Guardian: The history of PMQs

The Guardian today features a lengthy and interesting overview of the House of Commons institution known as Prime Minister's Questions—turning only 50 years old this week:

Everyone hates prime minister's question time. At least they often say they do. How much they mean it is another matter. In its current form (more or less) PMQs has now survived 50 years, almost exactly as long as Private Eye, another great national institution routinely accused of not being what it used to be.

Backbench MPs arrive at Westminster determined not to join in the gladiatorial shouting match their constituents say they so dislike. Then they see old hands on the other side cheering their own leader for a good retort and loyalty kicks in. Voters? They deplore schoolboy antics, but complain whenever lapses into sobriety, let alone statesmanship, make PMQs look like an elite fix or, worse, boring.

The media? Its collective lip curls too. But (as with MPs) the 30-minute session at noon on Wednesdays is the one time in the week when watching the Commons chamber on TV monitors from their desks isn't enough. Reporters pile into the press gallery, 24/7 TV analyses the run of play like a Premier League grudge match. Editors wait for a good soundbite to enliven the six o'clock news.

As for the gladiators themselves, without exception they all claim to dislike it too, even Margaret Thatcher, who regularly made mincemeat of opponents across the dispatch box, but not all of them. Jim Callaghan, Labour's hugely experienced prime minister from 1976-1979, usually worsted the rookie opposition leader. But in doing so in more chauvinistic times "Sunny Jim" prompted the commentator Hugo Young – no Thatcher fan – to protest that he was offensively condescending.

Callaghan regarded what was then the twice-weekly session, at 3.15pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as "a complete waste of time". His predecessor, Harold Wilson, once master of the joust, fortified himself in advance with a brandy or two during his later years. Tony Blair, another PMQs champ in his prime, admitted at his final appearance in 2007 that he had always feared the Commons.

"This is still the arena that sets the heart beating a little faster. And, if it is on occasions the place of low skulduggery, it is more often the place for the pursuit of noble causes," Blair told MPs before they rose – Tory MPs included – and clapped him out of the chamber where he had dominated and infuriated for a decade in power.

As for Harold Macmillan, on the dusty pages of old volumes of Hansard his words still convey the unflappable urbanity which was the trademark style of "SuperMac". The shy, earnest young MP of the 1920s had been utterly transformed by private adversity (a fraught marriage), decades of hard work and growing self-confidence. PMQs, he once confided, still made him feel "physically sick". Yet this is what he wrote in his private diary a few weeks after succeeding the hopeless Sir Anthony Eden in the Westminster debacle that followed the collapse of Britain's last imperial venture, the Suez invasion of 1956:

"I didn't worry ... I didn't mind even losing a by-election or bother too much with the outside world, if you can once impress upon the House of Commons that the government is strong and the prime minister is in control ... then gradually it begins to go out into the country as the members go back to their constituencies."

In the age of a televised parliament, where PMQs is a niche market (very popular on the US cable channel CSpan) and TV panels instantly score the leaders' performance, that leisurely transmission mechanism has long gone. But an instant-death X Factor version is still recognisable. PMQs remains a test of character, stamina and grasp of policy, as well as a chance for voters to judge whether the party leaders understand their lives and are real human beings – not geeks or mere technocrats. Gordon Brown's inability to master quick-witted cut and thrust did him harm when he succeeded Blair. His evident scorn for David Cameron was not enough.

A ready wit, not dependent on scripted made-for-TV soundbites, is a bonus, but not compulsory, as Thatcher showed. Michael Foot and William Hague were both very witty opposition leaders. Foot was loved, Hague's brainpower respected by the colleagues. It was not enough. Voters gave them the thumbs-down well before their landslide defeats on polling day in 1983 and 2001.

So the occasion is fraught with ambiguity. Neil Kinnock, who had the unenviable task of facing Thatcher (far more condescending than Callaghan ever was) in her pomp for nine years, told the Guardian this week that, yes, "PMQs is over-rated, but it's permanent and part of the territory. It has to be done. In some ways our parliamentary democracy is more testing than others.''

