The Constituency Work of Scottish and Welsh MPs: Adjusting to Devolution

Abstract

Historically, British MPs had established high levels of commitment to constituency work. The introduction of devolution in Scotland and Wales posed new challenges locally from AMs and MSPs. The article shows that the volume of constituency work for MPs in Scotland and Wales has declined, but this has not been as sharp as may have been expected. Co-operation and competition between members over constituency work is strongly, though not exclusively, related to partisan relationships. In particular, MPs in Scotland are much more inclined than those in Wales to forward enquiries relating to devolved matters to members of the relevant devolved institution. Evidence supports findings that constituency work is driven in part by electoral incentives—but this does not tell the whole story. Institutional and cultural factors are also important, as are individual members' preferences and styles. Scottish and Welsh MPs are sanguine about their experience, although it has diminished enthusiasm, such as it was, for introducing an MMP electoral system at Westminster.

Keywords:

• Parliament
• representation
• multi-level democracy
• constituency service
• mixed member systems

Notes

¹The 1992 British Candidate Study found that MPs spent 14.6 hours on average on constituency casework, compared to 7.9 hours on floor debates, 6.1 hours on parliamentary committee work, 2.6 hours on backbench party committees and 5.7 hours on informal meetings with other MPs (Norris and Lovenduski, 1995). Our research, as described below, found very similar results.

²Searing (1994). This may have, in part, demonstrated a party effect, as Labour has been better represented in Scotland than in England since the 1950s, and Labour members had a higher propensity to constituency work. However, no similar effect was seen in Wales, where the over-representation of Labour has tended to be even more stark. As discussed below, our surveys supported Searing's finding.

³For example, the parties now encourage the use of ‘street surgeries’, where MPs (or their staff) leaflet a small area and advertise that they will be available locally to hear grievances at a fixed time.

⁴Immediately after the 1999 elections there were seven constituencies in Wales and five in Scotland where the two members were drawn from different parties. After the 2003 elections there were four and ten, respectively.

⁵The research was funded by projects under the Leverhulme ‘Nations and Regions’ programme and the ESRC ‘Devolution and Constitutional Change’ programme. For results on MSPs and AMs, see Bradbury and Mitchell (2007). Response rates to the MP surveys were as follows: 2000 Scotland 23.6%, Wales 32.5%; 2002 Scotland 40.3%, Wales 52.5%; 2004 Scotland 40.3%, Wales 40.0%.

⁶In total, 36 interviews were held with Scottish MPs and 28 with Welsh MPs.

⁷In 2004, for example, Liberal Democrat members representing English seats spent an average of 19.1 hours per week, whilst Labour members spent 15.8 hours and Conservative members spent 13.3 hours. Potential reasons for these differences include different party cultures and the different types of seat which the parties tend to represent—with Labour, for example, more likely to represent inner city and more deprived areas.

⁸Despite earlier findings that female MPs spent more time than male MPs on local work, we have not controlled for gender as this appeared to make little difference to our results.

⁹Although the number of Liberal Democrat MPs is very small, it is worth noting that analysis of their responses shows a similar pattern. In the 2004 survey Liberal Democrats from English constituencies spent on average 19.1 hours per week on constituency casework, whilst those representing Welsh constituencies spent 16.0 hours and those from Scottish constituencies spent 13.2 hours. This was based on 100% and 60% response rates respectively in Wales and Scotland, and suggests a real difference in levels of activity.

¹⁰Another source of casework is the ‘advice surgeries’, which most MPs hold on a regular basis, and where constituents can raise problems with them personally. Members were asked about the number of surgeries they held, but this proved to be too crude a measure to be of use. There was no discernable drop in the number of surgeries held by Scottish or Welsh MPs over time, but this alone does not reveal, for example, whether the number of citizens attending to seek help has fallen. In fact, the number of surgeries held by Scottish Labour MPs was consistently slightly higher than the number held by English (or Welsh) MPs, which is probably a product of the larger geographical area covered by many Scottish constituencies, requiring MPs to hold surgeries in various different locations throughout the month.

¹¹Note that the mean for Scotland in 2002 is greatly skewed by two outliers—one member claiming to receive 750 communications per week and another claiming to receive 900. Only four out of 23 respondents claimed to receive over 200 communications.

¹²Figures from the Scottish Social Attitudes survey and Welsh Life and Times Survey, cited in Independent Commission on Proportional Representation (2004).

¹³Note that some MPs write to devolved ministers but copy their letter to the other local member. This means that one should not expect figures relating to rates of passing on letters to AMs/MSPs to be the exact inverse of those relating to rates of taking up matters with devolved ministers.

¹⁴‘Marginal’ seats are defined as those where the MP gained a vote share less than 10% above that of the second placed candidate.

¹⁵In Scotland a small sign of co-operation is shown in Table 8, and other members reported that there was ‘some’ co-operation over matters such as attendance at local community meetings and dealings with local interest groups. However, there was no cross-party co-operation at all in Wales, where both relevant members responded ‘not at all’ to all questions.

¹⁶It might be anticipated that members facing constituency AMs or MSPs from opposing parties would be tempted to forward correspondence on devolved matters to a list member from their own party, where one existed. However, this seems to be unusual. In 2004, one of the two Scottish members in this position related that they ‘rarely’ passed correspondence to a list member from their party and the other who responded never did so. In Wales the results were identical. Similarly, two of the three Scottish MPs with list MSPs from the same party said they did not co-operate ‘at all’ with these members in terms of sharing staff or conducting joint surgeries.

¹⁷The measure in the 2006 Government of Wales Act to ban dual candidacy for constituency and list seats in Wales may ease these kinds of tensions between list and constituency members of the Welsh Assembly. However (as well as not applying to Scotland), this may actually worsen relationships between list members and MPs, if it encourages these members to stand for Westminster instead.

¹⁸For example, in the debate on the various composition options in 2003, Scottish MP George Foulkes argued that “List MSPs … cherry-pick the high-profile issues; they challenge the position of constituency MSPs, and indeed MPs, and build up a profile and a platform to stand against constituency MSPs in their constituencies. Elected members of the upper House … would do the same” (HC Deb, 21 January 2003, col. 213). The expectation was that if elections to the upper house were to be introduced these would be based on proportional regional lists, similar to the additional member lists in Scotland and Wales. Such views may have proved influential when the House of Commons narrowly rejected an 80% elected second chamber in February 2003.