Patricia Hewitt also doubts their effectiveness:-
Many thanks for your email. As you may have noticed, I make it a rule not to sign EDM’s. I am dubious about their effectiveness, and prefer to contact Ministers directly on important issues.
I do know, however, that many MPs value EDM’s and believe they do have a real impact. But I’ll certainly discuss your proposal with colleagues here.
Less than three weeks into the campaign, and Labour MP Tom Levitt MP has tabled this motion. Now if this was a normal EDM internal mail (hard copy would be going round MPs offices urging signatures) I hope that this could be done by email. Much cheaper and quicker.
Tom I support your call. I hope this campaign has helped raised the issue. I am not sure an EDM will influence change (perhaps that will prove my point as to how they aren’t effective) and think that perhaps this website which actually just doesn’t list names of MPs – but publishes why or why not they support scrapping or reforming EDM’s may have a bigger impact.:-
EDM 1898 PUBLICATION OF EARLY DAY MOTIONS 15.07.2009
Levitt, Tom
That this House believes that the routine publication of Early Day Motions by the House should henceforward be in electronic form only.
My former opponent in Bassetlaw tabled this EDM. Now doesn’t do too badly at getting local publicity, so I know he didn’t need this EDM for that. And if he wanted to thank the Serjeant at Arms, wouldn’t a nice letter do just fine, instead of a motion and the cost of it incurred?
PILOT SATURDAY OPENING OF HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT FOR CONSTITUENTS 14.07.2009
Mann, John
That this House congratulates the Serjeant at Arms and her staff, including the high quality tour guides, for the outstanding success of the pilot Saturday visitor opening for local constituents held on 11 July 2009; and is pleased to note the unanimously positive feedback from 600 participating residents from the Bassetlaw Parliamentary constituency.
The interesting Quaequam Blog has written an interesting piece in support of EDMs which you can read here. I thought I would quote what they have had to say and then put the counter arguments in red. They make some very good points, although do tend to play the man rather than the ball a little too much for my liking.
A new pernicious and – surprise, surprise – anonymous campaign blog in support of scrapping early day motions has been established. Up until now, calls to scrap this system has been restricted to (usually Tory) MPs. Why an ordinary member of the public would want them scrapped is another matter.
The reason I personally want them scrapped is that they cost alot of money to print and their effectiveness is questionable. There are cheaper more effective ways to achieve publicity. And if the objective is to be influential, then frankly an EDM that is influential is the exception to the rule, which is why more and more MPs refuse to sign them.
If you go and have a peek at the EDM database, you could be forgiven for thinking there isn’t much to defend. But you would be wrong. 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.
As a campaign tool, for both parliamentarians and pressure groups, they are invaluable. On an almost monthly basis you read news reports assessing the likelihood of a backbench rebellion succeeding or failing as a result of how many members have signed the accompanying EDM. They are a key tool for backbenchers to arm themselves against the whips, a way of forming strength in numbers. In order to get private members bill legislation through parliament they are absolutely crucial. The Sustainable Communities Act* would never have become law if 338 MPs – a clear majority – had not signed the accompanying EDM.
If MPs want to form strength in number around a certain campaign, set up a website and publicly back the campaign associated with the website. It’s much cheaper. EDMs may have been needed before the internet, but why should the taxpayer pay for all these motions to be published day after day. Do it online. “A campaign tool for pressure groups?” – Sorry but why should the taxpayer be funding a tool to help any campaign group? This website has gauged the opinion of MPs. It has publicly listed the support for the campaign. It has cost £8.99 for a domain, slightly cheaper than an EDM.
Could the system be improved? Of course. For one thing, the current paper-based system is a total waste of money.
Completely agree – so first reform would be to stop printing these things.
Parliament could – and should – move towards an electronic system. There is also merit in considering some kind of guillotine rule for EDMs which fail to get enough signatories within a week (for example). The biggest abusers of EDMs are MPs themselves who just can’t resist tabling EDMs about their local football or rugby teams, etc. Yet I have never seen a critic of the system call for it to be reformed, merely scrapped.
Think about this. If you go into a negotiation and you want 100 of something you may start out asking for 150 so that the compromise is 100. I would be more than happy for reform. I think it easier to scrap them and start again with something much better suited to the modern world. For example – why call them Early Day Motions. The term is meaningless to most people. Yes I think if EDMs are to be reformed as opposed to a new system you should have a threshold before you could table one. Say 50 supporters. Other reforms could be that you can only be the primary sponsor of a certain amount of EDMs a session – so they are valueed more. When I spoke to the good people at Radio Four I pointed out that it’s not for me to come up with reforms – MPs need to do that.
