to Westminster to exercise their independent judgement. Instead, the modern Member of Parliament acts more as a delegate, pandering to every whim and desire of their electors.

New Labour was responsible for enhancing the constituency role still further by allowing MPs extra time off from their Westminster duties. The Blair Government even organised a rota so that Labour Members representing marginal seats could take it in turns to campaign in their constituency in the run-up to the 2001 election. Blair also created a whole week in February for MPs to undertake constituency work, which continues to this day.

The number of Friday sittings – traditionally a day when MPs would debate Private Members' Bills – was drastically cut. Now, even on the occasions when the House does sit on a Friday, the Chamber is virtually empty.

In 2006, MPs were given a 10,000 Communication Allowance. The money was supposed to be used for providing information to constituents, but in reality it merely increased the mountain of propaganda that voters received in the post. Meanwhile, a whole industry grew up around the MP in the form of extra staff, whose job it was to process all this extra correspondence. Thankfully, the scandal over MPs' expenses witnessed an end to this largesse.

One group inside New Labour was distinctly unhappy with these developments: the whips. After all, their job was to encourage MPs to attend regularly and to vote loyally for their Government's policies at Westminster. By sending out the wrong signal that an MP's parliamentary duties didn't matter as much as their constituency role, Labour eventually paid the penalty in terms of low attendance levels, especially in select committees, towards the end of their time in -office. We now have a situation where constituency business takes precedence over scrutiny of legislation in the House of Commons. The job of going over our laws line-by-line has been sub-contracted by default to the House of Lords. Meanwhile, MPs use the majority of their Parliamentary questions to raise matters relating to their constituency, primarily so that they can gain favourable publicity back home.

And yet no-one seems to be prepared to challenge the worth of all this constituency-related activity. The majority of an individual MP's caseload concerns matters that could be done equally well (or better) either by the local council or by a local ombudsman. In that sense, MPs have become overpaid social workers.

The solution appears to lie in cutting the number of MPs, something being carried out by the coalition. The awkwardly-titled Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill – currently going through the House of Lords – has two simple aims: introducing a referendum on the alternative vote and cutting the number of MPs from 650 to 600. But what most people don't realise is that the coalition Government has no intention of cutting the number of Ministers in proportion to the reduction in the number of MPs. What that means is that there will be even fewer ordinary MPs, not part of the Government payroll, who are prepared to hold ministers to account.

I'm on record as being no great fan of Haltemprice and Howden MP, David Davis. As he discovered in 2005, he didn't quite have the skills set required for a modern Tory leader. But as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, 1997-2001, and then as a staunch defender of civil liberties (even resigning his seat in 2008 to make his point), he strikes me as a model Parliamentarian.

What we need to learn from the likes of Davis is that if we lose our dwindling band of devoted Parliamentarians, then there will be no watchful eyes left in the House of Commons to prevent the Government from sneaking through bad laws unhindered. It's time our MPs returned to Westminster and stayed there.

Mark Stuart is a political historian and analyst from York who has written the biographies of Douglas Hurd and John Smith.