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Beorn
04-13-2009, 12:09 AM
Do we really need 646 Members of Parliament?

The status and reputation of MPs have never been lower. The public have seen them treat the House of Commons as a huge piggy bank to fund porn, second homes and otherwise unemployable relatives. The most sickening aspect of all these fiddles is their bleats: "I have done nothing wrong – it's the system that's at fault." Oh no, it is their moral judgment that is at fault.
This has directed attention from another glaring fault in our parliamentary system, and that is: what do MPs actually do for their money? The parliamentary week now consists of arriving on Monday and leaving on Wednesday evening. On Thursdays and Fridays the House is a desert – MPs are back in their first or second homes or on some organised visit to Honolulu. The question must be asked: do we need 646 MPs to bear this demanding workload? The answer must be "No".

Compared to other countries, the UK is massively over-represented. We, with a population of 60 million people, have
646 MPs; Germany, with a population of
82 million, has 600; Japan, with a population of 127 million – twice the size of ours – has only 470; Russia, with
144 million, has 450; and America, with 293 million, has 430 Congressmen.
Up to 1707 we had 513 MPs, but the Act of Union added 45 MPs from Scotland, which was an over-representation. In 1800, when William Pitt abolished the Irish Parliament in Dublin and created the Union of Britain with Ireland, 100 Irish MPs were added – a gross over-representation. In 1912, when Ireland was partitioned, the number of MPs from Eire dropped and Northern Ireland was given 12 MPs. The numbers have since grown steadily.

Two years ago I took through the House of Lords a Bill to cut the size of the House of Commons by 10 per cent. (Several of my colleagues asked, why only 10 per cent?) It is now official Conservative policy. I hope that David Cameron's first Bill, when he becomes prime minister, will be to reduce the House of Commons from 646 to 581.
My Bill also equalised the size of the electorate for constituencies throughout the United Kingdom, which is only fair, but it makes a significant change. The current average electorate size of a constituency is 68,736, but there is a great variation between the different parts of the UK. The English average is 70,231; Scotland is next at 65,444; Northern Ireland's average is 64,078; and in Wales it is 55,920. Wales, therefore, is significantly over-represented in the House of Commons – there are 14,300 more electors in an English seat than in a Welsh seat.

The average size of an electorate for all of the United Kingdom should be 76,000 electors for each constituency. Voters would be worth the same wherever they lived. By reducing the number of MPs by 10 per cent and increasing constituencies to 76,000, England would have 486 MPs, losing 43; Wales would have 29, losing 11; Scotland would have 51, less by eight; and Northern Ireland would have 15, less by three. It has always been said that we should overcompensate for Wales and Scotland to allow for very large rural constituencies. But by international standards our constituencies are small: one MP in Western Australia has a constituency which is the size of the whole of Western Europe.

The average cost of a Member of Parliament has been estimated at £500,000, which covers virtually everything. Cutting the Commons by 65 MPs would ostensibly save £32 million, but some of the fixed overhead costs could not be reduced so the savings would be closer to £20 million. This is a saving worth having, and would not diminish democratic accountability. The cost of democracy in Britain, which includes the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and all the business of elections, has doubled in the lifetime of this Government. It amounts to £1.3 billion, a huge sum of money. It is a good price to pay for democracy, but we must make quite sure we get good value for it.

The reduction of MPs and the standardisation of the electoral quota for each constituency would remove the inbuilt favourable bias to Labour in our electoral system. At the moment there is not a level playing field. In the elections of 1997 and 2001, Labour had a lead of nine and 11 per cent in the respective share of votes cast, but this led to a 32 and 38 per cent advantage in the number of seats. In the election of 2005, this Labour bias increased: for 36 per cent of the votes cast it got 56 per cent of the seats.

Because of its concentration in small city seats and its over-representation in Wales, Labour will start the election next year well ahead of the Conservatives: David Cameron will need a lead of somewhere between six and nine per cent to have an overall majority. This cannot be justified. The election of 2014-15 should be the first when all the parties begin at the same starting line. A pledge to bring in this Bill immediately after the next election would be not only right, but very popular.

Lord Baker held several Cabinet posts from 1985-1992, including Home Secretary and Education SecretarySource (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/5140846/Do-we-really-need-646-Members-of-Parliament.html)

Maelstrom
04-13-2009, 01:36 AM
Advocates of democracy tend to criticise the number of MPs on one hand, yet at the same time whinge about the injustices of not having a diverse range of representation.