Even a sceptic like Kinnock acknowledges that it requires "hours and hours of preparation", which means that the prime minister will know more detail about policy across Whitehall than might otherwise be the case. Thatcher, who once scornfully remarked that many of her EU colleagues barely knew where their parliaments were, prided herself in detailed knowledge – "from some local hospital to a great international issue".

"Each department was naturally expected to provide the facts and a possible reply on points that might arise. It was a good test of the alertness and efficiency of the cabinet minister in charge of the department whether information arrived late – or arrived at all; whether it was accurate, wrong, comprehensible or riddled with jargon," she wrote in her memoirs.

Few prime ministers have been as driven or domineering as Thatcher, none since Churchill in his wartime supremacy. Even during a war the pace was more leisurely than the globally wired world of 2011. Before the 1880s MPs asked questions of ministers without prior notice before the start of the daily agenda, with the PM treated no differently from any other minister.

As a gesture to Gladstone (then 72) his questions were placed at the end of the list in 1881 to allow him to arrive late. But that meant they were rarely reached. In 1904 they were answered only when questions – ever more were being asked – reached No 51; after 1940, they were addressed at No 45, a procedure that survived until 1953 when PMQs were restricted to Tuesdays and Thursdays only to assist the ailing Churchill (78). Even then several cabinet ministers were still expected to be around to answer questions every day as they had been 100 years before: old-fashioned accountability, but time-consuming. Nowadays each team does up to an hour once a month.

In the early days, exchanges were more succint. Back on 6 June 1904 the Tory philosopher-PM Arthur Balfour took four questions, mostly about imperial defence (Germany was menacing), but usually replied that it would serve "no public object" if he shared his thoughts; or that it would take a whole speech to reply; or that the war minister had already covered the point.

By June 1948, not much had changed. Then it was the opposition's deputy leader who asked Labour's prime minister, the famously terse Clement Attlee, for a statement on the London dock strike on five successive days – and got one too in brief exchanges over five or six minutes (today such an exchange would last half an hour).

It did not stop Labour's Bessie Braddock accusing Attlee of "complacency" over the strike. Rudeness and rowdiness is nothing new. MPs could be bitchy without the stimulus of TV, which makes for more noise and crafted soundbites but also has an inhibiting effect on more outrageous exhibitionism when MPs remember voters are watching. In 1961 another Labour troublemaker, Desmond Donnelly, rudely asked Macmillan if there had ever been another PM "so gorged on his own words". Yet when Tony Banks likened Hague to a foetus in the TV era most voters were not amused.

Backbenchers with a talent for PMQs are invaluable. Labour's Tam Dalyell's supplementary question once consisted of a devastating single word ("Why?") but the MP also had forensic skills, harrying Thatcher for months over the sinking of the Argentine cruiser Belgrano for months after the 1982 Falklands war. Leftwinger Dennis Skinner's timing for a witty heckle (waiting for a pause before shouting) could be brilliant. When Major first rose to take PMQs, Skinner shouted "Resign" before the new boy could utter a word. After Major later acquired lame-duck status Skinner would mutter: "Quack, quack." In opposition days, ambitious, articulate Tories such as Norman Tebbit and Alan Clark did the same service for Thatcher.

Personal grudges have always given an edge to PMQs. Macmillan despised Labour's then leader, Hugh Gaitskell, as a weak, priggish public school socialist. In return, Gaitskell thought him dishonest. But SuperMac admired Labour's next leader, the wily Harold Wilson, whose later demolition of Sir Alec Douglas-Home (1963-64) at PMQs paved the way for the left's return to power.

For his part, the grudge-minded Ted Heath despised Wilson as devious, just as Foot and Kinnock genuinely disliked Thatcher, who thought neither rival was up to the job. Blair thought the same about the Tory leaders he saw off: Hague, IDS and Michael Howard. Hague's wit and speed disconcerted him at first, but once he got a line on him (Hague had "good jokes, bad policies") Blair reasserted himself until Cameron arrived to tell him: "You were the future once."

By this time, the twice-weekly sessions at 3.15pm – instituted against some resistance in June 1961 and confirmed 50 years ago this week – had given way to Blair's once-weekly 30-minute joust at noon on Wednesdays, imposed without consultation. Alastair Campbell reckoned it saved the boss one-and-a-half days a week of prep. Though Blair denied it, most MPs think it makes a PM less accountable than before.

