Early-day Motions

Debate between Andrew Bingham and Lord Evans of Rainow

Monday 6th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Graham Evans]

Other mechanisms can be used to pay respects in the House. For example, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition pay their respects at the beginning of every Prime Minister’s questions.

The reputation of the House is damaged even further by the mountains of early-day motions that are drafted by lobby firms who use them as little more than a tool to justify their services to naive clients. Plenty of willing Members are more than happy to oblige and table such motions on behalf of lobbyists. All hon. Members know that to be true, because we get bombarded by the same pro forma requests from lobbyists to table this or that early-day motion.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

We are besieged by e-mails from our constituents asking us to sign early-day motions that we know are of little consequence because of the volume of them. We have to send a letter disappointing our constituents because they are led to believe that early-day motions will change the world, whereas we know that they will not.

[Graham Evans]

My hon. Friend raises another good point: the sheer volume of early-day motions means that many constituents do not get the outcomes they seek.

We need to be totally frank about this. We have lobbyists trying to convince their clients that they are being very influential and making progress on their issue by getting an early-day motion tabled with lots of signatures. We have Members who want to convince constituents that they really care about a particular issue and have even taken the important-sounding step of tabling or signing an early-day motion. And we have local journalists who, desperate for copy, use the press release from the Member bragging about how they are backing an early-day motion. The cycle repeats, but nothing actually gets achieved.