I blog at the “Mark Reckons” political blog and was interested when I saw Tory Radio’s Jonathan Sheppard recently calling for Early Day Motions to be scrapped and also when he set up this campaigning website.
Inspired by this, I did a post myself on the subject which was more asking the question whether they should be scrapped rather than stating any firm position. Although being a bit of a political geek, I had only heard about EDMs on occasion and I must confess to not being fully aware of how or why they are used.
However since then I have done some reading around the issue and I have come to the conclusion that they do have an important part to play in our political system. They are a useful mechanism for MPs to raise issues they think are important and can then be used to gauge how much interest there is amongst other MPs.
A recent example of an extremely successful EDM is this one calling for the Gurkhas to be allowed residential rights that ultimately led to a change in government policy. The fact that so many MPs were behind it had a huge effect, possibly more than the Joanna Lumley campaign. At the very least it created the political environment for Ms Lumley’s campaign to flourish.
Another example would be this one laid down by Vince Cable about the injustice of the situation that Equitable Life’s customers have been left in. Vitally important issue which was shown to have huge support in the House.
Students of history may also be interested to know that the censure motion which led to the ejection of the James Callaghan Labour government had its origins in an Early Day Motion (no. 351 of 1978–79), put down on March 22, 1979, by Margaret Thatcher.
So they can have an important effect.
I was also very taken with some of the arguments advanced by James Graham in his Quaequam Blog post on this subject. He argues that EDMs are currently one of the few ways in which backbench MPs can raise issues in Parliament – which means they are one of the few ways in which their constituents can raise issues in Parliament. Another important question James raises is to ask who would benefit from scrapping them. I must admit I had not thought about this but he thinks that the primary beneficiaries would be the Party whips whose job would suddenly become much easier and multi-client lobbying companies, who would be able to assert a greater monopoly on who has access to Parliament in his view. I think he is right here and that doesn’t sound good for democracy to me
Should they be scrapped? I do not think so. They clearly serve a purpose and have done so for many years. The main arguments against them seem to be that they are a waste of money and that there are plenty of other ways for MPs to get their voices heard (local and national media etc.).
The figures I have seen are a cost of about £350 per EDM and that about £500,000 is spent on them in total annually. It does seem quite steep and in these straitened times I can understand the need to save money so I would be happy to see the process improved. They are currently paper based but perhaps they could be put online on some sort of intranet (perhaps parliament already has something that could be adapted for this purpose) and then MPs could submit their EDMs and sign them electronically. After initial setup costs the ongoing cost of administering this could be minimal with it largely being automated. I was encouraged to hear Jonathan mention something like this as a potential way forward during his appearance on Radio 4’s World at One today.
As for the other argument about there being other ways for MPs to have their voices heard, yes of course there are but this is a tried and tested sure-fire way for MPs to register their views on issues. Would it really be better to rely on MPs to use their media contacts more heavily to do this? Wouldn’t this make the best connected MPs the ones who got their views over the most? That doesn’t sound particularly democratic to me.
I think also that there are perhaps one or two other things that could be done to prevent EDMs from being a vanity exercise for MPs trying to curry favour with local interests by e.g. praising a local football team or by creating silly or frivolous ones. Perhaps EDMs would need to pass a certain threshold of number of MPs before they were officially published and within a certain time. That would put paid to some, perhaps much of the misuse of them.
In conclusion, I think that scrapping them is an extreme and unwarranted step and that there should be reform of the Early Day Motion system. I would be happy to support a campaign for that.
I wonder if www.reformedms.com is available…
Mark Thompson is a Liberal Democrat blogger who blogs at http://markreckons.blogspot.com/. He is not the Director General of the BBC.
If they cost approx £350, surely the best way to reduce frivolous EDMs would be to charge MPs £350 per EDM they wished to put down – a group of 7 MPs could easily defray this cost amongst themselves, for instance – but make sure signing EDMs remains free.
Comment by sanbikinoraion — July 10, 2009 @ 11:44 am |
Obviously they will never go down the route of charging for EDMs. The point I tried to make (probably badly) was that many MPs believe they are great for getting publicity. My point was that if they had to pay from them out of their office budget I suspect they would find a cheaper bet way to get that publicity.
Comment by editor — July 10, 2009 @ 11:51 am |