Kinnock (who found it awkward being aggressive towards an older woman) agrees. He also argues that the old convention that allowed an opposition leader three questions in each session (one to the Lib Dem leader) has wrongly morphed into six on Wednesdays, which is often too many. In the 60s opposition leaders often intervened only once – and late – in PMQs.

The fact is that like many things in Britain's fluid constitutional system, PMQs constantly adapts to new realities. Global affairs usually intrude less, social security and constituency worries feature more. So does Europe. Thatcher's cabinet feuds became a staple of PMQs and helped bring her down. So did Major's and the Blair-Brown feud. TV raises the stakes for both sides.

Similar fissures, magnified by rolling news in ways that would have baffled or alarmed Attlee or Balfour, may yet wreak havoc on the coalition. Cameron's critics have already noticed that beneath that urbane exterior (surely modelled on the Etonian Macmillan's style) there lurks a bullying tendency to resort to cheap shots ("Calm down, dear") when the going gets tough.

If voters come to see PMQs as a reprise of Flashman of the Bullingdon Club he may pay the familiar price of misjudging a loved-and-loathed national institution on which everyone has an opinion.

Time to salute the post-2010 election Parliament (?)

Mark D'Arcy, Parliamentary correspondent for BBC News, writes today that—in his opinion—we're now seeing "a stronger Parliament" as we enter the second summer recess for the present House:

The dust is settling, the parliamentarians are gone and the workmen have moved in to begin Westminster's usual summer programme of renovation and repair work.

Like the Forth Bridge, the Palace of Westminster, with its cast iron Victorian roofs, its Neolithic heating systems and endless need for maintenance and repair will be crawling with builders and craftsmen rather than politicians - the institution it houses, though, is in unexpectedly good order.

The horrible, doom-laden slog to the last election is a receding memory; the new MPs elected in 2010 (and the considerable number of new peers appointed since then) sit in a more open, more independent and powerful parliament than has been seen for decades.

The House of Commons has won some limited power to set its own agenda and has used it to some effect.

The select committees are more powerful and independent-minded than ever before. And the willingness of MPs and Peers to defy their whips is clearly high - rebellion in this Parliament is already routine; the Tory right, the Lib Dem left, Blairite diehards, eurosceptics, europhiles, libertarians, animal-lovers, NHS reform-sceptics and ultras, all have at least flexed their muscles.

After just one year, new MPs from the 2010 intake - a third of the total, remember - are more likely to have defied their party line than those of the 1997 intake were after four years in the Commons. In short, the Commons in particular, and Parliament in general, is a healthier institution, rather closer to what the public expects of their lawmakers.

Observers offer varying opinions of the performance of the Home Affairs and Culture committees in grilling those enmeshed in the hacking scandal, but the simple fact that the mighty Murdochs were forced to appear before MPs has reminded parliament of its own latent power.

And the trouble with treating select committee hearings as drama rather than inquisition is that reviewers look for "gotcha" moments and the visible collapse of witnesses, when the real importance may lie in the micro-details of answers given. Remember, these inquiries are not over.

More generally, the select committees have amassed more power and respect in the year or so since they resumed operations after the election.

The Treasury Committee has acquired a vet over the hiring and firing of the head of the Office for Budget Responsibility, the watchdog tasked with validating the Chancellor's economic projections and the Public Administration Committee persuaded a nominee to head the UK Statistics Authority to withdraw, with its chair, Bernard Jenkin remarking pointedly that "there was a perception it was the regulated choosing the regulator".

This kind of thing is clearly going to happen more frequently. As is searing criticism of Government policy in committee reports - take a look at the output of the Public Accounts Committee or of the Defence Committee. Look at the role played by the Health Committee with the Health and Social Care Bill, or the critique of Big Society localism offered by the Communities Committee.

In the Chamber, term ended with the Prime Minister facing a long and gruelling interrogation over the hacking scandal - one which he survived pretty well, but which none the less signalled that it is still essential for senior ministers (and the Leader of the Opposition) to convince in the Chamber.