Who would benefit from scrapping the system? Party whips whose job would suddenly become much easier. MPs more generally – particularly those dinosaurs who have been taken to task over the past couple of months – whose views would be less open to public scrutiny. Multi-client lobbying companies, who would be able to assert a greater monopoly on who has access to Parliament (currently, voluntary sector organisation facing up against a lobbying firm can at least rely on the public record as a way of monitoring progress of their campaigns and ensuring MPs’ opinions’ can’t waver; without EDMs, the lobbying companies would be the only ones with the resources to monitor this).
Sorry – but how many times do MPs support an EDM and then vote another way. MPs opinions change when it comes to voting – which shows how powerless EDMs are. The number of MPs who sign EDMs calling to save a certain post office, yet those same MPs voted for the Urban Reinvention package of measures that led to post office closures.
Getting rid of EDMs would help multi client lobbyists? Not sure about that one. The current system doesn’t deter multi client lobbyists using the system to their advantage. Then of course you can flick through the list of EDMs and see hundreds tabled on behalf of campaign groups. Fine.. but what have they achieved by getting an EDM tabled? They can tell their boss who doesn’t understand how it is meaningless that 7 MPs have signed up to a motion, haven’t we done a great job!
You want to publicly log an MPs view. Again – here is a website on one campaign that does that and does it at a much lower cost.
So we should be wary of this peevish campaign and question why they are hiding behind the veil of anonymity. Come out come out, wherever you are!
Once again, on the record. If you havent heard the piece on radio four, or looked at the about section. My background for what it is worth is that I run the Tory Radio website in my spare time. I have worked as an in-house lobbyists in both the public and private sector, but I really believe in Parliament, and think there are a few reforms that could be introduced to make it better. That is an APOLITICAL argument.
Ann wrote a thoughtful response to the Scrap EDMs campaign email:-
“Thank you very much for your email of 1 July. You are certainly preaching to the converted abut the uselessness of most EDMs. Most people outside Parliament do not realise that thousands appear on the Order Paper and that by and large they serve very little purpose. I am continually complaining about the time and effort involved in investigating each and every EDM when requested to sign it.
However I think one needs to retain some mechanism whereby Members of Parliament have an opportunity to gather a large number of Parliamentary names in support of an expression of a particular opinion. I have thought in the past that maybe there should be some threshold of signatures before an EDM could be tabled but that would not remove the nuisance of hundreds of requests pouring in to sign them.
I think that there is a really strong case for reforming the EDM system and I have to say I would feel no very great loss if EDMs were abolished altogether, with the caveat entered above that there has to be some mechanism for testing opinion.”
“Iwant to keep EDMs as a way of MPs raising public concerns that are accessible on the website and easily understood. To do otherwise would, I believe, be tantamount to yet another attack on democratic openness and accountability.”
All round good guy, and uber blogger Dizzy Thinks has given his two -penneth on the EDM debate that I seem to have started. For those not in the know, Dizzy has made a name for himself, for, amongst other things foresnsically going through Hansard and pulling out interesting snippets that newspapers no longer write about due to not covering parliamentary matters as much as they used to.
I’ve taken the opportunity to paste his post in full below:
Supporting ex-servicemen is a fickle business
As I posted earlier on this week, there is a campaign to scrap, or at least reform, Early Day Motions because they waste massive amounts of public money and rarely produce anything meaningful, and sometimes talk about things no one really cares about.
The BBC World at One picked up on this which can be listened to here, where Jon Shepard spoke about the campaign. One of the interesting things in the piece is that quite a few MPs that signed the 10p tax rate EDM attacking the Government actually voted the other way on the issue in Parliament. Who’d have thought they’d be so fickle huh?
Whilst we’re on the subject of fickleness by MPs about the causes they choose support through the Early Day Motion system there is a very good example on the issue of pensions to ex-servicemen and women. Over the past three years, the Labour MP Colin Challen has tabled the following motion in each session,
That this House believes that all ex-servicemen and women should be treated equally in the payment of pensions, regardless of when they served in Her Majesty’s armed forces.
When he tabled it in the 2006/07 session it received large support with 217 signatures. When it got tabled in the 2007/08 session it only managed 189 signatures, many new but lots of others deserted the cause.
Now, in the 2008/09 session the support for the motion has fallen dramatically down to just 96 signatures. Makes you wonder what they really think about the issue doesn’t it? What’s more it highlights the sheer impotence of EDMs.
For three sessions this EDM has been tabled, and each year the issue doesn’t get addressed, and each year the support for it falls by the wayside. If ever there was a good example and reason for change then this is surely it.
Radio Four picked up on my EDM campaign ans did a piece on this yesterday. I have uploaded the extract which you can listen by clicking this link. I think the comments of the school students are interesting – as they are the only people who aren’t actually well versed in the pro’s and con’s of the current system. What do you think of the piece?
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.
There is the possibility I will be on The World at One tomorrow to talk about the Scrap EDMs campaign.
I’m a nobody, yet I can try judge the mood of MPs, and also generate a bit of publicity without a Parliamentary Motion. If I can do it all for the cost of a domain name, couldn’t our MPs?