:rolleyes:

More opinions and theoretically better representation?

Or less opinions to save money?

Skandi
04-13-2009, 01:51 AM
I think that the evening out of constituency size is important, it should not be possible to hold power while having the minority of votes

Sigurd
04-13-2009, 07:15 AM
I think that the evening out of constituency size is important, it should not be possible to hold power while having the minority of votes

That would never be remedied on constituency size alone. This instead is one of the features of the First Past The Post system.

Assume there are only two parties standing, and there are no invalid votes. Assume for ease, a common constituency size of 75,000. This this assumes an electorate of 48,450,000.

In 324 constituencies, Party A takes 37,501 votes, whilst Party B takes 37,499 votes.

In the other 322 constituencies, Party A takes 0 votes, whilst Party B takes all 75,000 votes.

Party A receives 324 seats based upon 12,150,124 votes. This is 25.08% of the public vote.
Party B receives 322 seats based upon 36,299, 876 votes. This is 74.92% of the public vote.

Party A has an overall majority over all other parties standing of 2 MPs, despite polling as little as one-third of the other party.

Despite the numerous merits of the FPTP system, proportional representation is not one of them, regardless of what the size of the constituency is. :wink

Fortis in Arduis
04-13-2009, 10:53 AM
We need firstly proportional representation and then direct democracy.

SwordoftheVistula
04-13-2009, 05:18 PM
I think they should keep it the way it is. The smaller the constituency is, the more responsive the representative will be to an individual voter.

If they want to save money, then cut the benefits each MP receives, or better yet just eliminate the House of Lords.



America, with 293 million, has 430 Congressmen.

We have 435! Do these people even check their facts or just make up something that 'sounds about right'?



That would never be remedied on constituency size alone. This instead is one of the features of the First Past The Post system.

Assume there are only two parties standing, and there are no invalid votes. Assume for ease, a common constituency size of 75,000. This this assumes an electorate of 48,450,000.

In 324 constituencies, Party A takes 37,501 votes, whilst Party B takes 37,499 votes.

In the other 322 constituencies, Party A takes 0 votes, whilst Party B takes all 75,000 votes.

Party A receives 324 seats based upon 12,150,124 votes. This is 25.08% of the public vote.
Party B receives 322 seats based upon 36,299, 876 votes. This is 74.92% of the public vote.

Party A has an overall majority over all other parties standing of 2 MPs, despite polling as little as one-third of the other party.

Despite the numerous merits of the FPTP system, proportional representation is not one of them, regardless of what the size of the constituency is. :wink

It wouldn't be as bad though, if they evened out the constituency sizes. Even in the US where the state legislatures openly and purposely try to achieve that effect when drawing the constituency boundaries, usually the party which gets more votes than the other gains more seats.

In general, FPTP is a mixed bag for nationalist parties. On the one hand, it makes it extremely difficult to get off the ground: the BNP holds no seats in Parliament, and no other Anglo country has anything remotely resembling a serious nationalist party. On the other hand, if they ever do get rolling, they won't face the same problem as in Belgium for example where the nationalist party consistently wins 1/4 to 1/3 of the vote and yet has no power because none of the other parties will form a coalition with them.

Sigurd
04-16-2009, 08:27 AM
We need firstly proportional representation and then direct democracy.

The two directly contradict each other. Direct representative democracy, i.e. where you directly vote for your candidate is impossible under strict proportional representation.

Actually, the problem is not the FPTP system. In fact, its idea is ancient and goes directly back to the idea that an MP should represent his constituents directly. He is elected for a specific constituency - and expected to propose motions of importance to his constituents at the next highest level.

The problem is thus Party Politics and the Whip System, which ensures that back-benchers stick to party line. This is what has killed the fairness of the FPTP: That people are no longer directly represented by their local MP.

In a system where parties exist, perhaps instead a system like the one used for the Scottish parliament would be useful: In Scotland, you have 129 seats. 73 of which are chosen FPTP on constituency level. Then the other 56 are realigned on a regional level to all parties to make the overall representation proportional ... thus you could have a bit of both worlds under that system. Were I a fan of party politics, then I'd be a great proponent of such a "mixed system". :wink