More generally, a combination of the new Backbench Business Committee facilitating debates on subjects MPs want to talk about, and the Speaker allowing many more urgent questions - and, memorably, the emergency debate on phone hacking - have created a much more vibrant Commons.

To be sure MPs are still members of political parties and mostly vote according to the party line. But there is far more sign of individual judgement being exercised along the way and the Government has to take account of that in advance.

On the other side of the building, the Lords is a pretty vibrant place, too. Peers have already fought one massive, if ultimately, fairly fruitless, battle over the Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Act.

They can be expected to take to the trenches again over elected police commissioners, over the Government's proposed health and welfare reforms and over the future of their own chamber. You may be in favour of these measures, or against them, but they are all big important subjects and deserve robust debate and scrutiny; and they're going to get them.

Mostly missing from the scene is the expenses issue which so dominated the last parliament. MPs now groan about IPSA, and press for it to exercise a lighter touch. But it will be pretty hard for any future freeloaders to help themselves to the kind of extraordinary perks enjoyed by earlier generations.

So I'm afraid, as I head off for my holidays, I'm going to indulge in a little optimism. A stronger Parliament is doing a better job. And that is a good thing for the country. Blogging will resume when Parliament resumes - and barring an emergency recall, that will be on 5 September.

BBC News: New MPs 'struggle' with long hours and workload

BBC News reports on survey findings into the lives of recently-elected MPs:

New MPs are finding the combination of long hours and a heavy workload a struggle, and worry the job is harming their family lives, research suggests.

A survey by the Hansard Society of the 227 MPs elected for the first time in 2010 suggest the new intake are working an average of 69 hours a week. One said the demands of Westminster and constituency work had a "devastating" impact on their private life.

MPs' hours were changed in 2005 because they were not "family friendly". The chamber decided to start its proceedings earlier on some days amid complaints that long hours and post-midnight finishes were putting off many people from becoming MPs. But the man who oversees the parliamentary expenses system has said the Commons schedule - which includes 2.30pm-10.00pm sessions on Monday and Tuesday - remains "idiosyncratic" and moving to more regular working hours could save money.

Last year saw an above-average number of newcomers to the Commons after a swathe of former MPs were either forced to stand down, following revelations about their expenses, or chose to retire.

Political research body the Hansard Society canvassed all the new MPs - about a quarter of whom responded - about their experiences during their first year in Parliament. It found that the "vast number" believed the job - which requires MPs to divide their time between Parliament and their constituency - was having a "detrimental" effect on their private lives.

While most MPs had expected to work a 60-hour week, on average they were doing nine hours more. The respondents said they spent more time on constituency casework than any other matter and that they passed 63% of their time in Westminster compared to 37% in their consituency.

The new MPs also expressed dissatisfaction with how the new expenses system was working - with 79% saying they were not happy with how the independent watchdog Ipsa was performing. MPs have complained the new system is too "costly and bureaucratic" and last month voted for it to be reviewed - although Ipsa has said the principles of independent oversight and greater transparency cannot be changed.

The Hansard Society, which conducted similar research after the 2005 general election, said it was too early to say whether these concerns would make any MPs reconsider their future in Parliament and their political ambitions. But Matt Korris, who compiled the report, said it provided an insight into the challenges faced by MPs.

"We need effective MPs in order for Parliament and our system of representative democracy to function successfully," he said. "These findings underscore the need for a review of the role of MPs, not just to build an improved political system, but for the very well-being of MPs themselves."

The report also suggests that more than half of the new MPs took a pay cut when they entered Parliament. MPs earn a salary of £65,738 and voted to forgo a 1% pay rise this year.

Worrying news in regard to the effectiveness of Parliament overall.

Mumsnet: MPs lament long hours in Commons

The Observer this morning reports the findings of a recent poll run by Mumsnet, the influential UK internet website / pressure grouping... (reproduced below):

Nearly one in three MPs say they have considered quitting because of the pressure on their families caused by long working hours. Politicians complain that late-night votes and the strain of splitting their lives between constituencies and London places them under strain.

