Active discussions

Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Politics
Original poster

Why are there so many MP's

27 replies

Dolly80 · 15/01/2016 07:27

In light of public sector cuts, junior doctors strikes etc can anyone shed some light for me on why we have so many MP's in the UK?

I understand the American political system is different but they have 535 people in the House of Representatives and Senate, which is 115 less than the number of MP's we have in the Houses of Parliament, of whom there are currently 650.

I'm genuinely interested in why we have so many, given our population size. Could this be reduced? Do we actually need so many? Who decides to reform if that's the case? (I'm assuming the government would have to do this but isn't it unlikely they would ever vote in favour of cutting their own/their colleagues jobs).

With the money that needs to be saved in many sectors of society it feels somewhat unfair that our political leaders are immune from job cuts/workplace reform.

OP posts:
RancidOldHag · 15/01/2016 07:46

There have been proposals to make constituency size more equal for some time.

But it was resisted by the party which benefited from the current anomalies. Though I think it is going to be unstoppable.

I suppose the number required depends on how many constituents can reasonably be represented by one person.

tribpot · 15/01/2016 07:41

You might be interested in some of the campaigns of the Electoral Reform Society. The huge disparity in the size of constituencies (which could be resolved by merging some of the smaller ones) and the first past the post system means some parties have disproportionately more MPs than others - some info here.

It's a very interesting area, and surely crazy that the House of Commons doesn't even have room for all MPs at the same time. Now, there are also problems with the Palace of Westminster (like the fact it's falling down) which might mean the solution is to build a bigger debating chamber, rather than reduce the number of MPs but I think it does bear looking at.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

Join Mumsnet Log In

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.