I TABLED an Early Day Motion (EDM) the day before yesterday, the first time I’ve done so for a long time.
They’re interesting things, EDMs. Most, if not all, MPs receive countless requests from constituents every week requesting that they sign this or that EDM. Only back bench MPs can sign. This is more than a convention; if you’re a whip or a minister you’re actually prevented from having your name against a motion. When I was appointed as a minister in September 2006, I received a letter from the Table Office in the House of Commons informing me that my name had consequently been removed from every EDM I had previously been supporting.
Many back benchers, however, refuse to sign EDMs at all. Depending on your perspective, this allows them to have an “equal opportunities” policy towards all their constituents; alternatively it could be seen as a policy that disappoints every constituent who wants to see his or her MP support a particular cause. Parliamentary Private Secretaries (PPSs), although technically (unpaid) members of the government, sometimes sign EDMs, though can’t sign those that criticise the government or which call for a change in policy.
But what do they actually achieve? Very little, if you want to take the cynical approach. They’re almost never debated (not while I’ve been an MP, anyway). However they can serve as a useful temperature gauge of MPs’ views in certain policy areas; ministers sit up and take note when any motion starts to gain the support of more than 100 or so MPs.
And they’re one of the few mechanisms that the public have for having a say, albeit indirectly. There are certainly more than a few EDMs which I probably wouldn’t have signed had constituents not drawn them to my attention.
But their importance shouldn’t be overstated, and constituents shouldn’t be too disappointed if their MP informs them he or she can’t support a particular EDM.
In the run-up to war in Iraq, the comedian Mark Steel tried to suggest that Tony Blair had, in the 1980s, ignored the plight of the Iraqi Kurds who were massacred by Saddam using chemical weapons. He drew this conclusion because Tony had not signed a particular EDM on the subject at the time. A ludicrous conclusion, which could only have been reached if one assumes that every MP sits down every day and goes meticulously through the published list of EDMs and signs every single one with which they agree.
Perhaps there are some MPs who do this, but very few. Most of us will sign EDMs where we’ve been asked to by constituents (provided we actually agree with them) and those motions in which we have a particular interest. But it would be nonsense to claim that the absence of a Member’s signature from an EDM will, on every occasion, suggest opposition.
You can see a list of the EDMs I’m currently supporting by clicking here.
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Thursday 12 February 2009 at 1:34 pm
and constituents shouldn’t be too disappointed if their MP informs them he or she can’t support a particular EDM.
Not every MP is so helpful as to actually answer the question Tom, so i’m pleased to hear that you care more about the views of your constituents than most. We need more MP’s like you!
My only experience with an EDM, prior to which I didn’t even know what they were, was when I saw a forum post on it. If I remember correctly, there was a guy who was fighting to have contact with his children or something along those lines, and he was seeking to highlight the fact that as it stood, he had no presumption of having contact with his children. The onus was entirelly on him to demonstrate that he should have contact, not on others to show that he shouldn’t.
As such, he was seeking to highlight EDM 128 (2005), and was enouraging people to contact their MP’s to sign it.
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=28316&SESSION=875
Pretty much everyone who posted in the thread agreed, and as the thread developed people were posting the responses that they received from their MP’s. Most received short e-mails thanking them for highlighting the EDM, and that they would be only too keen to sign it, some received letters of the same. The best response came from none other than John Redwood, who e-mailed the constituent with a substantive response thanking him for the e-mail, agreeing to sign it, and then explaining why he thought it was important to change the law! My estimation of him increased at that point.
I contacted my own Labour MP (who was a backbencher at the time), asking him if he would sign it, and received nothing for several weeks. Then when I did, I recieved a generic response where someone had written in my surname at the top of the letter, with the letter saying something along the lines of, “I have now received a response from the government that I have enclosed with this letter”. The response from the government basically said the government did not support the EDM.
What a brilliant, helpful response eh? A perfect example of “doing it wrong” if ever i’ve seen one.
Thursday 12 February 2009 at 1:56 pm
Most of them are a waste of time (and tax-payers money). Sometimes a lobbying organisation gets an MP to put one down and then spend the next year persuading their members to contact their MP and get him/her to sign it. Some of them are truly pointless, like that one that congratulated Leona Lewis on winning X-Factor or mourning the death of Chalky the dog. Very few of them have any effect whatsoever (the Post Office Card Account one and the Climate Change Bill one are two that spring to mind in recent years). It’d be better to scrap the lot.
Thursday 12 February 2009 at 7:34 pm
Did you ever have the chance to check out the EDM I mentioned in a post a while back about the way parliament publishes bills? http://www.theyworkforyou.com/freeourbills/
Thursday 12 February 2009 at 7:34 pm
Apologies, the actual EDM is here: http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=36490
Thursday 12 February 2009 at 7:48 pm
Alasdair – to be honest, I forgot. Sorry. If you let me have the details again I’ll do some digging.
Thursday 12 February 2009 at 9:07 pm
What I wonderful post, Best I think I’ve ever read.
This is what our democracy should be about. We may hate them. they may hate us, we may all hate each other because we are the same and it’s ourselves that we really hate (quantum theory, nor religion).
Convince me that it’s wrong and Tom will buy you a beer. But, tell me of a system which works better and I will listen to you for a while before demanding that Tom buys me a beer.
Thursday 12 February 2009 at 10:43 pm
arly Day Motion 225 MOBILE TELEPHONE NUISANCE 21.11.2006
Russell, Bob (Liberal Democrat)
That this House expresses deep concern over the growing problem of anti-social use of mobile telephones in public places; notes that the introduction of enhanced features such as the playing of music and radio can cause particular annoyance when not used with earphones; acknowledges that mobile phones have transformed communication; but calls on the Government to require mobile phone operators to produce a code of practice setting out a phone etiquette to reduce nuisance and to regulate the use of mobile phones in public places.
________________________________________________________
Vote Tory – Your absolutely hilarious mobile phone ringtones are safe with us.
Saturday 14 February 2009 at 12:04 am
Tom,
you forget to mention that many MPs will propose/sign an EDM at the request of a journalist looking for a peg for a story. they get they story, MP gets coverage.
you did it, i did it, and it still goes on. So let’s not pretend that the EDM conventions are in any way representative of the public’s real concerns……
Saturday 14 February 2009 at 10:26 am
Scotto voce – For the record, I have never been asked by any journalist to sign an EDM and would not sign anything anyway unless I agreed with it.