Despite efforts in recent years to reform House of Commons practices, a survey by the website Mumsnet shows nearly two thirds of MPs believe their jobs have had a negative impact on their family lives. More than 90% of the 101 MPs surveyed said that parliament was not family friendly – a figure indicating that steps such as the opening of a creche for the children of MPs and staff have not succeeded in rectifying the Commons work/life balance.

MPs regularly have to stay for late night sittings that go beyond 10pm. And last year a Cardiff Liberal Democrat MP complained it was "crazy" that she had to leave her baby with colleagues during votes in the House of Commons. Jenny Willott said she handed her 18-week-old son Toby "to the nearest MP" to comply with rules that allows only MPs into the division lobbies where votes are cast. The complaints are not new. A number of former MPs have cited the lack of time they are allowed to spend with their loved ones as a reason for their eventual abandonment of a life in parliamentary politics.One veteran MP said: "I never saw my children grow up and I'll regret that for the rest of my life." Another MP added: "I am newly elected and cannot see how I can keep this up for the next four years without damaging my family relationships."

Almost half of those MPs asked said they wanted to end late night voting. John Woodcock, the Labour MP for Barrow and Furness, said he had never considered giving up parliament but had grown concerned since being elected in May about the effect of the working practices at the Commons into MPs' lives at home. Woodcock, Labour's transport spokesman, who has a two-year-old daughter, Maisie, said: "It is a huge privilege to do the job and I'm working flat out at it. But it inevitably puts a strain on the family to live in two places through the week, spending half the week in the constituency and half the week in London."Speaking to colleagues, on top of that, the hours of the House of Commons for many people are not geared up to ease family existence for those who have their family in London during the week. Late night votes and meetings leaves them tired at the weekend and that has an effect on life at home."

Harriet Harman, deputy leader of the Labour party, said she had long-contended that reforms were urgently necessary to make parliament more effective. "It is important that we allow MPs family lives because so much policy is centred around family," she said.

"I have for a long time said that MPs should be able to travel back from their constituencies on a Monday and start work earlier on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so they can finish earlier on those days. I think that would make parliament a more family friendly and actually a more effective place."

Despite the concerns, 85% MPs have roundly rejected the idea of parliamentarians having job shares, an idea proposed by the newly elected Green MP Caroline Lucas.

Commenting on the survey findings, CEO and co-founder of Mumsnet, Justine Roberts, said: "Making a country or workplace family friendly relies on all of us helping to change the culture around us. If politicians want the country to be more family friendly they need to lead by example, and at the moment parliament falls far short of this. If we want legislation that reflects the needs of families, it seems fair we allow MPs to live as families.The country could waste a lot of talent if we give in to the viewpoint that parliament is no place for a parent with young kids."

Clearly, these findings are highly interesting when it comes to assessing the overall effectiviness of the representation function within the Commons (a common examination focus!) A significant number of potential family-oriented candidates—certainly many women in particular—must be put off running for election by these problems....

New Statesman: A way to make MPs work for voters and not party

Zac Goldsmith, Conservative MP for Richmond, makes the case for recalling MPs (as well as several other suggestions for a more smoothly-functioning Commons) in today's New Statesman:

.... if we want to counter the inability (or unwillingness) of parliament to scrutinise the executive, we need something bolder. A very significant start would be for the coalition partners to honour a pre-election promise made by all of the then party leaders. Following the expenses scandal, each of the leaders made a promise to allow constituents to "recall" their representative between elections. That pledge has, in effect, been scrapped.

True recall, indeed true democracy, allows people to remove their representative if most constituents have lost confidence in him or her, for whatever reason. It is a right that should exist for voters at every level, from councillor to MP. This is not a new idea. There have been failed recall attempts in California, including one against Ronald Reagan in 1968. However, in 2003, voters successfully recalled the sitting governor, Gray Davis, and replaced him at a new election with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

That couldn't be further from where we are today in Britain. Under the current rules, a new MP could theoretically move to another country for five years and leave constituency work to a caseworker. Local voters would be lumbered with a useless representative until the next general election.
Most MPs occupy "safe" seats and are hard, if not impossible, to shift. The pressure they feel is from their party, not from the voters. Recall would keep even these MPs on their toes, because a member of one party could be replaced by another from the same party.

