Simon Burns

Conservative Party | Chelmsford West

Westminster View: Reducing the number of MPs

4 June 2009

The last few weeks have been dominated by one news story: the House of Commons expenses scandal, which has so eroded trust and confidence in our political system. Politicians of all Parties have been deeply damaged and the public have every right to be angry about this issue. Voters must have confidence in those they elect to represent them. Sadly, this trust has all but disappeared.

We now have an urgent responsibility to restore the trust of the public, which has been badly undermined. I do hope that, in the long term, some good can come from the past weeks and a new far more robust system put in place to ensure that unacceptable and extravagant claims are not made again.

But a new system alone will not fix our broken politics. What this crisis has shown is that there is a much deeper problem in our political system, which has been growing for many years. We need to make huge changes, shifting power away from the state and back to citizens. That is why I wholeheartedly support David Cameron’s plans for a radical redistribution of power back to the people.

Among the plans is a pledge to reduce the number of MPs we have. Today, we’ve got far too many MPs in Westminster. More people sit in the House of Commons than in any other comparable elected chamber in the world. And at a time when families and businesses are being forced to cut back, politicians should be asking how they can help bring down the cost of politics across the board – it is taxpayers’ money after all. I do not believe it is either cost effective or politically effective to have so many elected Members. It is just more people finding more interfering ways to spend more of your money.

I think we can do a better job with fewer MPs. And I hope we would be able to deliver more for less. So at the next General Election we will include proposals in our manifesto to ask the Boundary Commission to reduce the House of Commons, initially by ten per cent. We will also get rid of the unfair distortions in the system today, so that every constituency is the same size in each of the nations of the UK.

Other reforms are also necessary. For example, House of Commons Select Committees are incredibly important committees which have the opportunity to question Ministers, senior civil servants and outside experts on a wide variety of topics. Unlike the House of Commons chamber, which has to adhere to strict rules about the number of questions and supplementary questions that can be asked, Select Committees can really cross-examine their witnesses and probe away to find crucial information and evidence. They then write detailed reports with often sensible recommendations which can be adopted by the Government. The problem is that in too many cases the powerful Chairmen of these Committees have become Government stooges. This can end up thwarting the selection of topics the Committee chooses to investigate, and the overall power and influence of the Committee on holding the Government to account. I believe Select Committee Chairmen and members should be elected by Backbench MPs, not appointed by Party Whips. That way, these important Committees can regain their independence and Parliament and our democracy would be deeply strengthened.

Given the last few appalling weeks for our politics, I think these changes can’t come quickly enough.