Mr Straw’s Motions
Don’t you just love parliamentary language? He passed every one.
For the more prosaic, we were actually voting on whether Parliament should sit in September; whether MPs should have a £10,000 communication budget; and whether notice of amendments to Bills should be extended from two days to three.
I voted against every motion. September sittings is particularly contentious, as people feel MPs only work when Parliament is sitting. This is simply not true. These days, MPs work all year round, and September is a very valuable month when you can spend time in the constituency. Of course, I can get to my constituency from London very easily. BUt for MPs in the north, the month is very valuable, giving them an extended period for constituency work. Of course, the newspapers won’t agree.
UK Daily Pundit said on November 2nd, 2006 at 1:38 pm:
It’s not looking good from this side of the barricades Ed - an extra £10,000 per MP for a ‘communications allowance’, an extra £168 million to pay for MPs pension arrangements. You’ll be asking us for the shirts off our backs next. Is it any wonder that MPs are despised? Sooner or later those of you who feel it’s all gone a bit too far are going to have to stand up and be counted. David Laws and Norman Baker can’t do it all on their own.