The coalition insists that it will still introduce a version of recall, but the small print makes it worse than useless. Instead of handing the decision to the voters, the government will pass it up to MPs on a parliamentary committee. Its members alone will decide if a member has behaved badly enough to be "recalled".

As the Localism Bill enters the report stage, I will team up with like-minded MPs to table an amendment to hold the coalition to its original promise. It can succeed, but only with pressure from voters around the country. ...

BBC: MPs agree pay freeze to block 1% pay rise next year

MPs have agreed to freeze their £65,738 salaries after being asked to do so by the government. They backed a call to scrap a planned a 1% pay rise.

The Leader of the House Sir George Young were said MPs should either be in step with the country, or insulate themselves and risk public anger.

The decision angered some backbenchers, with some believing they are underpaid and others who do not agree they should have to vote on their own salary. Many have also expressed dismay at curbs placed on their expenses in the wake of the scandal over abuses.

The move will bring MPs into line with the majority of public sector workers, who have had their pay frozen for the next two years. The pay freeze came about because of the government's desire to scrap the 1% award made by the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB).

More on this story here.

Telegraph: Interactive History of the House of Commons

The Telegraph has an interesting new feature amongst its web pages—an interactive History of the House of Commons.... A sliding scale at bottom and directional arrows allow users to click through the various leadership and governmental changes that have taken place in the Commons from 1885 through to the present day:

Definitely worth a look!

BBC: Cut in ministers urged to 'strengthen Parliament'

It will be interesting to see what the Coalition Government does with this proposal, reported today in BBC News Online:

MPs are calling for a reduction in the number of ministers after the next election, to "strengthen the independence" of Parliament.

The cross-party Public Administration Select Committee said the size of government should fall in line with the cut in MP numbers planned after 2015. Tory MP Bernard Jenkin, the committee's chairman, said many ministers were not "using their time effectively".

The Commons rejected the idea of a ministerial cut in a recent vote.

The size of the Commons will fall by 50 to 600 MPs after the next election, due in 2015, under government plans to reduce the cost of politics. But the committee is worried that the influence of the so-called "payroll vote" - the number of ministers and parliamentary aides required to support the government in Commons votes - will rise if there is not a commensurate fall in the number of ministers.

The cross-party committee says there should be eight fewer ministers after the next election and is urging a reduction from 46 to 26 in the number of parliamentary private secretaries (PPSs) - ministerial aides who represent the lowest rung of government.

Mr Jenkin said the proposal - which would limit PPS numbers to one per government department - was "very modest and easily achievable".

Read the rest. Interesting for us vis à vis the relative strength between Parliament and the Executive, the structure of the Executive branch of government and the role of MPs within Parliament.

Lord Elystan-Morgan criticises bill to reduce MPs

BBC News Online brings us news of a Welsh cross-bench peer's objections to legislative plans to reduce the overall number of MPs from 650 currently to 600:

The former Cardigan MP, Labour minister and judge described the idea as "utterly superficial".... The peer says "ancient communities hammered out on the anvil of the centuries" would be lost.

The bill, which also includes the trigger for a referendum on changing the voting system, was raised last year but has now moved to the Lords.

Lord Elystan-Morgan said "arithmetical consistency" was different from "equality", explaining that two constituencies weren't the same just because they had the same number of constituents.

He said one could be a city constituency which could be cycled across in 15 minutes whereas the other could be a huge rural community such as Brecon and Radnorshire taking "hours and hours" by public transport.

"There is no equality," he told BBC Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement. "People have a cultural identity, there is a historical consistency, there are ancient boundaries that have been respected for centuries and yet all of this, in regards to at least two thirds of them, will be brought to an end.

"And that link between a member of parliament and his constituents will be broken," he said.

The proposals were announced by the UK government, shortly after the general election, saying they would bring fairness and "reduce the cost of politics".

Last July, Wales Office Minister David Jones told the Welsh Grand Committee that it was "worrying" that a vote in parts of Wales was worth, in some cases, double that of a vote in the south of England.

"That needs to be addressed," he said, adding that it was "wrong in principle" that votes should carry different weight.

"It is also a matter of concern that the Welsh vote has not been looked at again at a time when we have the National Assembly, and Wales has representation in another legislature," he added.